Ken Browne | Sociology for AS and A2 AQA

Student Resources - Glossary

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W

Words highlighted within entries refer to terms found elsewhere in the glossary.

A

Absolute Poverty: Poverty defined as lacking the minimum requirements necessary to maintain human health. See also relative poverty.
Achieved Status: Status which is achieved through an individual’s own efforts. See also ascribed status.
Ageism: Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against individuals or groups on the grounds of their age.
Ageing Population: A population in which the average age is getting higher, with a greater proportion of the population over retirement age, and a smaller proportion of young people.
Agenda-setting: The media’s influence over the issues that people think about because the agenda, or list of subjects, for public discussion is laid down by the mass media.
Age-set: Groups of people of a similar age, who have shared status and roles. The transition from one age status to the next is often accompanied by a rite of passage.
Aid Economic: military, technical and financial assistance given (or loaned) to developing countries.
Alienation: A lack of power, control, fulfilment and satisfaction experienced by workers in a capitalist society where the means of producing goods are privately owned and controlled.
Anomie: A sense of normlessness, confusion and uncertainty over social norms, often found in periods of rapid social change and other disruptions of the routines and traditions of everyday social life.
Anti-capitalist Movement: A collectivity of a wide range of groups, united in their stand against the social inequality and exploitation fostered by capitalism.
Anti-globalization movement: A loose network of groups and organizations globally opposing neo-liberal economic globalization (but using globalized communications).
Anti-school Subculture: A set of values, attitudes and behaviour in opposition to the main aims of a school.
Apartheid: A system whereby society is divided on the basis of ethnic grouping, more especially, skin colour. Found in South Africa until the mid-1990s.
Arranged Marriage: A marriage which is arranged by the parents of the marriage partners, with a view to compatibility of background and status. More a union between two families than two people, and romantic love between the marriage partners is not necessarily present.
Ascribed Status: Status which is given to an individual at birth and usually can’t be changed. See also achieved status.
Authoritarian: A system of rule which emphasizes the authority of a particular person, leading party or the state in general over the people.

B

Banding: A system of grouping students in schools according to their ability.
‘Beanpole’ Family: A multi-generation extended family, in a pattern which is long and thin, with few aunts and uncles, reflecting fewer children being born in each generation, but people living longer.
Beliefs: Ideas about things we hold to be true.
Bias: A subject presented in a one-sided way, favouring one point of view over others, or ignoring, distorting or misrepresenting issues.
Bilateral Aid: Aid involving only the donor and recipient, usually government to government.
Biodiversity: The number and variety of species in ecosystems that are threatened by human activity.
Bio-piracy: The appropriation, generally by means of patents, of legal rights over indigenous knowledge – particularly indigenous biomedical knowledge – without compensation to the indigenous groups who originally developed such knowledge.
Birth Rate: The number of live births per 1,000 of the population per year.
Bisexuality: A sexual orientation or sexual attraction towards people of both sexes.
Bottom Billion: Collier’s term for the poorest billion of the world’s population; also known as ‘Africa plus’
Bourgeoisie: In Marxist theory (see Marxism), the class of owners of the means of production.
Bretton Woods: The place where an agreement in 1944 set up the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and what became the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Bureaucracy: A term derived from the works of Weber. A system of organization in which there is a hierarchy of officials, each with a different level of authority. All officials must stick to the rules, and detailed records are kept of every action.

C

Capitalists: The social class of owners of the means of production in industrial societies, whose primary purpose is to make profits.
Capitalists: The class of owners of the means of production in industrial societies whose primary purpose is to make profits.
Cash Crops: Crops that are grown for sale in the market, and especially for export; colonialism imposed cash crop cultivation as the main form of agriculture in many colonies.
Circulation of Elites: This describes how social change may occur where there is a single unitary elite holding power, suggesting that the only possibility for change is the replacement of one elite for another. Also, a circulation of elites may be a gradual process whereby younger members gradually replace older members within the existing elite.
Class Conflict: The conflict that arises between different social classes. It is generally used to describe the conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat in Marxist views of society (see Marxism).
Class Consciousness: An awareness in members of a social class of their real interests. See also false consciousness.
Classic Extended Family: A family where several related nuclear families or family members live in the same house, street or area. It may be horizontally extended, where it contains aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., or vertically extended, where it contains more than two generations. See also modified extended family.
Cleavages: Groups in society that are distinguishable from each other by their different patterns of consumption.
Closed System/Society: A society in which there is very little social mobility. Usually members of this society are likely to spend their whole lives in the class/group into which they were born. Status is therefore ascribed rather than achieved.
Collective Conscience: The shared beliefs and values which form moral ties binding communities together, and regulate individual behaviour.
Colonialism: A system in which European powers had direct political control over most of today’s developing countries.
Communes: Self-contained and self-supporting communities, where all members of the community share property, childcare, household tasks and living accommodation.
Communism: An equal society, without social classes or class conflict, in which the means of production are the common property of all.
Compensatory Education: Extra educational help for those coming from disadvantaged groups to help them overcome the disadvantages they face in the education system and the wider society.
Conditionality: The setting of conditions on aid, so that it will be withheld if those conditions are not met.
Conjugal Roles: The roles played by a male and female partner in marriage or in a cohabiting couple.
Conservative Force: One that maintains, or seeks to restore, traditional beliefs and customs and maintains the status quo (the way things are currently organized in society). This may sometimes involve supporting social change in order to return to traditional values and ways of life which are at risk of disappearing, or have already disappeared.
Constant sum view of power: A situation where some groups benefit to the detriment of others.
Consumption Patterns: Ways in which people spend their money. Some sociologists, such as Giddens, suggest this is as important as class in demonstrating identity.
Consumption Property: Property for use by the owner which doesn’t produce any income, such as owning your own car. See also productive property.
Corporate Crime: Offences committed by large companies, or by individuals on behalf of large companies, which directly profit the company rather than individuals.
Counter-school Subculture: A set of values, attitudes and behaviour in opposition to the main aims of a school.
Covert Role: Where the researcher in a participant observation study keeps her or his identity as a researcher concealed from the group being studied. See also overt role.
Crime: Behaviour which is against the criminal law – law-breaking.
Cultural Capital: The knowledge, language, attitudes and values, and lifestyle which give middle class and upper class students who possess them an inbuilt advantage in a middle-class controlled education system. Associated with the French Marxist Bourdieu (see Marxism). See also habitus.
Cultural Deprivation: The idea that some young people fail in education because of supposed deficiencies in their home and family background, such as inadequate socialization, failings in pre-school learning, inadequate language skills and inappropriate attitudes and values.
Cultural Homogenization: The idea that cultural differences are erased, with world cultures becoming increasingly the same. Often linked to the ideas of globalization and cultural imperialism.
Cultural Imperialism: The imposition of Western, and especially American, cultural values on non-Western cultures, and the undermining of local cultures and cultural independence. Often linked to media imperialism.
Culture: The languages, beliefs, values and norms, customs, roles, knowledge and skills which combine to make up the way of life of any society.
Culture Clash: A difference and conflict between the cultural values of the home and those of educational institutions. See also culture.
Culture Jamming: Subverting the messages transmitted by large corporations about the desirability of their brand.
Culture of Hybridity: A culture that is a ‘mix’ of two or more other cultures, creating a new culture (a ‘hybrid’).
Culture of Poverty: A set of beliefs and values thought to exist among the poor which prevents them escaping from poverty.
Customs: Norms which have existed for a long time.
Cycle of Deprivation: An explanation of how one aspect of poverty, such as poor housing, can lead to further poverty, such as poor health, building up into a cycle which makes it difficult for the poor to escape from poverty.

D

Death Rate: The number of deaths per 1,000 of the population per year.
Debt Boomerang: George’s term to describe the ways in which the debt crisis has negative effects in the developed world.
Debt Crisis: Caused by the inability (and sometimes refusal) of indebted countries to pay interest on loans or to repay the original loan; debt repayments hold back development by diverting money and resources.
Delinquency: Crime committed by those under age 17, though the term ‘delinquency’ is often used to describe any anti-social or deviant activity by young people, even if it isn’t criminal.
Democracy: A system of rule based on the equal treatment of all citizens and offering them all an opportunity to be involved in their own governance.
Demographic Transition: In demography, the change from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates.
Demography: The study of the characteristics of human populations, such as their size and structure and how these change over time.
Deforestation: The fall in the amount of land covered by forest as a result of human activity.
Dependency Culture: A set of values and beliefs, and a way of life, centred on dependence on others. Normally used by New Right writers in the context of those who depend on welfare state benefits.
Dependency Theory: Alternative Marxist-influenced theory to modernization, focused on external factors which impede development, including relationships with developed countries.
Desacrilization: The loss of the capacity to experience a sense of sacredness and mystery in life.
Desertification: The spread of deserts, as land on the edges of deserts loses its vegetation and top soil.
Deskilling: A situation in which the skills and knowledge previously needed to do a job are no longer required. A good example would be in printing photographs which used to need four specialized workers, but can now be done by a computer operated by a relatively unskilled person.
Determinism: The idea that people’s behaviour is moulded by their social surroundings, and that they have little free will, control or choice over how they behave.
Development: The process by which societies change; a controversial term, with different writers having different conceptions of what processes are involved and what the outcome should be.
Development State: A state which sees its main purpose as development and leads the country’s development programme.
Deviance: Rule-breaking behaviour of some kind, which fails to conform to the norms and expectations of a particular society or social group.
Deviancy Amplification: The way the media may actually make worse or create the very deviance they condemn by their exaggerated, sensationalized and distorted reporting of events and their presence at them.
Deviant Career: Where people who have been labelled as deviant find conventional opportunities blocked to them, and so are pushed into committing further deviant acts.
Deviant Voters: Those who would seem to be voting for a political party which does not, on the face of it, seem to best reflect their class interest, such as a working-class Conservative.
Diaspora: The dispersal of an ethnic population from its original homeland, and its spreading out across the world, while retaining cultural and emotional ties to its area or nation of origin.
Digital Divide: The gap between those people with effective access to the digital and information technology making up the new media and those who lack such access.
Disability: A physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
Discourses: Frameworks for thinking, bodies of ideas, which exist at particular times and in particular places. Discourses can be used as mechanisms for exerting power over people; they are often backed up by institutions.
Disease: A biological or mental condition, which usually involves medically diagnosed symptoms.
Disenchantment: The process whereby the magical and mystical elements of life are eroded, as understandings of the world based on religion, faith, intuition, tradition, magic and superstition are displaced by rational argument, science and scientific explanation.
Division of Labour: The division of work or occupations into a large number of specialized tasks, each of which is carried out by one worker or group of workers.
Divorce Rate: The number of divorces per 1,000 married people per year.
Domestic Labour: Unpaid housework, including cooking, cleaning, child-care and looking after the sick and elderly.
Dominant Culture: The main culture in a society, which is shared, or at least accepted without opposition, by the majority of people.
Dominant Ideology: A set of ideas which justifies the social advantages of wealthy, powerful and influential groups in society, and justifies the disadvantages of those who lack wealth, power and influence.
Dysfunction: A part of the social structure which does not contribute to the maintenance and well-being of society, but creates tensions and other problems.

E

Ecofeminism: Feminist theory based on the idea that women’s relationship with nature and the environment is different from that of men.
Economic Growth: The growth of national income, usually measured by Gross National Product.
Education Action Zones: Areas which face a range of social problems, such as poverty and unemployment, in which schools are given extra money and teachers to help children overcome difficulties at school arising from their home backgrounds. In 2005, they became Excellence in Cities Action Zones (EiCAZs).
Elaborated Code: A form of language use involving careful explanation and detail. The language used by strangers and individuals in some formal context, like a job interview, writing a business letter, or a school lesson or textbook. Associated with the work of Bernstein. See also restricted code.
Elite: A small group holding great power and privilege in society.
Embourgeoisement: The notion that working-class manual workers were adopting more middle-class norms and values.
Empirical Evidence: Observable evidence collected in the physical or social world.
Epidemiologic Transition: In health, the change from the main problem in a society being infectious diseases to it being degenerative ‘diseases of affluence’ such as cancer and heart disease.
Equality of Educational Opportunity: The principle that every child, regardless of her or his social class background, ability to pay school fees, ethnic background (see ethnicity), gender or disability, should have an equal chance of doing as well in education as her or his ability will allow.
Ethics: This involves the morality and standards of behaviour when carrying out research. These include the informed consent of those being studied, avoiding physical, social and mental harm to those helping with research, respecting confidentiality, and giving accurate and honest reports of findings.
Ethnic Identity: One where individuals assert their identity primarily in terms of the ethnic group and culture to which they belong.
Ethnicity: The shared culture of a social group which gives its members a common identity in some ways different from other social groups.
Ethnocentrism: A view of the world in which other cultures are seen through the eyes of one’s own culture with a devaluing of the others.
Exhaustible Resources: Those resources that can be renewed, but can also be exhausted and destroyed if overused, for example, fish stocks and forests.
Export-oriented Industrialization: An industrialization strategy based on production for export.
Export Processing Zones: Areas in developing countries where the normal workplace regulations are relaxed to encourage transnational corporations (TNCs) to invest.
Expressive Role: The nurturing, caring and emotional role, often linked by functionalists to women’s biology and seen as women’s ‘natural’ role in the family.
Extended Family: A family grouping including all kin (see kinship). There are two main types of extended family: the classic extended family and the modified extended family. See also ‘beanpole’ family, nuclear family.

F

Fair Trade: A movement to try to alter the terms of trade so that producers in developing countries receive a higher proportion of the profit.
False Consciousness: The failure by members of a social class to recognize their real interests.
Family: A social institution consisting of a group of people related by kinship – ties of blood, marriage or adoption.
Family Ideology: A set of dominant beliefs and values about what the family and family life should be like.
Fatalism: A state of mind where someone believes there is nothing they can do to alter their situation or circumstances.
Feminism: The view that examines the world from the point of view of women, coupled with the belief that women are disadvantaged and their interests ignored or devalued in society. See also liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, radical feminism.
Fertility Rate: The number of live births per 1000 women of child-bearing age (15-44) per year.
Feudal System: A society in which the hierarchy of power and prestige is closely tied to the ownership of land.
Floating Voters: Those who change the political party they vote for from election to election.
Folk Culture: The culture created by local communities that is rooted in the experiences, customs and beliefs of the everyday life of ordinary people.
Folk Devils: Individuals or groups posing an imagined or exaggerated threat to society.
Functional Prerequisites: The basic needs that must be met if society is to survive.
Functionalism: A sociological perspective which sees society as made up of parts which work together to maintain society as an integrated whole. Society is seen as fundamentally harmonious and stable, due to the value consensus established through socialization. See also Marxism, structuralism.
Fundamentalism: A return to the literal meaning of religious texts and associated behaviour.
Future Generations: The concept of sustainable development requires consideration of the future of today’s children, and also of people not yet born, even though there is no established way of representing their interests.

G

Gate-keeping: The power of some people, groups or organizations to limit access to something valuable or useful. For example, the mass media have the power to refuse to cover some issues and therefore not allow the public access to some information.
Gender: The culturally created differences between men and women which are learnt through socialization.
Gender Role: The pattern of behaviour which is expected from individuals of either sex. gender identity How people see themselves, and how others see them, in terms of their gender roles and biological sex.
Global Civil Society (GCS): A loose collection of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), activist groups and others, overlapping with the anti-globalization movement; there is a debate as to whether there is a coherent GCS or whether the organizations are too different and lack any common focus.
Global Culture: The way cultures in different countries of the world have become more alike, sharing increasingly similar consumer products and ways of life. This has arisen as globalization has undermined national and local cultures.
Global Decision-making: Globalization has created problems which states acting alone cannot solve and so they work together through international governmental organizations (IGOs) to take decisions at a global level.
Global Schools Programme: Part of the British government’s development education programme and of Millennium Development Goal 8 (MDG8), as a result of which many British schools have partnerships with schools in developing countries.
Global Village: The way that the mass media and electronic communications now operate on a global scale so that the world has become like one village or community.
Global Warming: The rise in global temperatures now acknowledged to be caused mainly by human activity, likely to lead to severe consequences such as rising sea levels and increased desertification.
Globalists: In the globalization debates, those who argue that globalization is a positive and irreversible force from which all will eventually benefit, associated with neo-liberalism.
Globalization: The growing interdependence of societies across the world, with the spread of the same culture, consumer goods and economic interests across the globe.
Green Revolution: Scientific and technological developments that improved agricultural yields, enabling more food to be produced in developing countries but creating some environmental problems because of heavy use of pesticides and insecticides.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): The total value of goods and services produced by a country in a particular year.

H

Habitus: The cultural framework (see culture) and set of ideas possessed by each social class, into which people are socialized (see socialization) and which influences their tastes in music, newspapers, films and so on. Bourdieu, a French Marxist (see Marxism), argued the dominant class has the power to impose its own habitus in the education system, giving those from upper class and middle class backgrounds an inbuilt advantage over those from working class backgrounds.
Halo Effect: When pupils become favourably stereotyped (see stereotype) on the basis of earlier impressions by the teacher, and are rewarded and favoured in future teacher–student encounters.
Hawthorne Effect: When the presence of a researcher, or a group’s knowledge that it has been specially selected for research, changes the behaviour of the group, raising problems of the validity of social research.
Health: Being able to function normally within a usual everyday routine.
Hegemonic Control: A form of dominance in which the ruling class convinces the rest of society that the ideas of the ruling class are the truth and should not, therefore, be questioned.
Hegemonic Identity: An identity that is so dominant that it makes it difficult for individuals to assert alternative identities.
Hegemonic Masculinity: A male gender identity that defines what is involved in being a ‘real man’, and is so dominant that those who don’t conform to it are seen as odd or abnormal in some way.
Hegemony: The dominance in society of the ruling class’s set of ideas over others, and acceptance of and consent to them by the rest of society.
Heterosexuality: A sexual orientation towards people of the opposite sex.
Hidden Curriculum: Attitudes and behaviour which are taught through the school’s organization and teachers’ attitudes but which are not part of the formal timetable.
Hierarchy of Credibility: The greatest importance being attached by journalists to the views and opinions of those in positions of power, like government ministers, political leaders, senior police officers or wealthy and influential individuals.
High Culture: Specialist cultural products, seen as of lasting artistic or literary value, which are particularly admired and approved of by intellectual elites and predominantly the upper and middle class.
Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC): A system by which heavily indebted countries can apply to have debt written off provided they keep to conditions.
Homogenization: The removal of cultural differences, so that all cultures are increasingly similar.
Homophobia: An irrational fear of or aversion to homosexuals (see homosexuality).
Homosexuality: A sexual orientation towards people of the same sex, with lesbian women attracted to other women, and gay men attracted to other men.
Household: An individual or group living at the same address and sharing facilities.
Human Capital: The theory that a country’s people are a potential source of wealth; by educating its people, a country can increase its human capital.
Human Development Index: A composite measure of social and economic indicators, giving a statistical value to the level of development.
Hybridization: The creation of ‘third cultures’ when aspects of two different cultures encounter each other.
Hybrid Identity: An identity formed from a ‘mix’ of two or more other identities.
Hyperreality: The idea that, as a result of the spread of electronic communication, there is no longer a separate ‘reality’ to which news coverage, for example, refers. Instead, what we take to be ‘reality’ is created for us by such communication itself.
Hypothesis: An idea which a researcher guesses might be true, but which has not yet been tested against the evidence.

I

Iatrogenesis: Any harmful mental or physical condition induced in a patient through the effects of treatment by a doctor or surgeon.
Ideal Types: A view of a phenomenon built up by identifying the essential characteristics of many factual examples of it. The purpose of an ideal type is not to produce a perfect category, but to provide a measure against which real examples can be compared.
Identity: How individuals see and define themselves and how other people see and define them.
Ideological State Apparatuses: Agencies which spread the dominant ideology and justify the power of the dominant social class.
Ideology: A set of ideas, values and beliefs that represent the outlook, and justify the interests, of a social group.
Illness: The subjective feeling of being unwell or unhealthy (see health) – a person’s own recognition and definition of a lack of well-being.
Immediate Gratification: A desire to have rewards now rather than waiting to acquire them in the future, which is known as deferred gratification.
Impairment: Some abnormal functioning of the body or mind, either that one is born with or arising from injury or disease.
Imperialism: The process of empire-building associated with the colonial system.
Import Substitution Industrialization: An industrialization strategy based on domestic production of consumer goods to replace imported ones.
Imposition Problem: When asking questions in interviews or postal questionnaires, the risk that the researcher might be imposing their own views or framework on the people being researched, rather than getting at what they really think.
Impression Management: The way individuals try to convince others of the identity they wish to assert by giving particular impressions of themselves to other people..
Income: An inward flow of money over time. For most people this consists of wages or salary, but other sources are benefits, pensions, interest on savings and dividends from shares.
Industrial Revolution: A phrase coined by Tawney in the 1880s to describe the process by which the UK had developed from an agricultural society into a society based on manufacturing.
Industrialized: Countries are industrialized if their economies are based on industry rather than agriculture or extraction.
Infant Mortality Rate: The number of deaths of babies in the first year of life per 1,000 live births per year.
Informal Sector: An employment sector, characterized by lack of regular work and wages, including petty trading, self-employment, casual work and so on; the dominant sector in cities in developing countries.
Insider Groups: Pressure groups which have an active relationship with governments, offering representatives the opportunity to sit in on government committees or act as consultants on government policy.
Institutional Racism: Patterns of discrimination based on ethnicity that have become structured into existing social institutions.
Instrumental Attitude: Having an attitude in which wages/money are the most important aspect of work.
Instrumental Role: The provider/breadwinner role in the family, often associated by functionalists with men’s role in family life.
Integrated Conjugal Roles: Roles in marriage or in a cohabiting couple where male and female partners share domestic tasks, childcare, decision-making and income earning.
International Governmental Organizations (IGOs): These are established by states; examples include the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and World Trade Organization (WTO).
International Monetary Fund (IMF): A key IGO, which gives loans to members and which has helped to spread neo-liberal economic globalization.
Interpretivism: An approach emphasizing that people have consciousness involving personal beliefs, values and interpretations, and these influence the way they act. People have choices and do not simply respond to forces outside them. To understand society it is therefore necessary to understand the meanings people give to their behaviour, and how this is influenced by the behaviour and interpretations of others.
Interviewer Bias: This occurs when the answers given in an interview are infl uenced or distorted in some way by the presence or behaviour of the interviewer.
Inverse Care Law: Those whose need is least get the most resources, while those in greatest need get the fewest resources.
Iron Law of Oligarchy: A phrase coined by Michels referring to the principle that all organizations eventually end up being ruled by a few individuals.
Islamophobia: An irrational fear and/or hatred of or aversion to Islam, Muslims or Islamic culture.

K

Kibbutz: A community established in Israel, with the emphasis on equality, collective ownership of property, and collective childrearing.
Kinship: Relations of blood, marriage or adoption.

L

Labelling: Defining a person or group in a certain way – as a particular ‘type’ of person or group.
Labour Power: People’s capacity to work. In Marxist theory, people sell their labour power to the employer in return for a wage; the employer buys only their labour power, not the whole person.
Laissez-faire: A philosophy of society in which government has only a minimal role; it suggests that the most efficient and free society is one in which the state provides only the most basic of society’s needs.
Latent Function: The unrecognized or unintended outcome of the action of an individual or institution.
Laws: Official legal rules, formally enforced by the police, courts and prison, involving legal punishment if the rules are broken.
Left-wing: In the political spectrum, those ideas and organizations that tend to be critical of existing social arrangements. These historically include democratic parties such as the Labour Party in Britain, as well as authoritarian anti-democratic parties such as the Communists.
Liberal Feminism: A feminist approach (see feminism) which seeks to research the inequalities facing women, and enable women to achieve equal opportunities with men, without challenging the system as a whole. See also Marxist feminism, radical feminism.
Liberation Theologists: A group within the Roman Catholic Church that preach that the good things in life should be shared here on earth in an equal fashion.
Life Chances: The chances of obtaining those things defined as desirable and of avoiding those things defined as undesirable in a society.
Life Expectancy: An estimate of how long people can be expected to live from a certain age.
Lifestyle: The way in which people live, usually indicating something about their disposable income.
Low Culture: see mass culture
Lumpenproletariat: A term used by Marx to describe the group of unorganized working class. Now seen as synonymous with the underclass by many commentators.

M

Macro Approach: A focus on the large-scale structure of society as a whole, rather than on individuals.
Malestream: A word coined by feminists to describe the type of sociology that concentrates on men, is mostly carried out by men and then assumes that the findings can be applied to women as well.
Manifest Function: The recognized and intended outcome of the action of an individual or institution.
Marginality: Where some people are pushed to the margins or edges of society by poverty, lack of education, disability, racism and so on, and face social exclusion.
Marginalization: The process whereby some people are pushed to the margins or edges of society by poverty, lack of education, disability, racism and so on. See also social exclusion.
Marketization: The process whereby services, like education or health, that were previously controlled and run by the state, have government or local council control reduced, and become subject to the free market forces of supply and demand, based on competition and consumer choice.
Market Situation: The rewards that people are able to obtain when they sell their skills in the labour market, depending on the scarcity of the skills they have and the power they have to obtain high rewards.
Marxism: A structural theory of society which sees society divided by conflict between two main opposing social classes, due to the private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of the non-owners by the owners. See also functionalism, structuralism.
Marxist Feminism: A Marxist approach (see Marxism) to the study of women, emphasizing the way they are exploited both as workers and as women. See also feminism, liberal feminism, r adical feminism.
Mass Culture (popular or low culture): Cultural products (see culture), mainly media based, produced as entertainment for sale to the mass of ordinary people. These involve mass-produced, standardized, short-lived products of no lasting value, which are seen to demand little critical thought, analysis or discussion. See also high culture.
Master Status: A status which overrides all other features of a person’s social standing, and a person is judged solely in terms of one defining characteristic.
Matriarchy: Power and authority held by women. See also patriarchy.
Matrilocal: Describes family systems in which the husband is expected to live near the wife’s parents.
McDonaldization: Ritzer’s term for the ways in which the organizing principles of a fast-food restaurant chain are coming to dominate and standardize many aspects of economic and cultural life globally.
Means of Production: The key resources necessary for producing society’s goods, such as land, factories and machinery.
Media Imperialism: The suggestion that the new media, particularly satellite television and global advertising, have led to the Westernization of other cultures, with Western, and especially American, cultural values being forced on non-Western cultures, and the undermining of local cultures and cultural independence. Often linked to cultural imperialism.
Media Representations: The categories and images that are used to present groups and activities to media audiences, which may influence the way we think about these activities and groups.
Meritocracy: A social system in which rewards are allocated on the basis of merit or ability.
Meta-analysis: A statistical technique of collating many different research findings and testing the reliability of the results by controlling the variables within each individual study.
Metanarrative: A broad all-embracing ‘big theory’ or explanation for how the world and societies operate.
Methodological Pluralism: The use of a variety of methods in a single piece of research.
Metropolis: In dependency theory, the centre of economic activity, profiting from an exploitative relationship with satellites (dependent, underdeveloped countries).
Micro Approach: A focus on small groups or individuals, rather than on the structure of society as a whole.
Micro Credit: Schemes to allow poor people to borrow small sums of money.
Middle Class: Those in non-manual work – jobs which don’t involve heavy physical effort, are usually performed in offices and involve paperwork or computer work of various kinds. See also social class, upper class, working class.
Millenarianism: The belief that existing society is evil, sinful or otherwise corrupt, and that supernatural or other extra-worldly forces will intervene to completely destroy existing society and create a new and perfect world order.
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): A set of eight targets set by the United Nations to achieve progress in development.
Minority Ethnic Group: A social group that shares a cultural identity which is different from that of the majority population of a society, such as African Caribbean, Indian Asian and Chinese ethnic groups in Britain.
Modern World System: In world systems theory, the global capitalist system.
Modernization Theory: Dominant development theory of the 1960s, based on factors internal to Third World countries inhibiting their development.
Modernity: The condition of society from the Enlightenment of the seventeenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. It includes a rational outlook on social issues and highlights the role of science as a basis for understanding.
Modified Extended Family: A family type where related nuclear families, although living apart geographically, nevertheless maintain regular contact and mutual support through visiting, the phone, e-mail and letters. See also classic extended family.
Monogamy: A form of marriage in which a person can only be legally married to one partner at a time. See also polyandry, polygamy, polygyny, serial monogamy.
Moral Entrepreneur: A person, group or organization with the power to create or enforce rules and impose their definitions of deviance.
Moral Panic: A wave of public concern about some exaggerated or imaginary threat to society, stirred up by exaggerated and sensationalized reporting in the mass media.
Moral Regulation: The control or regulation by social values of the actions and desires of individuals.
Morbidity: The extent of disease in a population, including either the total number of cases or the number of new cases of a disease in a particular population at a particular time.
Mortality: The number of deaths in a population, usually measured as a rate per 1000 of a population group, such as the number of deaths per thousand of the population each year. See also death rate, infant mortality rate
Mortification: A process whereby a person’s own identity is replaced by one defined by an institution, such as a hospital or prison.
Multicultural Education: Education which involves teaching about the culture of other ethnic groups (see ethnicity) besides that of the majority culture.
Multilateral Aid: Donors contribute to a shared fund, from which aid is then given to recipients.
Multinational Corporations (MNCs): Sometimes used interchangeably with transnational corporations (TNCs), but more usefully used to mean corporations that have some global aspects but are still clearly based in one nation.

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Nation: A particular geographical area with which a group of people identify, and share among themselves a sense of belonging based on a common sense of culture, history and usually language.
Nationalism: A sense of pride and commitment to a nation, and a very strong sense of national identity.
Nationality: Having citizenship of a nationstate, including things like voting rights, a passport, and the right of residence.
Nation-state: A state with its own political apparatus over a specific territory, whose own citizens are backed by their military and with a nationalistic identity.
Need for Achievement: In modernization theory, the desire to be entrepreneurial and to make money, essential for modernization.
Negative Sanctions: Punishments of various kinds imposed on those who fail to conform to social norms. See also positive sanctions, sanction.
Neo-colonialism: This is the continuation of past economic domination of former colonial powers over ex-colonies.
Neo-liberal Economic Theory: The dominant theory in influencing development policies in the 1980s and 1990s, based on a minimal role for states and liberalization of trade to allow the free market (capitalism) to work without restrictions.
Neo-Malthusian: modern followers of Malthus’s main argument, that population growth will overtake food supply.
New Barbarism: Kaplan’s theory, a variant of Malthusian theory, that overpopulation and exhaustion of resources were leading to civil wars in developing countries.
New International: Division of Labour (NIDL) The new global economic order said to be produced by factory production moving from the developed world to some developing countries.
New Professions: These are distinguishable from the traditional professionals such as lawyers and doctors – one example is management consultants, who monitor and regulate the work of other professionals.
New Right: A political philosophy found in the work of some sociologists, but mainly associated with the years of Conservative government in Britain between 1979 and 1997. This approach stresses individual freedom, self-help and self-reliance, reduction of the power and spending of the state, the free market and free competition between private companies, schools and other institutions, and the importance of traditional institutions and values.
New Social Movements (NSMs): Much looser informal and less organized coalitions of groups or individuals pushing a cause or broad interest, compared to more traditional pressure groups which are generally much more focused and organized. They are often global in scope and scale. Examples include the women’s movement, the green movement and the anti-war movement.
Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs): Those countries that seemed to make rapid progress in the late twentieth century, notably the ‘Asian tigers’.
News Values: The values and assumptions held by editors and journalists which guide them in choosing what is ‘newsworthy’ – what to report and what to leave out, and how what they choose to report should be presented.
Newsworthy: Those items selected by editors and journalists as being of importance and thus which should be broadcast.
Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs): Non-profit groups which are independent of the state; they are largely funded by private contributions and are mostly involved in humanitarian activities.
Norms: Social rules which define what is expected behaviour for an individual in a given society or situation.
Norm-setting: The way the mass media emphasize and reinforce conformity to social norms, and seek to isolate those who do not conform by making them the victims of unfavourable media reports.
North: The world’s richer countries – developed nations; sometimes known as the ‘global North’ or the ‘first world’.
Nuclear Family: A family with two generations, of parents and children, living together in one household. See also extended family.

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Objectivity: Approaching topics with an open mind, avoiding bias, and being prepared to submit research evidence to scrutiny by other researchers.
Official: Development Assistance (ODA) The foreign aid programmes of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
Oligarchy: Control by a small elite.
Open System: A social system in which it is possible for an individual to move from the social group in which he or she was born into a different social group.
Outsider Groups: Pressure groups which, for whatever reason, do not have everyday operational links with governments.
Overt Role: Where the researcher in a participant observation study reveals her or his identity as a researcher to the group being studied. See also covert role.

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Paradigm: A set of values, ideas, beliefs and assumptions providing a model or framework within which scientists operate, and providing guidelines for the conduct of research. These are rarely called into question until the evidence against them is overwhelming.
Parastatals: State-run organizations such as marketing boards, which played a leading role in the development policies of many states before neo-liberal policies were enforced.
Particularistic Values: Rules and values that give a priority to personal relationships. See also universalistic values.
Partisan Dealignment: The idea that fewer and fewer individuals are strongly lining themselves up with a particular party and remaining loyal to that party over long periods of time.
Partisan Self-image: A person with a view of themselves as a supporter of a particular political party.
Party: A term used by Weber to describe any group of individuals who organize for the pursuit of power based on their shared backgrounds, aims of interests.
Patriarchal Ideology: A set of ideas that supports and justifies the power of men.
Patriarchy: Power and authority held by males.
Patrilocal: Describes family systems in which the wife is expected to live near the husband’s parents.
Peer Group: A group of people of similar age and status, with whom a person often mixes socially.
Perspective: A way of looking at something. A sociological perspective involves a set of theories which influences what is looked at when studying society.
Pilot Survey: A small-scale practice survey carried out before the final survey to check for any possible problems.
Pluralism: A view that sees power in society spread among a wide range of interest groups and individuals, with no group or individual having a monopoly of power.
Pluralist Ideology: A set of ideas that reflects the pluralist view of the distribution of power, with no one particular ideology able to dominate others, and with the prevailing ideas in society reflecting the interests of a wide range of social groups and interests.
Politics: The struggle for power between individuals and groups.
Polyandry: A form of marriage in which a woman may have two or more husbands at the same time. See also monogamy, serial monogamy.
Polygamy: A form of marriage in which a member of one sex can be married to two or more members of the opposite sex at the same time. See also monogamy, serial monogamy.
Polygyny: A form of marriage in which a man may have two or more wives at the same time. See also monogamy, serial monogamy.
Polysemic: Used to describe a sign (such as a media message, picture or headline) which can be interpreted in different ways by different people.
Popular Culture/Mass Culture: Cultural products that are produced as entertainment for sale to the mass of ordinary people, involving mass-produced, standardized, short-lived products of no lasting value, which are seen to demand little critical thought, analysis or discussion.
Positive Discrimination: Giving disadvantaged groups more favourable treatment than others to make up for the disadvantages they face.
Positive Sanctions: Rewards of various kinds to encourage people to conform to social norms. See also negative sanctions, sanction.
Positivism: The view that the logic, methods and procedures of the natural sciences, as used in subjects like physics, chemistry and biology, can be applied to the study of society with little modification.
Post-materialism: The theory that the need to acquire material goods is declining in importance as people give higher priority to non-material values, such as freedom, justice and personal improvement.
Postmodernism: The belief that society is changing so rapidly and constantly that it is marked by chaos and uncertainty, and social structures are being replaced by a whole range of different and constantly changing social relationships. Societies can no longer be understood through the application of general theories like Marxism or functionalism, which seek to explain society as a whole, as it has become fragmented into many different groups, interests and lifestyles. Society and social structures cease to exist, to be replaced by a mass of individuals who are transformed into consumers making individual choices about their lifestyles.
Poverty Line: The dividing point between those who are poor and those who are not. The poverty line used in Britain today, and by the European Union, is 60 per cent of average income.
Power: The capacity of individuals or groups to get their own way in any given situation.
Power Elite: The group that dominates society through its ability to control the important institutional positions in society. The elite is composed of those at the top of the great institutions of society, such as the government, the military, universities and industry.
Predatory State: A state that preys upon its own people, through appropriation and corruption, preventing development.
Present-time Orientation: Concentrating on today without much consideration for the future or the past.
Pressure Groups: Organizations that try to put pressure on those with power in society to implement policies they favour.
Primary Definers: Powerful individuals or groups whose positions of power give them greater access to the media than others, and therefore put them in a more privileged position to influence what and how journalists define the news.
Primary Deviance: Deviance that has not been publicly labelled as such.
primary socialization: The early forms of socialization in the family and close community. See also secondary socialization.
Primary Sources/data: Information that is gathered by researchers themselves.
Privatization: A government policy which is centred on reducing the public sector as much as possible through the transfer of industries and utilities from state ownership and control into the hands of private shareholders.
Privatized Nuclear Family: A nuclear family, cut off from extended kin, whose main concerns are focused on the home.
Professions: Types of occupation which are self-governing and usually of relatively high status.
Productive Property: Property which provides an unearned income for its owner, such as factories, land and stocks and shares. See also consumption property.
Proletarian Traditionalist: A member of the proletariat/working class who espouses the notions of solidarity which were supposedly found amongst long-established working-class communities.
Proletarianization: The process whereby other groups take on the attributes and characteristics of the proletariat.
Proletariat: The social class of workers who have to work for wages as they do not own the means of production.
Psephology: The study of voting patterns. It comes from the ancient Greek word psepho meaning pebble – voting in Athens took place by the casting of pebbles to decide issues.
Pull Factors: The advantages of city life which attract people to move there from rural areas.
Push Factors: The disadvantages of rural life which push people into moving to cities.

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Qualitative Data: Information concerned with descriptions of the meanings and interpretations people have about some issue or event.
Quantitative Data: Information that can be expressed in statistical or number form or can be ‘measured’ in some way.

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Racial Prejudice: A set of assumptions about an ethnic group (see ethnicity) which people are reluctant to change even when they receive information which undermines those assumptions.
Racism: Treating people differently on the basis of their ethnic origin.
Radical Feminism: A feminist approach (see feminism) which focuses on the problem of patriarchy. For radical feminists, the main focus of research is on the problem of men and male-dominated society. See also Marxist feminism, liberal feminism.
Radicals: In globalization debates, those who argue that globalization is a powerful negative force; associated with dependency theory and neo-Marxists.
Reconstituted Family: A family where one or both partners have been previously married, and bring with them children of the previous marriage.
Reflexivity: The way the knowledge people gain about society can affect the way they behave in it, as people (and institutions) reflect on what they do and how they do it.
Relations of Production: The forms of relationship between those people involved in production, such as cooperation or private ownership and control.
Relative Autonomy: The idea in neo-Marxist theory that the superstructure of society has some independence from the economy, rather than being directly determined by it.
Relative Deprivation: The sense of lacking something compared to the group with which people identify and compare themselves.
Relative Poverty: Poverty defined in relation to a generally accepted standard of living in a specific society at a particular time. See also absolute poverty.
Reliability: This refers to whether another researcher, if repeating or replicating the research using the same method for the same research on the same group, would achieve the same results.
Religiosity: The extent of importance of religion, religious beliefs and feelings in people’s lives.
Religious Pluralism: A situation where there are a variety of different religions, different groups within a religious faith, and a range of beliefs of all kinds, with no one religious belief or organization reasonably able to claim to hold a monopoly of truth or to have the support of most members of society.
Replication: see reliability.
Representative Sample: A smaller group drawn from the survey population, of which it contains a good cross-section. The information obtained from a representative sample should provide roughly the same results as if the whole survey population had been surveyed.
Repressive State Apparatus: The parts of the state concerned with mainly repressive, physical means of keeping a population in line, such as the army, police, courts and prisons.
Resacrilization: The renewal and continuing vitality of religious beliefs.
Reserve Army of Labour: This refers to a group of people not normally in the paid workforce who can be called on in time of need. Marx saw them as members of the Lumpenproletariat; feminists see them as married women and mothers.
Restricted Code: A form of language use which takes for granted shared understandings between people. Colloquial, everyday language used between friends, with limited explanation and use of vocabulary. See also elaborated code.
Right Wing: Along the political spectrum, the ideas and organizations which generally favour the existing social arrangements and more traditional values. The right generally includes democratic parties such as the British Conservative Party, or ‘Tories’, and authoritarian anti-democratic parties or movements such as the British National Party (BNP).
Role Conflict: The conflict between the successful performances of two or more roles at the same time, such as worker, student and mother.
Role Models: Patterns of behaviour which others copy and model their own behaviour on.
Roles: The patterns of behaviour which are expected from individuals in society.
Ruling Class: The social class of owners of the means of production, whose control over the economy gives them power over all aspects of society, enabling them to rule over society.
Ruling Class Ideology: The set of ideas and beliefs of the ruling class.

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Sample: A small representative group drawn from the survey population for questioning or interviewing.
Sampling Frame: A list of names of all those in the survey population from which a representative sample is selected.
Sampling Methods: The techniques sociologists use to select representative individuals to study from the survey population.
Sanctions: The rewards and punishments by which social control is achieved and conformity to norms and values enforced. These may be either positive sanctions, rewards of various kinds, or negative sanctions, various types of punishment.
Satellite: In dependency theory, the deformed and dependent economies of the underdeveloped countries.
Scapegoat: An individual picked out to be blamed for an action or event whether or not he or she is guilty. Very often applied to those who are innocent.
Secondary Deviance: Deviance that follows once a person has been publicly labelled as deviant.
Secondary Socialization: Socialization which takes place beyond the family and close community, such as through the education system, the mass media and the workplace. See also primary socialization.
Secondary Sources/Data: This is data which already exists and which researchers haven’t collected themselves.
Secularization: The process whereby religious thinking, practice and institutions lose social significance.
Segregated Conjugal Role: A clear division and separation between the roles of male and female partners in a marriage or in a cohabiting couple.
Selective Biomedical Intervention: in healthcare, interventions such as immunization campaigns to try to prevent the spread of disease.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy: People acting in response to predictions of their behaviour, thereby making the prediction come true. Often applied to the effects of streaming in schools.
Serial Monogamy: A form of marriage where a person keeps marrying and divorcing a series of different partners, but is only married to one person at a time. See also monogamy, polyandry, polygamy, polygyny.
Sex: The biological divergences between men and women.
Sexism: Prejudice or discrimination against people (especially women) because of their sex.
Sexual Division of Labour: The division of work into ‘men’s jobs’ and ‘women’s jobs’.
Sexual Orientation: The type of people that individuals are either physically or romantically attracted to, such as those of the same or opposite sex.
Sexuality: People’s sexual characteristics and their sexual behaviour.
Shared Resources: These are those resources that are not privately owned and whose use is freely shared – for example air, water (unless you choose to buy bottled water) and parts of the countryside. They are also sometimes referred to as ‘public goods’.
Sick Role: The pattern of behaviour which is expected from someone who is classified as ill.
Simulacra: Images or reproductions and copies which appear to reflect things in the real world but have no basis in reality.
Situational Deviance: Acts which are only defined as deviant in particular contexts.
Social Action Theory: A perspective which emphasizes the creative action which people can take, and that people are not simply the passive victims of social forces outside them. Social action theory suggests it is important to understand the motives and meanings people give to their behaviour. See also interpretivism, structuralism.
Social Capital: The social networks of influence and support that people have.
Social Class: A broad group of people who share a similar economic situation, such as occupation, income and ownership of wealth. See also middle class, upper class, working class.
Social Construction: The way something is created through the individual, social and cultural interpretations, perceptions and actions of people. Official statistics, notions of health and illness, deviance and suicide are all examples of social phenomena that only exist because people have constructed them and given these phenomena particular labels.
Social Control: This refers to the various methods used to persuade or force individuals to conform to the dominant social norms and values of a society or group.
Social Control: The various methods used to persuade or force individuals to conform to the dominant social norms and values of a society or group.
Social Closure: A system whereby members of a group can act to prevent others from joining the group.
Social Exclusion: Being excluded from full participation in education, work, community life and access to services and other aspects of life seen as part of being a full and participating member of mainstream society.
Social Facts: Phenomena which exist outside individuals and independently of their minds, but which act upon them in ways that constrain or mould their behaviour.
Social Institutions: The organized social arrangements which are found in all societies, such as the family and the education systems.
Social Integration: The integration of individuals into social groups, binding them into society and building social cohesion.
Social Mobility: Movement of groups or individuals up or down the social hierarchy.
Social Policy: The packages of plans and actions adopted by national and local government or various voluntary agencies to solve social problems or achieve other goals that are seen as important.
Social Problem: Something that is seen as being harmful to society in some way, and needs something doing to sort it out.
Social Solidarity: The integration of people into society through shared values, a common culture, shared understandings and social ties that bind them together.
Social Structure: The network of social institutions and social relationships that form the ‘building blocks’ of society.
Socialization: The process by which we learn the accepted ways of behaving in our society.
Social Mobility: The movement of individuals or groups from one social class to another, both upwardly and downwardly.
Societal Deviance: Acts that are seen by most members of a society as deviant.
Sociological Perspective: A set of theories which influence what is looked at when studying society.
Sociological Problem: Any social or theoretical issue that needs explaining.
South: The world’s poorer countries, those which are developing; sometimes known as the ‘global South’.
Spin Doctor: A label given to those who are seen as manipulating news coverage in such a way as to emphasize positive events, for the government, for example, and sideline negative news.
Stages of Economic Growth: In Rostow’s version of modernization, the five stages through which societies pass as they move from being traditional to fully developed.
State: A central authority which has legitimate control over a set territory.
Status: The amount of prestige or social importance a person has in the eyes of other members of a group or society.
Status Frustration: This is a sense of frustration arising in individuals or groups because they are denied status in society.
Stereotype: A generalized, oversimplified view of the features of a social group, allowing for few individual divergences between members of the group.
Stigma: Any undesirable physical or social characteristic that is seen as abnormal or unusual in some way, that is seen as demeaning, and stops an individual being fully accepted by society.
Stigmatized Identity: An identity that is in some way undesirable or demeaning, and stops an individual or group being fully accepted by society.
Streaming: A system of grouping students in schools by ability for all subjects.
Structural Adjustment Programme: A set of policies imposing neo-liberal policies on governments used by international governmental organizations (IGOs), especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Structural Differentiation: The way new, more specialized social institutions emerge to take over functions that were once performed by a single institution.
Structural Violence: Galtung’s term for the way in which, even in an apparently peaceful society, a group can be exploited by the systematic denial of their rights.
Structuralism: A perspective that is concerned with the overall structure of society, and sees individual behaviour moulded by social institutions like the family, the education system, the mass media and work.
Structuration: The two-way process by which people are constrained or shaped by society and social institutions, but they can at the same time take action to support, shape and change them.
Subculture: A smaller culture held by a group of people within the main culture of a society, in some ways different from the main culture, but with many aspects in common.
Subsistence Farming: Farming to produce crops and livestock for consumption by the family rather than for sale in the market.
Surplus Value: The extra value added by workers to the products they produce, after allowing for the payment of their wages, and which goes to the employer in the form of profit.
Survey: A means of collecting primary data from large numbers of people, usually in a standardized statistical form.
Survey Population: The section of the population which is of interest in a survey.
Sustainability: This refers to something that can continue at the same level indefinitely; for example, using trees from a forest for fuel is sustainable only if the wood is taken at the rate that the trees grow, so that the number of trees in the forest remains constant.
Sustainable Development: Development that sustains the natural environment, thereby ensuring that future generations can have the same level of development.
Symbol: Something, like an object, word, expression or gesture, that stands for something else and to which individuals have attached some meaning.
Symbolic Annihilation: The lack of visibility, under-representation and limited roles of women or other groups in media representations, as they are omitted, condemned or trivialized in many roles.
Symmetrical Family: A family where the roles of husband and wife or cohabiting partners have become more alike (symmetrical) and equal.
Symbolic Interactionism: A sociological perspective which is concerned with understanding human behaviour in face-to-face situations, and how individuals and situations come to be defined in particular ways through their encounters with other people.

T

Take-off: In Rostow’s five stages of economic growth, the third stage at which societies achieve a momentum that ensures development.
Tautology: Something that is explained by the same thing that it seeks to explain.
Techniques of Neutralization: Justifications used to excuse acts of crime and deviance.
Teenage Years: A phrase first coined in about 1950 to describe the time of life between childhood and adulthood; the teenager’s status is often ambiguous and changes from one situation to another, which reflects the confusion felt by teenagers themselves as to their exact status.
Terrorism: In war and conflict, the use of tactics intended to persuade the opponents, or civilians, not to resist.
Theodicy: An explanation for the contradiction between the existence of a God who is assumed to be all-powerful and benevolent, while at the same time there is widespread suffering and evil in the world.
Theodicy of Disprivilege: A religious explanation and justification for social inequality and social deprivation, explaining the marginalization (or disprivilege) of believers, often used as a test of faith with the promises of compensating rewards in a future after death.
Third Way: A political philosophy, pioneered by New Labour, that is committed to retaining the values of socialism, while supporting market policies for generating wealth and reducing inequalities.
Third World: A term used to describe the world’s poorer countries, distinct from the First World (developed capitalist) and Second World (developed communist, or, today, ex-communist).
Totem: A sacred object representing and having symbolic significance and importance for a group.
Trade Liberalization: Removal of barriers to free trade, such as tariffs and subsidies.
Trade Union: An organization of workers whose aim is to protect the interests of their members and improve their life chances.
Transformationalists: In the globalization debates, those who see globalization as a force, whose outcomes are uncertain, but which can be controlled and used to promote development.
Transnational Capitalist Class: Associated with the radical view of globalization; globalization has created a new transnational class of business leaders, politicians and others who increasingly share common interests.
Transnational Corporations (TNCs): Large business enterprises which produce and sell globally and have global supply chains.
Triangular Trade: The slave trade linking West Africa, Europe and the Americas.
Triangulation: This is the use of two or more research methods in a single piece of research to check the reliability and validity of research evidence.
Two Faces of Power: The idea that power can be exercised not only by getting your own way against opposition (the first face) but also by preventing an issue from ever being raised as controversial in the first place (the second face of power).
Typology: A generalization used to classify things into groups or types according to their characteristics, which do not necessarily apply in every real world example.

U

Underachievement: The failure of individuals or groups to fulfil their potential – they do not do as well in education (or other areas) as their talents and abilities suggest they should.
Underclass: A concept developed by Murray to describe a group considered to be outside the mainstream of society, below the working class. See also Lumpenproletariat.
Underdevelopment: Used by dependency theorists, the process of exploitation by which the North became and stayed rich at the expense of the South.
Universalistic Values: Rules and values that apply equally to all members of society, regardless of who they are. See also particularistic values.
Universe of Meaning: A set of ideas and values about the meaning of life which helps people make sense of and give meaning to the world, and enables them to give life some focus, order and meaning.
Upper Class: A small social class who are the main owners of society’s wealth. It includes wealthy industrialists, landowners and the traditional aristocracy. See also middle class, working class.
Urbanization: The process by which a growing proportion of people live in towns and cities, and the social and other changes which accompany this process.

V

Validity: This is concerned with notions of truth – how far the fi ndings of research actually provide a true, genuine or authentic picture of what is being studied.
Value Consensus: A widespread agreement around the main values of a society.
Value-freedom: The idea that the beliefs and prejudices of a researcher should not influence the way research is carried out and evidence interpreted.
Values: Ideas or beliefs which govern the way individuals behave. There is often an ethical dimension to this concept.
Variable Sum View of Power: A situation whereby everyone generally benefits from the exercise of power.
Verstehen: The idea of understanding human behaviour by putting yourself in the position of those being studied, and trying to see things from their point of view.
Victimology: The study of victims of crime and patterns of victimization.
Victim Survey: A survey which asks people if they have been victims of crime, whether or not they reported it to the police.
Voter Volatility: The chances of voters changing the political party they vote for.

W

Washington Consensus: A set of neo-liberal policies which were argued to be essential for reforming economies and promoting development.
Wealth: The total value of the possessions held by an individual or society.
welfare pluralism: The range of welfare provision, including informal provision by the family and community, the welfare state, the voluntary sector and the private sector.
Weltanschauung: The framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it.
White-collar Vrime: Offences committed by middle-class individuals who abuse their work positions within organizations for personal gain at the expense of the organization or clients of the organization.
Working Class: Those working in manual jobs – jobs involving physical work and, literally, work with their hands, like factory or labouring work. See also middle class, social class, upper class.
World Bank: A key international governmental organization (IGO) which gives aid and loans to members to fight poverty; often accused of spreading neo-liberal economic globalization.
World Economic: Forum An annual gathering of the world’s business and political leaders.
World Social: Forum An annual gathering of the anti-globalization movement.

Ken Browne - Sociology for AS and A2 AQA

Student Resources - Glossary

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