WBCHSE HS Sociology key terms

The systematic study of human society, social groups, and patterned social interaction, using empirical evidence and theory to explain how social structures shape individual behaviour and how people collectively reproduce or change those structures.

C. Wright Mills's idea that personal troubles must be understood as connected to public issues, requiring the analyst to link individual biography with the wider historical and structural arrangements of a society.

The relatively stable pattern of roles, institutions, and groups that organises social life, constraining and enabling action by distributing positions, resources, and expectations across a population over time.

A population living together within a defined territory who interact through shared institutions, norms, and a common culture, reproducing themselves across generations while remaining internally differentiated.

A group of people bound by shared locality, kinship, or common interests, whose members feel a sense of belonging and mutual obligation, often contrasted with the more impersonal ties of modern urban society.

A deliberately formed group organised around a specific, stated purpose with defined membership rules, such as a trade union, cooperative, or club, in contrast to a community based on spontaneous belonging.

An established, enduring pattern of normative rules and organised practices governing a major area of social life, such as family, education, or religion, sustained by shared expectations rather than by particular individuals.

The social position a person occupies within a group or society, carrying expectations and prestige; it may be ascribed at birth or achieved through effort and choice.

The set of expected behaviours, rights, and obligations attached to a particular status, learned through socialisation and enacted in interaction with others who hold related statuses.

Shared rules of conduct specifying what behaviour is expected, permitted, or forbidden in given situations, enforced through informal sanctions such as disapproval or formal sanctions such as legal penalties.

Collectively held ideas about what is desirable, good, or worthy, which guide the selection of goals and justify norms; they are more general and abstract than specific rules of behaviour.

The total learned and shared way of life of a group, including knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom, and material objects, transmitted socially rather than biologically across generations.

The lifelong process through which individuals acquire the knowledge, skills, norms, and values needed to participate in society, beginning in the family and continuing through peers, school, and media.

A relatively permanent kinship group based on marriage, blood, or adoption, forming a household or network of obligations that regulates reproduction, economic cooperation, and the early socialisation of children.

A socially recognised and usually legally sanctioned union between partners that establishes rights and duties concerning sexual relations, reproduction, property, and the creation of affinal kinship ties.

The network of relationships established through descent, marriage, and adoption, which defines obligations, inheritance rights, marriage rules, and patterns of mutual support within and between groups.

The hierarchical arrangement of social groups into ranked layers that enjoy unequal access to valued resources such as wealth, power, and prestige, with positions tending to persist across generations.

Movement of individuals or groups between social positions in a stratification system, whether upward or downward, within a single lifetime or across generations, and whether achieved individually or collectively.

The unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and rewards among individuals and groups, produced and maintained by social arrangements such as stratification, discrimination, and unequal access to education and employment.

Alteration over time in the structure, culture, and functioning of a society, including shifts in institutions, norms, and patterns of inequality, arising from internal tensions as well as external contacts and technological developments.

The growth in the proportion of a population living in towns and cities, accompanied by the spread of urban lifestyles, occupational diversification, and greater reliance on formal institutions and impersonal relationships.

The transition from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by machine production in factories, transforming occupational structure, family life, class relations, and patterns of residence.

The process by which societies adopt rational, secular, and achievement-oriented institutions and values, involving scientific outlook, formal education, bureaucratic organisation, and weakening of ascriptive ties.

The increasing interconnection of economies, cultures, and communication across national borders, producing flows of goods, capital, information, and people that reshape local institutions and identities.

A hereditary, endogamous, and hierarchically ranked social grouping traditionally linked with occupation and ritual purity in Indian society, whose membership is fixed by birth and reinforced by customary sanctions.

A category of communities distinguished by shared descent, territory, language, and customary institutions, often with relatively self-contained economies and distinct forms of political organisation recognised in Indian administrative practice.

A social grouping based primarily on economic position and occupation, whose members share broadly similar life chances and status, and whose boundaries are relatively open compared with caste.

The socially constructed roles, expectations, and identities associated with being male or female in a given society, distinct from biological sex and reproduced through socialisation, family, education, and work.

The coexistence within Indian society of immense linguistic, religious, regional, and cultural variation alongside shared political institutions, symbols, and a common civilisational identity that accommodate difference.

An in-depth, intensive investigation of a single instance, such as one family, village, or institution, using multiple sources of evidence to illuminate processes that large-scale surveys cannot capture.

A research technique in which the investigator directly watches and records behaviour in its natural setting, ranging from detached non-participant watching to full participation in the group's activities.

A systematic method of collecting data from a defined population, usually through questionnaires or interviews, to describe the distribution of characteristics, attitudes, or behaviour across a large number of cases.

A guided conversation in which a researcher elicits information from a respondent, structured with fixed questions or open-ended to allow probing, suited to exploring meanings and experiences.

A written set of standardised questions administered to respondents, usually in large numbers, allowing uniform comparison of answers but limited opportunity to clarify or probe meanings.

The process of selecting a subset of cases from a larger population so that findings can be generalised, using probability methods such as random or stratified selection, or non-probability methods such as purposive selection.

A perspective treating society as an integrated system of interdependent parts, each contributing to stability and survival, and explaining institutions by the functions they perform for the whole.

A perspective holding that society is held together by power and domination rather than consensus, and that institutions serve dominant groups while generating tensions and struggles over scarce resources.

A micro-level perspective, developed by Mead and others, that social reality is produced in face-to-face interaction through shared symbols, meanings, and the interpretive practices of actors.

Durkheim's term for a condition in which norms become weak, unclear, or conflicting, leaving individuals without adequate guidance for their aspirations and conduct, often accompanying rapid social change.