VCE Sociology flashcards
VCE Sociology · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Culture
- The shared system of meanings, values, norms, symbols and practices held by a group. It includes material objects and non-material beliefs that members learn and transmit.
- Norms
- Socially shared expectations about appropriate behaviour in given situations. They range from mild folkways to strong mores and are enforced through sanctions.
- Values
- Abstract ideals a group regards as desirable, such as equality or respect. Values underpin norms, which translate those ideals into expected behaviour.
- Sanctions
- Reactions that enforce norms by rewarding conformity or punishing deviance. They may be positive or negative, and formal or informal in character.
- Ethnocentrism
- Judging another culture by the standards of one's own and treating one's own as superior. It contrasts with cultural relativism, which interprets practices within their own context.
- Primary socialisation
- Early childhood learning of culture, language and basic norms, occurring mainly within the family. It forms the foundation on which later secondary socialisation builds.
- Agents of socialisation
- Institutions and groups that transmit culture, including family, school, peers, media, religion and workplace. Their messages can reinforce or conflict with one another.
- Ascribed status
- A social position assigned without the individual's choice, such as age, sex or family background. It contrasts with achieved status, which is earned through effort.
- Role
- The set of expectations, rights and obligations attached to a particular social status. Role conflict occurs when expectations from different statuses clash.
- Deviance
- Behaviour that violates a social norm. Because norms vary across cultures, settings and time periods, deviance is relative rather than absolute.
- Crime
- Behaviour that breaks a formally codified and state-enforced law. All crime is deviance, but not all deviance is crime.
- Formal social control
- Control exercised by institutions such as police, courts, schools and prisons through codified rules and sanctions. It contrasts with informal control by family and peers.
- Durkheim on deviance
- Durkheim argued deviance is normal and functional: it clarifies norms, strengthens solidarity and can signal the need for social change.
- Strain theory
- Merton's explanation that deviance results from a gap between culturally approved goals and legitimate means. Adaptations are conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion.
- Labelling theory
- The view that deviance arises from social reaction: being labelled deviant shapes identity and can produce a self-fulfilling prophecy and secondary deviance.
- Secondary deviance
- Deviance that follows a person's acceptance of a deviant label. The label reorganises identity and can lead to a sustained deviant career.
- Dark figure of crime
- The gap between crimes actually committed and those recorded in official statistics, caused by non-reporting, non-detection and recording decisions by authorities.
- Conflict theory of deviance
- The view that law reflects the interests of dominant groups. Those with power define what counts as criminal, and sanctions fall unevenly on the less powerful.
- Ethnicity
- A sense of belonging based on shared ancestry, language, religion or culture. It is socially constructed rather than a fixed biological property.
- Race
- A socially constructed category used to classify people by perceived physical differences. It has no valid biological basis but real social consequences.
- Prejudice
- A preconceived attitude toward a group or its members, often based on limited information. It differs from discrimination, which is unequal treatment in behaviour.
- Institutional discrimination
- Unequal treatment embedded in the policies and practices of organisations, which can disadvantage groups even without deliberate individual intent.
- Multiculturalism
- A policy approach that recognises cultural diversity and supports maintaining cultural identities within shared national institutions and civic values.
- Assimilation
- An approach expecting minority groups to adopt the dominant culture and abandon distinctive practices. It contrasts with integration, which permits cultural maintenance.
- Reconciliation
- A process of acknowledging past injustice, such as the Stolen Generations, and building respectful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
- Social change
- A shift over time in social structures, institutions, norms or values. It may be gradual or rapid, planned or unplanned, and is rarely linear.
- Social movement
- An organised, sustained collective effort to promote or resist social change. It differs from a crowd, fad or single protest event.
- Reform movement
- A social movement seeking change within existing social and political structures, such as campaigns for suffrage or environmental regulation, rather than structural replacement.
- Revolutionary movement
- A social movement aiming to replace existing social, political or economic structures rather than modify them. It typically seeks fundamental redistribution of power.
- Resource mobilisation theory
- An explanation of movement success through access to money, members, skills, networks and media attention, rather than grievance alone.
- Political opportunity structure
- Openings in the political system, such as sympathetic governments, electoral alliances or divided elites, that make mobilisation more likely to succeed.
- Framing
- The process by which movements construct meaning: diagnostic framing names a problem, prognostic framing proposes a solution, and motivational framing calls people to act.