Glossary

Question 0

____ ____ is the set of commonly shared ideas that are drawn on in everyday life to explain events in the world. It tends to rely on forms of explanation that are individualising and naturalising

Answer 0

Common sense

Question 1

____ refers to the potential for individuals to independently exercise choice and influence over their social world and in their daily lives.

Answer 1

Agency

Question 2

____ are abstract ideas that refer to the general properties of chosen aspects of social life.

Answer 2

Concepts

Question 3

____ refers to the beliefs values and customs that are shared by a particular group of people within society.

Answer 3

Culture

Question 4

____ refers to the increasing interdependence between societies on a worldwide basis.

Answer 4

Globalisation

Question 5

____ are propositions put forward for empirical testing.

Answer 5

Hypotheses

Question 6

____ refers to the distinctive characteristics of persons or groups.

Answer 6

Identity

Question 7

____ refers to the patterned differences in power over resources and decision-making that exist in all societies These differences may include economic resources such as land or money, access to weapons or organisational power, or cultural resources like knowledge.

Answer 7

Inequality

Question 8

____ ____ refers to a form of structural power relations organised through the economic system and state.

Answer 8

Political economy

Question 9

_____ is the process by which all aspects of human action become subject to calculation measurement and control

Answer 9

Rationalisation

Question 10

____ is a process whereby individuals internalise messages about how the body should be regulated and managed.

Answer 10

Self-rationalisation

Question 11

____ ____ are the expectations and attributes associated with social positions.

Answer 11

Social roles

Question 12

____ ____ refers to the relative position of a person on a publicly recognised scale of social worth.

Answer 12

Social status

Question 13

_____ ____ refers to enduring, orderly and patterned relationships that organise social life.

Answer 13

Social structure

Question 14

The ____ ____ was a concept first coined by C. Wright Mills in 1959. More recently Evan Willis (1999) has elaborated on the concept arguing that understanding any social phenomenon involves considering four key dimensions: the historical, the cultural, the structural and the critical.

Answer 14

sociological imagination

Question 15

_____ is the systematic critical study of the structure of social relations.

Answer 15

Sociology

Question 16

_____ are bodies of ideas that attempt to explain in a general way why things happen as they do.

Answer 16

Theories

Question 17

____ ____ is a position which assumes that biological features of the body determine the way that gender and sexuality is experienced and expressed.

Answer 17

Biological determinism

Question 18

____ ____ is a form of essentialism which focuses on the biology as the central truth about gender or sexuality.

Answer 18

Biological essentialism

Question 19

____ arguments do not take account of human agency in the shaping of gender or sexuality.

Answer 19

Determinist

Question 20

____ arguments attempt to explain the properties of complex features of social life by reference to a supposed inner truth or essence.

Answer 20

Essentialist

Question 21

____ refers to the social categories of men and women.

Answer 21

Gender

Question 22

_____ ____ is the process by which new born infants are assigned a gender (boy or girl) on the basis of (usually) visible biological characteristics. This of assignment undertaken where the primary sexual process is even characteristics are mixed.

Answer 22

Gender assignment

Question 23

____ ____ is the womplishment by indviduals of a particular gender that they have been assigned or in the case of transsexuals have taken up

Answer 23

Gender accomplishment

Question 24

____ ____ is the assumption that all women or all men will share the same experiences or characteristics with all other women or men.

Answer 24

Gender essentialism

Question 25

_____ ____ refers to the masculine or feminine sense of self that individuals develop in line with their gender assignment.

Answer 25

Gender identity

Question 26

____ ____ refers to the specific behaviours and activities that are associated With each gender.

Answer 26

Gender role

Question 27

____ ____ is the process through which individuals learn to take up the role and identity deemed appropriate for their gender.

Answer 27

Gender socialisation

Question 28

____ refers to the assumption that heterosexuality is the most normal form of sexual expression. Some theorists argue that it is a fundamental structuring feature of society.

Answer 28

Heteronormativity

Question 29

____ beliefs reinforce the notion that heterosexuality is the most normal form of sexuality. They also involve particular ideas about how men and women should behave in sexual relationships with each other.

Answer 29

Heterosexist

Question 30

____ ____ see the self as provisional and always in process meanings emerge out of interactions and negotiations with others rather than being imposed by ngid social structures.

Answer 30

Interactionist theorists

Question 31

_____ are the socially accepted ways of behaving in a given situation.

Answer 31

Norms

Question 32

____ is a form of social structure in which men as a group dominate women, as a group. The existence of patriarchal social relations does not preclude the existence of non-sexist individual men, but it assumes that there is a general set of relations and processes which disadvantages women rather than men.

Answer 32

Patriarchy

Question 33

____ refers to the capacity for humans to act, to influence the actions of others and to shape the processes of interaction between people. Structural power refers to the powers of the state and dominant social groups (p. 156 Exploring Society).

Answer 33

Power

Question 34

___ is a term that is sometimes used by sociologists to differentiate between the biological, or primary sexual characteristics of individuals, and the social features of gender (Sex is also used to refer to the sexual practices that individual may engage in.)

Answer 34

Sex

Question 35

____ ____ is an approach to sexuality which assumes that there is an underlying biological basis to sexuality.

Answer 35

Sexual essentialism

Question 36

____ refers to the sexual practices, desires and identities of individuals. These are considered to be socially constructed.

Answer 36

Sexuality

Question 37

____ ____ are the general social guidelines that exist about how to be sexual and act sexually.

Answer 37

Sexual scripts

Question 38

_____ ____ is an assumption within some sociological theones that the categories that it studies (gender or sexuality or disability etc) are relatively unitary. That is, essentialist sociological arguments fail to account for the diversity of experience within any category.

Answer 38

Sociological essentialism

Question 39

_____ ____ ____ is a form of sociological essentialism which treats categories of sexuality (such as heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality etc) as if they were a unitary whole, rather than being characterised by diversity.

Answer 39

Sociological sexual essentialism

Question 40

_____ is the view that all knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent on human practices, that is, is constructed out of the interaction between humans and their world Thus, our systems of knowledge do not offer us the truth of the real world but are forms of humanly constructed interpretation.

Answer 40

Constructionism

Question 41

_____ is a classification of human types based on observable features.

Answer 41

Phenotype

Question 42

____ ____ - inability to access or impeded access to the requirements of life (for example, food, shelter and warmth)

Answer 42

Absolute poverty

Question 43

____ - the process of transforming previously permanent jobs into casual jobs

Answer 43

Casualisation

Question 44

____ - a group with common economic interests defined by their relationship to another class

Answer 44

Class

Question 45

____ ____ -the awareness a class has of its true conditions

Answer 45

class-consciousness

Question 46

____ ____ - common beliefs and sentiments within a society

Answer 46

Collective conscience

Question 47

____ ____ -different rates of pay for different types of jobs

Answer 47

Differential rewards

Question 48

____ of ____ -the division of production into tasks

Answer 48

Division of labour

Question 49

____ - the phenomenon of increasing openess in class systems. Literally, people becoming bourgeois

Answer 49

Embourgeoisement

Question 50

____ of ____ - increasing rates of women in paid work

Answer 50

Feminisation of labour

Question 51

____ the increasing interdependence of societies and economies

Answer 51

Globalisation

Question 52

____ ____ - opportunities within one s experience to get valued skills and attributes

Answer 52

Life chances

Question 53

____ ____ - social groups considered to have negative characteristics and who are discriminated against in the market place because of them

Answer 53

Pariah groups

Question 54

____ - a group with common political interests

Answer 54

Party

Question 55

____ of ____ - the ways goods and services are used or consumed

Answer 55

Patterns of consumption

Question 56

_____ - a type of society with an economy no longer based on mass production

Answer 56

Post-industrial

Question 57

____ of ____ - the relationship between classes as defined by the system of production (or type of society)

Answer 57

Relations of production

Question 58

____ ____ - the inability to participate in one's community in similar ways to other people because of a lack of economic resources

Answer 58

Relative poverty

Question 59

____ ____ of labour - patterns of job allocation based on ideas about 'sex'

Answer 59

Sexual division of labour

Question 60

____ of ____ - the ways in which phenomena previously considered natural have come under the technological control of people (for example, human reproduction)

Answer 60

Socialisation of nature

Question 61

____ ____ - the material differences between social groups

Answer 61

Social inequality

Question 62

____ ____ - a hierarchy of social groups

Answer 62

Social stratification

Question 63

____ - prestige or social honour

Answer 63

Status

Question 64

____ of ____ - the patterns of consumption of status groups

Answer 64

Styles of life

Question 65

____ ____ - the difference between the cost of production and the value of goods in the market

Answer 65

Surplus value

Question 66

____ - a class outside of the tradition relations of production

Answer 66

Underclass