Terms, Concepts and Their Use in Sociology

The One Thing

Sociology explains how social relationships, groups, institutions and systems of inequality organise human behaviour and social life. It examines both the stabilising functions of groups, roles, norms and social control and their capacity to reproduce unequal power relations.

Who and What

• Society: A network of social relationships in which people share institutions, norms, values and ways of life.
• Social group: A collection of people who interact regularly, share a sense of belonging and follow common expectations. Interaction, shared identity or belonging, and commonly understood expectations distinguish a group from an aggregate of people merely gathered in one place.
• Primary group: A small group characterised by close, personal and usually lasting relationships, such as family or close friends.
• Secondary group: A larger, more formal, impersonal and goal-oriented group, such as a school, office or political organisation.
• In-group: A group to which a person feels they belong and with which they identify.
• Out-group: A group viewed as different from or outside one's own group. The distinction between in-groups and out-groups can create boundaries between insiders and outsiders.
• Reference group: A group used as a standard for judging behaviour, appearance, opinions or achievements.
• Social stratification: The structured ranking of people and groups into unequal layers according to access to wealth, power, prestige and opportunities. It is social and historical rather than simply the result of natural individual differences.
• Social inequality: The unequal distribution of valued resources, rights, opportunities and rewards among members of society.
• Social class: A category of people who share a similar economic position, often based on income, wealth, occupation and control over resources.
• Caste: A traditionally hereditary and relatively closed system of social ranking, often involving rules concerning marriage, occupation and social interaction.
• Gender stratification: Unequal access to status, resources, rights and opportunities based on socially created ideas about gender.
• Social mobility: Movement of individuals or groups between social positions or levels in a stratification system. Vertical mobility involves movement upward or downward; horizontal mobility involves movement between positions of similar rank.
• Open stratification system: A system in which movement between social positions is possible, commonly through education, occupation or income.
• Closed stratification system: A system in which movement between social positions is highly restricted, as in strongly hereditary status arrangements.
• Ascribed status: A social position assigned at birth or received without personal choice, such as age, birth family or, in some contexts, caste.
• Achieved status: A social position gained through effort, choice or accomplishment, such as being a teacher, athlete or elected representative. Ascribed and achieved statuses often operate together: family background may be ascribed, while profession may be achieved.
• Master status: A status that becomes especially important in shaping a person's identity and how others respond to them.
• Status set: The collection of all statuses held by a person at a particular time.
• Role: The expected behaviour, duties and rights connected with a particular status. Status identifies a social position, whereas role describes the expectations attached to it.
• Role set: The different roles linked to one status, such as a teacher's roles toward students, colleagues, parents and administrators.
• Role conflict: A situation in which the expectations of two or more roles held by the same person clash, such as the demands of being a student, family member and employee.
• Role strain: Difficulty in meeting different expectations within the same role.
• Norms: Rules and expectations that guide behaviour in a society or group. They may be formal or informal.
• Values: Shared ideas about what is desirable, important, right or wrong.
• Sanctions: Rewards or punishments used to encourage conformity to norms. Positive sanctions include praise and rewards; negative sanctions include criticism, fines and imprisonment.
• Social control: The processes through which society encourages people to follow norms and discourages behaviour considered unacceptable.
• Informal social control: Control exercised through family, friends, customs, praise, criticism, approval or disapproval. It is usually unwritten and operates through everyday relationships.
• Formal social control: Control exercised through official rules and institutions such as laws, courts, police and schools. It is generally written and institutionalised.
• Conformity: Following the accepted norms and expectations of a group or society.
• Deviance: Behaviour or beliefs that violate, challenge or move away from accepted social norms.
• Socialisation: The lifelong process through which people learn language, values, norms, roles and ways of participating in society.
• Power: The ability of an individual or group to influence decisions, control resources or make others accept its will.
• Authority: Power regarded as legitimate or rightful by those who accept it.
• Social institutions: Family, education, religion, the economy and government. These institutions organise roles, regulate behaviour and can reproduce or challenge social inequality.

Causes and Consequences

• Human behaviour is shaped by social relationships and shared meanings, rather than being determined only by individual choices. Socialisation transmits language, values, norms, roles and accepted ways of participating in society.

• Regular interaction, shared belonging and common expectations produce social groups. Groups provide cooperation and identity, but in-groups and out-groups can also establish social boundaries and influence opportunities.

• Social stratification develops through unequal access to wealth, income, occupation, education, power, prestige, caste, class and gender. These inequalities create structured differences in life chances rather than merely reflecting natural differences between individuals.

• Open stratification systems permit movement between social positions through education, occupation or income. Closed stratification systems restrict movement, particularly where status is strongly hereditary.

• Stratification produces different forms of social mobility. Vertical mobility changes a person's position upward or downward, while horizontal mobility involves movement between positions of similar rank.

• People hold multiple statuses simultaneously, forming a status set. Each status can involve several relationships and expectations, forming a role set. This can produce role conflict when different roles clash and role strain when expectations within one role are difficult to satisfy.

• Norms and values establish expectations about acceptable conduct. Sanctions encourage conformity through positive responses such as praise or rewards and negative responses such as criticism, fines or imprisonment.

• Social control operates internally through conscience and socialisation and externally through other people and institutions. Informal control operates through everyday relationships, whereas formal control operates through written rules and institutions such as courts, police and schools.

• Social control can maintain cooperation and order by discouraging deviance. However, it may also preserve unequal power relations when dominant groups define what counts as normal or deviant.

• Power enables individuals or groups to influence decisions, control resources and impose their will. Authority differs from power because it is regarded as legitimate by those who accept it.

• Social institutions regulate behaviour and organise roles. They may reproduce existing inequalities through unequal access to resources and status, or challenge those inequalities through education, government, collective action and changes in social norms.

• The meaning and significance of groups, statuses, roles and norms vary across cultures and historical periods. Sociological analysis must therefore consider both general patterns and their social context.

What Gets Asked

• How do primary and secondary groups differ in their relationships, purposes and levels of formality?
• Why is social stratification understood as a social and historical system rather than as a consequence of natural individual differences?
• How do class, caste and gender contribute to social inequality, and how do open and closed systems affect social mobility?
• What is the difference between status and role, and how do status sets, role sets, role conflict and role strain shape behaviour?
• How do formal and informal social control encourage conformity through different forms of sanctions?
• How can social control maintain social order while also reproducing discrimination, exclusion or unequal power relations?