Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Culture, Socialization, Status and Role
Grouping the concepts
Master the classic distinctions. A society is the largest enduring web of relationships and institutions within which people live; a community is a locality-based or gemeinschaft-like grouping with face-to-face ties and shared identity; an association is a deliberately formed organisation with explicit aims and rules (a club, union, or firm). Institutions are established, normative patterns governing a basic social need - family, education, religion, economy, polity. A frequent trap is treating "institution" as a building; it is a pattern of norms and roles, not a structure of bricks.
Culture
Distinguish material and non-material culture, and within non-material culture separate norms (folkways, mores, laws), values, beliefs, symbols and language. Know ethnocentrism (judging others by one's own standards) versus cultural relativism (understanding a culture on its own terms). Note subculture versus counterculture, and culture lag (Ogburn) where material culture outpaces non-material adaptation.
Socialisation
Socialisation is the lifelong process of learning culture and becoming a social being. Separate primary (family, early childhood, affective) from secondary (school, peers, workplace, formal) socialisation, and know agents and the nature versus nurture debate. Mead's "I" and "me", Cooley's looking-glass self, and Freud's id/ego/superego are commonly examined.
Status and role
Ascribed status is assigned at birth; achieved status is earned. Role is the behavioural expectation attached to status; role conflict arises between roles, role strain within one role.
Worked example
A doctor in a village clinic: the clinic is an association; medicine is an institution; treating patients is her role; her medical degree is an achieved status; if she is also a mother facing a night shift, that is role conflict.