Assam ASSEB Higher Secondary Sociology flashcards
Assam ASSEB Higher Secondary 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.
- Sociology
- The scientific study of human society, social relationships, groups, and institutions, using systematic observation and evidence rather than speculation or common sense.
- Auguste Comte
- French thinker who coined the term sociology in 1838 and is called the father of sociology; he advocated positivism, the study of society by scientific methods.
- Verstehen
- Max Weber's method of interpretive understanding: the sociologist seeks to grasp the subjective meanings that actors attach to their own social actions.
- Society
- A web of social relationships among people who share a territory, culture, and institutions; it is abstract, existing in relationships rather than in a physical place.
- Community
- A group of people living in a definite geographical area with shared interests, common culture, and a sense of belonging, such as a village or town.
- Association
- A deliberately formed group with a specific purpose, formal rules, and voluntary membership, such as a trade union, cooperative, or club.
- Primary group
- A small group marked by intimate, face-to-face, personal relationships and strong emotional ties, such as family, close friends, or a play group.
- Status and role
- Status is a position an individual occupies in a group; role is the dynamic behaviour expected of that position. Ascribed status is inherited, achieved status is earned.
- Kinship
- Relationships based on blood (consanguineal) or marriage (affinal) that define obligations, inheritance rights, and rules about whom one may marry.
- Polyandry
- A form of marriage in which one woman has more than one husband at the same time, as historically practised among some groups such as the Nairs.
- Jajmani system
- A hereditary patron-client economic system in Indian villages in which service castes provide goods and services to landowning families in return for customary annual payments.
- Norms
- Shared expectations of behaviour in a group, ranging from mild folkways through strongly held mores to codified laws enforced by the state.
- Looking-glass self
- Charles Horton Cooley's idea that people develop their self-image by imagining how others see them and judging themselves accordingly.
- Re-socialisation
- The process of learning new norms and roles that replace previously learned ones, typically occurring in total institutions such as prisons or the army.
- Caste
- A closed, hereditary system of social ranking marked by endogamy, ascribed occupation, and ritual hierarchy based on notions of purity and pollution.
- Social mobility
- Movement of individuals or groups between social positions; vertical mobility is upward or downward, while horizontal mobility is a change at the same level.
- Gender
- Socially constructed roles, expectations, and behaviours attached to being male or female, distinguished from biological sex and producing systematic inequality.
- Sanskritisation
- MN Srinivas's term for lower castes adopting the rituals, diet, and customs of higher castes in an attempt to claim higher ritual status.
- Westernisation
- Adoption of western ways of life, dress, manners, and institutions, exemplified in colonial India by English education and imported legal codes.
- Secularisation
- The decline of religious influence over public life and the separation of state from religion; in India it also implies equal respect for all religions.
- Modernisation
- Adoption of rational, scientific, and achievement-oriented values together with new technology and institutions; it is distinct from westernisation.
- Unity in diversity
- The coexistence of many languages, religions, castes, and ethnic groups in India within a shared cultural heritage and single political and legal framework.
- Tribal society
- A relatively small, homogeneous community with distinct culture and language, often geographically isolated, with communal ownership and simple technology.
- Rural society
- An agriculture-based society with low density, close face-to-face relations, strong kinship ties, and informal means of social control.
- Deviance
- Behaviour that violates significant social norms; it is relative to time, place, and group and is not necessarily criminal or legally punishable.
- Social control
- The means by which society enforces its norms, including formal agencies such as law and police and informal agencies such as family and public opinion.
- Absolute poverty
- A condition in which income or consumption falls below a minimum subsistence standard necessary for basic food, shelter, and clothing.
- Functionalism
- A perspective viewing society as a system of interdependent parts, each contributing to stability and survival; associated with Durkheim, Parsons, and Merton.
- Conflict theory
- A perspective holding that society is marked by competition for scarce resources and domination by powerful groups; associated with Marx and Dahrendorf.
- Symbolic interactionism
- A perspective focusing on how people create social reality through everyday interaction and the meanings they attach to symbols; linked to Mead and Blumer.
- Participant observation
- A research method in which the researcher joins a group and takes part in its activities while observing behaviour, gaining depth but risking loss of objectivity.
- Case study
- An intensive, in-depth investigation of a single person, group, or community using multiple methods, strong on detail but limited in generalisability.