Sociology: Studying Sociology

Studying Sociology.

Culture is the whole way of life for a whole group of people passed from one generation to the next.

Values: shared by most members of society e.g. violence is wrong.

Norm: informal and unwritten rules about how we should behave everyday; they are based on values e.g. be nice to others.

Role: a pattern of behaviour expected in certain situations based on values e.g. teachers should not hit students.

Cultural diversity: differences across cultures.

Multicultural: a place with many cultures (Britain is multicultural).

Social control is when sanctions are applied by an official institution or by everyone in everyday life.

Social control is a process because it is a series of events that happen one after the other.

Formal social control is when sanctions are applied by an official institution, such as a court, or by a person in authority.

Informal social control is when sanctions are applied by everyone in everyday life.

Functionalists see social control as part of the machine in society.

Marxists see social control as the upper classes controlling society and the lower classes following.

Feminists see social control as men forcing/controlling women and women having to follow.

Schools-teachers exercise control as they make students behave in a certain way.

Peer groups-they enforce sanctions when they don’t agree with someone/something.

Mass media-they influence how people think they should look or behave.

Religion-they have rules which are guidelines of how people should live their lives.

Structuralist

-         See the individual as being shaped by society.

-         Everybody is influenced by what society thinks is right and “good”.

-         The large institutions in society such as politics, education and health care have the power to change things in society.

Inertactionist

-         See society as being shaped by the individual.

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