Student Resources
Glossary
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
F
- Factual questions
- Questions that raise issues concerning matters of fact (rather than theoretical or moral issues).
- Family
- A group of individuals related to one another by blood ties, marriage or adoption, who form an economic unit, the adult members of which are responsible for the upbringing of children. All known societies involve some form of family system, although the nature of family relationships is widely variable. While in modern societies the main family form is the nuclear family, a variety of extended family relationships are also often found.
- Family capitalism
- Capitalistic enterprise owned and administered by entrepreneurial families.
- Fecundity
- A measure of the number of children that it is biologically possible for a woman to produce.
- Feminist theories
- A sociological perspective which emphasizes the centrality of gender in analysing the social world, and particularly the uniqueness of the experience of women. There are many strands of feminist theory, but they all share in common the desire to explain gender inequalities in society and to work to overcome them.
- Fertility
- The average number of live-born children produced by women of childbearing age in a particular society.
- First World
- The group of nation-states that possesses mature industrialized economies, based on capitalistic production.
- Flexible production
- Process in which computers design customized products for a mass market.
- Focused interaction
- Interaction between individuals engaged in a common activity or a direct conversation with one another.
- Fordism
- The system pioneered by Henry Ford, involving the introduction of the moving assembly line, and crucially linking methods of mass production to the cultivation of a mass market for the goods produced – in Ford’s case particularly his famous Model T Ford car.
- Formal operational stage
- According to Piaget’s theory, a stage of cognitive development at which the growing child becomes capable of handling abstract concepts and hypothetical situations.
- Formal relations
- Relations which exist in groups and organizations laid down by the norms or rules of the ‘official’ system of authority.
- Front region
- A setting of social activity in which individuals seek to put on a definite ‘performance’ for others.
- Functionalism
- A theoretical perspective based on the notion that social events can best be explained in terms of the functions they perform – that is, the contributions they make to the continuity of a society – and on a view of society as a complex system whose various parts work in a relationship to each other in a way that needs to be understood.
- Fundamentalism
- A belief in returning to the literal meanings of scriptural texts. Fundamentalism may arise as a response to modernization and rationalization, insisting on faith-based answers, and defending tradition byusing traditional grounds.
G
- Gender inequality
- The differences in the status, power and prestige women and men have in groups, collectivities and societies.
- Gender order
- A term associated with the writings of R. W. Connell, the gender order represents patterns of power relations between masculinities and femininities that are widespread throughout society.
- Gender regime
- The configuration of gender relations within a particular setting, such as a school, a family or a neighbourhood.
- Gender relations
- The societally patterned interactions between men and women.
- Gender roles
- Social roles assigned to each sex and labelled as masculine or feminine.
- Gender
- Social expectations about behaviour regarded as appropriate for the members of each sex. Gender does not refer to the physical attributes in terms of which men and women differ, but to socially formed traits of masculinity and femininity. The study of gender relations has become one of the most important areas of sociology in recent years, although for a long time they received little attention.
- Gender socialization
- How individuals develop different gender characteristics in the course of socialization processes.
- Generalized other
- A concept in the theory of George Herbert Mead, according to which the individual takes over the general values of a given group or society during the socialization process.
- Genetically modified organisms
- GMOs are plants or crops that have been produced through manipulation of the genes that compose them.
- Genocide
- The systematic, planned destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.
- Genre
- A concept applied in media studies to refer to a distinct type of media product or cultural item. In the world of television, for example, different genres include soap opera, comedy, news programmes, sport and drama.
- Gentrification
- A process of urban renewal in which older, decaying housing is refurbished by affluent people moving into the area.
- Global city
- A city, such as London, New York or Tokyo, which has become an organizing centre of the new global economy.
- Global commodity chains
- A worldwide network of labour and production processes yielding a finished product.
- Global governance
- The framework of rules needed to tackle global problems, and the diverse set of institutions (including both international governmental organizations and national governments) needed to guarantee this framework of rules.
- Global village
- A notion associated with the Canadian writer Marshall McLuhan, who saw the spread of electronic communication as binding the world into a small community. Thus, people in many different parts of the world follow the same news events through television programming.
- Global warming
- The gradual increase in temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. Global warming, or the ‘greenhouse effect’, occurs as built-up carbon dioxide traps the sun’s rays and heats up the earth. The effects of global warming are potentially devastating, including floods, droughts and other changes to the world climate.
- Globalization
- Growing interdependence between different peoples, regions and countries in the world as social and economic relationships come to stretch worldwide.
- Government
- The regular enactment of policies, decisions and matters of state by officials within a political apparatus. We can speak of ‘government’ as a process, or the government to refer to the political authorities overseeing the implementation of their policies by officials. While in the past virtually all governments were headed by monarchs or emperors, in most modern societies the political authorities are elected and their officials are appointed on the basis of expertise and qualifications.
- Greenhouse effect
- The build-up of heattrapping greenhouse gases within the earth’s atmosphere. While a ‘natural’ greenhouse effect keeps the earth’s temperatures at a comfortable level, the build-up of high concentrations of greenhouse gases through human activities has been linked to global warming.
- Greying
- A term used to indicate that an increasing proportion of a society’s population is becoming elderly.
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- All the goods and services on record as being produced by a country’s economy in a particular year, regardless of who owns these factors.
- Gross National Income (GNI)
- Gross Domestic Product plus net property income (interest, rent, dividends andprofits) from abroad. (The term GNI is now used in preference to a Gross National Product, or GNP, an older but similar measure.)
- Group closure
- The means whereby a group establishes a clear boundary for itself and thereby separates itself from other groups.
- Group production
- Production organized by means of small groups rather than individuals.
H
- Health transition
- The shift from acute, infectious diseases to chronic noninfectious diseases as the main cause of death in a society. In industrialized societies which have undergone the health transition, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera and malaria have been practically eradicated and chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease have become the most common cause of death.
- Hegemonic masculinity
- A term first introduced by R. W. Connell, hegemonic masculinity refers to the dominant form of masculinity within the gender hierarchy. Although hegemonic masculinity subordinates other masculinities and femininities, it can be challenged by them. In most Western societies today, hegemonic masculinity is associated with whiteness, heterosexuality, marriage, authority and physical toughness.
- Heterosexuality
- An orientation in sexual activity or feelings towards people of the opposite sex.
- Hidden curriculum
- Traits of behaviour or attitudes that are learned at school, but which are not included within the formal curriculum. The hidden curriculum is the ‘unstated agenda’ involved in schooling – conveying, for example, aspects of gender differences.
- Higher education
- Education beyond school level, in colleges or universities.
- High-trust systems
- Organizations, or work settings, in which individuals are permitted a great deal of autonomy and control over the work task.
- Homeless
- People who have no place to sleep and either stay in free shelters or sleep in public places not meant for habitation.
- Homophobia
- An irrational fear or disdain of homosexuals.
- Homosexual masculinity
- According to R. W. Connell’s model of gender relations, homosexual masculinity is stigmatized and located at the bottom of the gender hierarchy for men. In the prevailing gender order, homosexuals are seen as the opposite of the ‘real man’ embodied by hegemonic masculinity.
- Homosexuality
- An orientation of sexual activities or feelings towards others of the same sex.
- Housework (domestic labour)
- Unpaid work carried on, usually by women, in the home; domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning, and shopping.
- Human resource management
- A branch of management theory that regards employee enthusiasm and commitment as essential to economic competitiveness. The human resource management (HRM) approach seeks to develop in workers the sense that they have an investment in company products and in the work process itself.
- Hunting and gathering societies
- Societies whose mode of subsistence is gained from hunting animals, fishing and gathering edible plants.
- Hyperreality
- An idea associated with the French author Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard argues that, as a result of thespread of electronic communication, there is no longer a separate ‘reality’ to which TV programmes and other cultural products refer. Instead, what we take to be ‘reality’ is structured by such communication itself. So the items reported on the news are not just about a separate series of events, but actually themselves define and construct what those events are.
- Hypothesis
- An idea, or an educated guess, about a given state of affairs, put forward as a basis for empirical testing.
I
- Ideal type
- A ‘pure type’, constructed by emphasizing certain traits of a given social item into an analytical model which does not necessarily exist anywhere in reality. The traits are defining, not necessarily desirable, ones. An example is Max Weber’s ideal type of bureaucratic organization.
- Identity
- The distinctive characteristics of a person’s character or the character of a group which relate to who they are and what is meaningful to them. Some of the main sources of identity include gender, sexual orientation, nationality or ethnicity, and social class. An important marker of an individual’s identity is his or her name, and naming is also important for group identity.
- Ideology
- Shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify the interests of dominant groups. Ideologies are found in all societies in which there are systematic and ingrained inequalities between groups. The concept of ideology has a close connection with that of power, since ideological systems serve to legitimize the differential power held by groups.
- Immigration
- The movement of people into one country from another for the purpose of settlement.
- Impression management
- An idea associated with the American sociologist Erving Goffman. People ‘manage’ or control the impressions others have of them by choosing what to conceal and what to reveal when they meet other people.
- Incest
- Sexual activity between close family members.
- Independent variable
- A variable, or factor, that causally influences another (the dependent variable).
- Individual model of disability
- A theory that holds that individual limitations are the main cause of the problems experienced by disabled people: bodily ‘abnormality’ is seen as causing some degree of ‘disability’ or functional limitation. This functional limitation is seen as the basis for a wider classification of an individual as ‘an invalid’. The individual model of disability has been criticized by supporters of the social model of disability.
- Industrial Revolution
- The broad spectrum of social and economic transformations that surrounded the development of modern forms of industry. The Industrial Revolution launched the process of industrialization.
- Industrial societies
- Societies in which the vast majority of the labour force works in industrial production.
- Industrialization
- The development of modern forms of industry – factories, machines and large-scale production processes. Industrialization has been one of the main sets of processes influencing the social world over the past two centuries. Those societies which are industrialized have characteristics quite different from those of the less developed countries. For instance, with the advance of industrialization only a tiny proportion of the population works in agriculture – a major contrast with pre-industrial countries.
- Infant mortality rate
- The number of infants who die during the first year of life, per thousand live births.
- Informal economy
- Economic transactions carried on outside the sphere of orthodox paid employment.
- Informal relations
- Relations which exist in groups and organizations developed on the basis of personal connections; ways of doing things that depart from formally recognized modes of procedure.
- Information poverty
- The ‘information poor’ are people who have little or no access to information technology, such as computers.
- Information society
- A society no longer based primarily on the production of material goods but on the production of knowledge. The notion of the information society is closely bound up with the rise of information technology.
- Information technology
- Forms of technology based on information processing and requiring microelectronic circuitry.
- Institutional capitalism
- Capitalistic enterprise organized on the basis of institutional shareholding.
- Institutional racism
- Patterns of discrimination based on ethnicity that have become structured into existing social institutions.
- Intelligence
- Level of intellectual ability, particularly as measured by IQ (intelligence quotient) tests.
- Interactional vandalism
- The deliberate subversion of the tacit rules of conversation. Intergenerational mobility Movement up or down a social stratification hierarchy from one generation to another.
- International governmental organization (IGO)
- An international organization established by treaties between governments for the purpose of conducting business between the nations making up its membership.
- International non-governmental organizations (INGOs)
- An international organization established by agreements between the individuals or private organizations making up its membership. Internet A global system of connections between computers allowing people to communicate with one another and find information on the World Wide Web by visuals, sounds and text in a way that escapes the time and space, and the cost, limitations of distance – and also the control of territorial governments. Internet-based learning Educational activity connected through the medium of the internet.
- Intragenerational mobility
- Movement up or down a social stratification hierarchy within the course of a personal career. IQ Short for ‘intelligence quotient’, a score attained on tests consisting of a mixture of conceptual and computational problems.
- Iron law of oligarchy
- A term coined by Weber’s student Roberto Michels, meaning that large organizations tend towards the centralization of power in the hands of the few, making democracy difficult.
J
- Job insecurity
- A sense of apprehension experienced by employees about both the stability of their work position and their role within the workplace.
K
- Kinship
- A relation which links individuals through blood ties, marriage or adoption. Kinship relations are by definition involved in marriage and the family, but extend much more broadly than these institutions. While in most modern societies few social obligations are involved in kinship relations extending beyond the immediate family, in many other cultures kinship is of vital importance for most aspects of social life.
- Knowledge economy
- A society no longer based primarily on the production of material goods but on the production of knowledge. Its emergence has been linked to the development of a broad base of consumers who are technologically literate and have made new advances in computing, entertainment and telecommunications part of their lives.
- Knowledge society
- Another common term for information society – a society based on the production and consumption of knowledge and information.
- Kuznets Curve
- A formula showing that inequality increases during the early stages of capitalist development, then declines, and eventually stabilizes at a relatively low level; advanced by the economist Simon Kuznets.
L
- Labelling theory
- An approach to the study of deviance which suggests that people become ‘deviant’ because certain labels are attached to their behaviour by political authorities and others.
- Latent functions
- Functional consequences that are not intended or recognized by the members of a social system in which they occur.
- Lateral mobility
- Movement of individuals from one region of a country to another, or across countries.
- Left Realism
- A strain of criminology, popularized in the 1980s by the work of Jock Young, that focused on the victims of crime and called for criminology to engage practically with issues of crime control and social policy.
- Legitimacy
- A particular political order gains legitimacy if most of those governed by it recognize it as just and valid.
- Lesbianism
- Homosexual activities or attachment between women.
- Liberal democracy
- A system of democracy based on parliamentary institutions, coupled to the free market system in the area of economic production.
- Liberal feminism
- A form of feminist theory that believes that gender inequality is produced by reduced access for women and girls to civil rights and certain social resources, such as education and employment. Liberal feminists tend to seek solutions through changes in legislation that ensure the rights of individuals are protected.
- Life course
- The various transitions people experience during their lives.
- Life expectancy
- The length of time people can on average expect to live when born. Specifically, the concept refers to the number of years a newborn infant can be expected to live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth stay the same throughout its life, regardless of gender.
- Life histories
- Studies of the overall lives of individuals, often based both on selfreporting and on documents such as letters.
- Lifelong learning
- The idea that learning and the acquisition of skills should occur at all stages of an individual’s life, not simply in the formal educational system early in life. Adult continuing education programmes, mid-career training, Internet- based learning opportunities and community-based ‘learning banks’ are all ways in which individuals can engage in lifelong learning.
- Lifelong literacy
- The ability to read and write.
- Life-span
- The maximum length of life that is biologically possible for a member of a given species.
- Lifestyle choices
- Decisions made by individuals about their consumption of goods, services and culture. Lifestyle choices have been seen by many sociologists as important reflections of class positions.
- Low-trust systems
- An organizational or work setting in which individuals are allowed little responsibility for, or control over, the work task.
