SACE Stage 2 Society and Culture key terms

The sense of who a person is that comes from the groups they belong to, such as family, culture, religion, or nationality, and the meanings attached to those memberships.

The shared sense of belonging to a group, built from common language, values, traditions, symbols, and history, which individuals express and reinterpret in their daily lives.

The lifelong process through which people learn the norms, values, behaviours, and skills expected in their society, mainly through family, school, peers, media, and religion.

The early learning that happens in infancy and childhood, usually within the family, where a child absorbs basic language, values, and emotional responses from close caregivers.

Learning that occurs later, outside the family, through institutions such as schools, workplaces, peer groups, media, and religious organisations, shaping behaviour beyond the home.

Shared, often unwritten rules about how people are expected to behave in particular situations, ranging from everyday manners to formal legal requirements.

Broad principles or ideals that a group or society considers important and desirable, such as fairness, respect for elders, or individual freedom, which guide behaviour and judgements.

Ideas that people accept as true, often without direct proof, which may be religious, political, or moral and strongly influence attitudes and actions.

Rewards or punishments used by a group to encourage conformity to norms, including informal responses like praise or disapproval and formal ones like fines or imprisonment.

Changing one's behaviour or expressed views to match the expectations of a group or the wider society, often in response to real or perceived social pressure.

Behaviour that departs from the norms a group or society accepts, which may range from minor rule-breaking to serious criminal acts and is judged relative to context.

Judging another culture by the standards of one's own, usually treating one's own culture as normal or superior and viewing others as strange or inferior.

The approach of understanding a culture's practices and beliefs on their own terms, without assuming the standards of one's own culture are the correct measure.

The overall framework of assumptions, values, and beliefs through which a person or group interprets the world and decides what is meaningful or important.

A connected set of ideas and values that explains how society works and prescribes how it should be organised, often underpinning political or social movements.

The capacity of an individual or group to influence decisions, shape behaviour, or control resources, whether through authority, wealth, knowledge, or force.

Power that is recognised as legitimate by those subject to it, so that people comply because they accept the right of the person or body to give directions.

The uneven distribution of resources, opportunities, and status among groups in a society, visible in differences in income, education, health, and influence.

The way a society ranks its members into layers or categories that have unequal access to valued resources, often based on class, gender, ethnicity, or age.

Movement of individuals or groups between social positions or strata, which may be upward or downward and can occur within one lifetime or across generations.

The socially constructed roles, behaviours, and expectations attached to being male or female in a particular society, distinct from biological sex characteristics.

An oversimplified and generalised belief about the characteristics of a group, applied to all its members regardless of individual differences.

A preconceived attitude, often negative, toward a group or its members, formed without sufficient knowledge and resistant to evidence that contradicts it.

Unequal treatment of people based on their membership of a particular group, such as race, gender, age, or disability, rather than on individual merit.

The growing interconnection of societies through trade, communication, migration, and shared media, which spreads ideas and goods across national borders and can reshape local cultures.

The spread of cultural elements, such as language, food, technology, or beliefs, from one society to another through contact, trade, migration, or media.

The process by which diverse local cultures become more similar, often under the influence of dominant global media and consumer products, reducing distinct cultural practices.

A policy or social condition in which several cultural groups coexist within one society, with their differences recognised and, in policy terms, supported rather than erased.

Evidence expressed as numbers or measurements that can be counted and statistically analysed, such as survey percentages, census figures, or frequency counts.

Evidence that captures meanings, experiences, and descriptions rather than numbers, gathered through methods such as interviews, observation, or analysis of documents.

The extent to which a research method or measure produces consistent results when repeated, so that another researcher following the same procedure would obtain similar findings.

The extent to which a research method or measure actually captures what it claims to measure, so that conclusions drawn from the data are well founded.

A group of participants selected so that its characteristics broadly match those of the wider population being studied, allowing findings to be generalised with more confidence.

A distortion that occurs when the people selected for a study are not typical of the wider population, so results may not accurately reflect that population.

The principles guiding responsible research, including informed consent, confidentiality, avoidance of harm, and honesty in reporting, which must be considered before data collection begins.

Agreement by a participant to take part in research after being told the purpose, procedures, and possible risks, given freely without pressure or deception.

The ethical obligation to protect participants' identities and personal information, ensuring that data are stored securely and individuals cannot be identified in published findings.

Information about an event or topic produced by someone who did not witness it directly, such as textbooks, documentaries, news reports, or later analyses of data.

Evidence created by a person with direct involvement in or observation of an event, such as letters, interviews, photographs, official records, or original research data.