BSEH SS Sociology key terms

The arrangement of a society's members into ranked layers that differ in access to valued resources such as wealth, power, and prestige, with inequality transmitted across generations.

Movement of individuals or groups between positions in a stratification system, either upward or downward, and either within one lifetime or across generations.

A hereditary, endogamous, hierarchically ranked social unit in South Asia, traditionally linked to occupation and ritual purity, and historically reinforced by rules of commensality and marriage.

The fourfold classical textual model of Hindu society (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra), an ideal schema rather than a description of actual local groupings.

A local, endogamous birth-group with a recognised rank and traditional occupation; the operative unit of caste in everyday life, distinct from the pan-Indian varna scheme.

M. N. Srinivas's term for a low caste or tribal group adopting the customs, ritual, and lifestyle of a higher caste in order to claim improved status over time.

Srinivas's concept for a caste that, in a local area, is numerically strong, owns most land, and wields decisive economic and political power regardless of its ritual rank.

A traditional rural exchange arrangement in which service castes provide goods and services to landowning patron households in return for customary annual payments in grain and other produce.

A category used for communities with shared descent, territory, language, and customary self-governance, often distinguished administratively in India through Scheduled Tribe notification.

A relatively self-sufficient and enduring web of social relationships among people who share institutions, territory, and a common culture, and who reproduce themselves over generations.

A group whose members share locality, sentiment, and close everyday interaction, producing a sense of belonging; typically smaller and more personal than a society.

A deliberately formed group organised around explicit rules, aims, and membership criteria, such as a trade union or club, rather than around kinship or locality.

An established, patterned set of norms and procedures governing a recurrent social activity, such as marriage, education, or property, and sustained by shared expectations rather than by one organisation.

Two or more people who interact on the basis of shared expectations, recognise one another as members, and are linked by some common interest or purpose.

Cooley's term for a small group marked by face-to-face intimacy, emotional ties, and diffuse interaction, such as family or close friendship circles.

A group a person uses as a standard for evaluating their own attitudes and behaviour, whether or not they actually belong to it.

The position a person occupies in a social structure, carrying expectations of rights and duties; it may be ascribed at birth or achieved through effort.

The set of behaviours and obligations expected of someone occupying a particular status, learned through socialisation and negotiated in interaction.

The relatively stable pattern of positions, groups, and institutions in a society, and the regular relationships among them that constrain and enable individual action.

Shared rules of conduct specifying what is expected, permitted, or forbidden in given situations, enforced through informal sanctions and sometimes through law.

Collectively held conceptions of what is desirable or worthwhile, which shape the standards people use to judge behaviour, goals, and social arrangements.

The learned, shared, and transmitted way of life of a group, including knowledge, beliefs, norms, values, symbols, language, and material objects.

The lifelong process through which individuals acquire the knowledge, skills, norms, and values needed to participate in their society and develop a social self.

The tendency to judge other cultures by the standards of one's own and to regard one's own as superior; a barrier to objective sociological comparison.

The methodological stance of understanding beliefs and practices within the context of the culture that produced them, rather than evaluating them by outside standards.

A kinship-based domestic unit whose adult members typically share residence, economic cooperation, and responsibility for children, taking nuclear or extended forms.

A socially recognised union establishing rights and obligations between spouses and between them and their kin, including rules about sexual access, inheritance, and legitimacy of children.

The network of relationships created through descent, marriage, and adoption, which defines rights, obligations, and categories of relatives in a society.

The rule requiring marriage within a defined group, such as a caste, religious community, or clan, thereby maintaining group boundaries over generations.

The mechanisms, formal and informal, through which a society encourages conformity to norms and discourages deviance, ranging from gossip and ridicule to police and courts.

Behaviour that departs from the norms of a group or society and typically attracts disapproval or sanction; its definition varies with context and power.

Alteration over time in the structure, culture, or institutions of a society, including shifts in norms, technology, economy, and patterns of social relationships.

A process of social transformation involving industrialisation, urbanisation, spread of formal education, and growing reliance on achievement, contract, and impersonal institutions.

A sustained, organised collective effort by a group to promote or resist change in some aspect of society, often developing a shared identity and repertoire of protest.

A field method in which the researcher takes part in the daily life of the group studied while systematically recording observations, aiming at an insider's understanding.

Max Weber's interpretive approach of understanding social action by grasping the subjective meanings actors attach to their own conduct.

Conduct to which an actor attaches subjective meaning and which is oriented towards the behaviour of others; the basic unit of analysis in interpretive sociology.

An intensive, detailed examination of a single instance, such as one village, family, or organisation, used to illuminate processes that surveys may not capture.