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| Core sociological knowledge base |
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Definition
| A set of fundamental concepts, skills, and topics, available to all sociologists, that enables sociologists think differently about the world. |
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| Social construction of reality |
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Definition
| A concept introduced by Berger and Luckmann (1966), who argued that human experience – the way we understand ‘reality’ – is shaped by the society in which we live; our experience of reality may therefore be challenged and changed. |
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| As defined by C. Wright Mills, an orientation adopted by the sociologist to recognize and understand the connections between individual experience and larger social structures. |
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Knowledge that is purported to be free of bias.
• Value system: A set of beliefs about what is important in life and what kinds of conduct or behavior are appropriate. |
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| German philosopher Edmund Husserl’s term for the entire communal systems of meaning that underlies everyday life. |
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| A moral stance that stresses the importance of individual self-reliance and independence. |
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| Thinking that is purposeful, deliberate, and self-regulatory, and that arrives at judgments based in well-defined criteria and evidence. |
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| Any conduct of a corporation, or of its representatives/employees acting on the corporation’s behalf, that is a criminal, civil or administrative violation. |
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| A situation that occurs when a disproportionately large number of people of a particular class or ethnicity, etc., is included in a group that is meant to represent the larger population. |
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| In descriptive statistics, each of four equal groups into which a population can be divided according to the distribution of values of a particular value. |
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| The peaceful co-existence within a state of different ethnic and cultural groups. In Canada, multiculturalism is a federal policy, supported by numerous social programs designed to promote and accommodate ethnocultural diversity. |
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| Base don or rooted in science, the systematic study of empirical evidence through observation and experiment. |
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| Empirical (or tangible) evidence |
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Definition
| Evidence that has been acquired through direct observation, and that can be verified or disproved by direct or indirect observation by more than one person. |
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| The general orientation or approach a sociologist takes in conducting research. |
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| quantitative research strategy |
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Definition
| is an approach in which the researcher collects data that can be quantified and expressed in terms of numbers, percentages, or rates, and that are amenable to statistical manipulation. |
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| qualitative research strategy |
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| is an approach in which the researcher collects data that are rich in description and not easily measured using statistical procedures. |
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| The actual technique a researcher uses to collect data. |
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| Known facts or statistic, gathered and used as the basis for reasoning, reference, or calculation. |
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| The perspective or template a researcher uses to organize how she views the world; it provides a guide for explaining any regularity she observes in the data. |
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| The framework for collecting and analyzing data. |
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| Denoting research informed by a quantitative research strategy, in which a theory is used to generate a hypothesis ad guide the collection of the data needed to confirm or reject it. |
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| Denoting a theory is the outcome, rather than the starting point of research. |
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| Based on, guided by, or verifiable by observation and experiment rather than theory or logic. |
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| The theory of knowledge; it is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, scope and limitations of knowledge. |
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| The epistemological orientation that supports the view that research methods used in the natural sciences can be equally applied to the study of society. |
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| An epistemological position associated with qualitative research, which requires that the social scientists learn about the subjective meaning of the actions of the people they study. |
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| The beliefs and feelings that researcher holds. |
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| The study of what there is ‘out there’; in other words the study of what is said to constitute ‘reality’ or the nature of being. |
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| An ontological position that asserts that the meanings attached to social phenomena are independent of the will or ideas of individuals involved in them. |
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| Constructionism (or constructivism) |
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Definition
| An ontological position that asserts that the meanings attached to social phenomena are constructed out of the acts and perceptions of social actors involved in them. |
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| A speculation, usually informed by an existing theory, about the relationship between two or more variables. |
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| An approach to reality that can best be characterized by the statement, “What is, is, what is not, is not.” |
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| An approach to reality that holds that the only valid knowledge is knowledge gained through the senses by directly observing, recording, or monitoring social and natural phenomena. |
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| The extent to which a social scientist’s values affect her approach to investigating a social problem. According to Weber, it is all but impossible for a social scientist to prevent her values from affecting her choice of research topics. |
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| An approach to investigating a research problem that is unaffected by the social scientist’s values. According to Weber, social researchers must not allow their personal values to influence the collection and analysis of data or the dissemination of research findings. |
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| Weber’s term for interpretive understanding, an approach to sociological research in which the researcher uses empathy to imagine what it would be like to relive the experiences of her research subjects. |
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| The view that all research and knowledge production is directly related to the vantage point or social location of the researcher. |
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| The framework for collecting and analyzing data. |
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| The actual techniques for collecting and analyzing data. |
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| A type of research design that focuses on a detailed analysis of a single case or situation, usually a community or organization, in a specific location. |
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| A research method in which a researcher is immersed over a period of time the social setting under study in order to observe, listen to, and gather information on the social life and culture of the people she or he is studying. |
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| A research design in which data is collected in the same unit of analysis, on at least two separate occasions. |
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| Comparison (or cross-sectional) study |
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Definition
| A research design that studies the relationship between two or more variables involving two or more cases at the same point in time. |
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| Longitudinal comparison study |
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Definition
| A research design that measure the same variable in two or more groups and compares the changes in that variable over time. |
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| A concept or feature of something that is capable of varying in amount or quality, e.g. income (amount) or social class (quality). |
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| A variable that affects, but is not affected by, the variation or occurrence of another variable (the dependent variable). |
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| A variable that is caused or affected by an independent variable. |
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| A concept is operationalized when it is defined in a way that can be measured through empirical observations. |
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| An investigation of the opinions, characteristics, or experience of a group of people, based on a series of questions designed to generate quantitative data on two or more variables. The data collected are examined for any patterns of relationship between and among the variable. |
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| A set of questions with a choice of answers, devised and administered to respondents for the purposes of a survey or statistical study. |
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| A conversation, usually face-to-face, guided by a series of questions and conducted in order to discover the opinions or experience of someone. |
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| The notion that society may be studied as if it were an organism, demonstrating growth, order, stability, and pathologies. (Henri Saint-Simon) |
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| A general theoretical orientation to the study of society that focuses on large-scale social structures and their role in maintaining or undermining social stability. |
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| Comte’s term for social structure and/or social order. |
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| Comte’s term for the process of social change. |
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| ‘Things’ that are external to the individual and capable of exercising coercive power over him or her, independent of, and resistant to, the will of any given individual (Durkheim). |
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| a set of rules governing social interaction. Social norms can be prescriptive (they can tell us what to do) or proscriptive (they can forbid us to do certain things). |
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| Durkheim’s term for the weakening or absence of the usual moral standards governing social life, which allows free rein to destructive (or self-destructive) exercises of will in pursuit of expanding or unrealistic personal goals. |
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| The philosophical position, espoused by Hegel and rejected by Marx, that thought creates reality and that physical things lack ‘veritable being’ – that they are essentially, not real. |
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| Marx’s term for historical materialism, his theoretical perspective for understanding history, society, and social relations. |
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| The term used today to describe Marx’s theoretical perspective for understanding history, society, and social relations. |
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Definition
| the characteristic way in which human labor is organized and carried out in a given era. |
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| Material forces of production |
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Definition
| Everything needed for the production to take place, including labor power and the means of production. |
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| Social relations of production |
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Definition
| The social relations through which control over the productive forces is established and maintained. In their legal form, the social relations of production take the form of property laws. |
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| Everything, apart from labor, needed for production to take place. In the capitalist mode of production, the means of production include energy, raw materials, tools, facilities, and expertise. |
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| Capitalist mode of production |
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Definition
| The mode of production, typically industrial in nature, in which productive property is held privately and used for private gain. |
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| A loss of control over, or connection with, some aspect of one’s being or activity, especially as a result of the organization of wage labor. |
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| The physical or mental capacity for work that an employee sells to an employer in return for a wage of salary. |
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| A form of social organization characterized by (1) a hierarchical chain of command, (2) the allegiance of office holders to a system of impersonal rules and regulations, (3) an absence of personal ties between a bureaucracy’s employees and its clients, and (4) decisions made on the basis of documents and files. |
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| A methodological construction that summarized the essential properties common to a number of concrete instances of a given type of social phenomenon in order to help the sociologist identify and categorize the specific social phenomena she studies. |
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| Any human behavior that has subjective meaning for an acting individual; an action is a social action when an individual takes into account the meaning his or her actions will have for others observing them, and orients his or her actions accordingly. |
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| Weber’s term for an ideal-type mental state that is characterized by a culturally or emotionally defined, coherent way of thinking, that is goal oriented and based on a cost-benefit calculation, and that is made within the context of a specific social and cultural situation or within the specific context of a specific emotional state. |
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| Weber’s term for the process by which nature, society, and individual action are increasingly mastered by an orientation to planning, technical procedure, and rational action. |
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| The process by which individuals act, interact, and react to one another in the context of social relations. |
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| A philosophical school of thought that views the social world as dynamic and emergent, brought into being by a variety of social groups that create their own way of talking, acting, and thinking, and defining what is and is not ‘real’. |
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| Cooley’s metaphor for the sense of self we develop as a result of our propensity to imagine how we appear to others, and how others judge us in any given social situation. |
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| Primary (or small) groups |
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Definition
| Human associations characterized by intimate face-to-face interaction and co-operation, representing the first and most important link between the individual and broader social institutions. |
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| Significant gestures or symbols |
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Definition
| Gestures or symbols that hold the same meaning for all participants in a social interaction, i.e. any gesture that is equally understood by the individual making it and the individual receiving it. |
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| Mead’s term for the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others, representing a direct line of action taken by an individual. |
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| Mead’s term for the organized set of attitudes of others that an individual assumes as part of himself, obtained by looking backward, considering what has already transpired, and then evaluating one’s response from the standpoint of the expectation of others. The ‘Me’ can only be known on reflection. |
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| A sense of identity that each individual possess. According to Mead, it ‘arises in the process of social experience and activity’ as an outcome of the individual’s ‘relations to that process as a whole and to other individuals within that process. |
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| According to Mead the first of three developmental stages of the self, in which the child has limited capacity to assume the perspective of others and often plays by assuming a single role. |
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| According to Mead, the second of three developmental stages of the self, in which the child has a specific role to play but must also assume the role of other player’s in order to anticipate how they will react. |
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| According to Mead, the last of three developmental stages of the self, a role taken on by the developing child when she assumes the attitudes held by other members of her community towards her as her own. |
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| A policy of racial segregation, especially in South Africa, where, by the 1950s, it consisted of numerous racial laws that allowed the ruling white minority to segregate non-white persons and to deny them human and political rights (from Afrikaans, lit. ‘apartness’). |
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| A situation that can occur when there is tension among the various roles attached to a status, or even between the roles attached to different statuses. |
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| The process of becoming a member of society, of becoming a social being, or of learning social roles. |
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| Religions whose members identify with a spiritual totem, typically an animal or other naturalistic. |
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| Human children who have lived away from children form an early age and this have little experience of human social behavior or language. |
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| A theory of human learning, popular in the eighteenth century, that argued that humans acquire beliefs, ideas, and knowledge only through sensory experience (also called radical empiricism). |
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| A theory of early socialization based on the idea that sociability (social stimulation and affection, especially from the mother) is necessary for human growth and development, especially in the early stages of life. |
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| Theory of intersubjectivity |
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Definition
| An extension of attachment theory, which focuses on the two-way interaction between infants and caregivers in the socialization process, with an emphasis on the role played by subjects other than the maternal figure (also called the intersubjective view). |
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| An individual who shares with other social actors a common frame of reference that includes common convictions, beliefs, values, a shared language, activities, and practices. |
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| The culturally defined social position that an individual holds in a social interaction, defining a person’s identity and relationship to others. |
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| A status that is involuntarily assigned to an individual regardless of her abilities or inclinations. |
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| A status that is assumed voluntarily, usually reflecting some ability or at least some effort. |
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| A status that has exceptional importance in shaping an individual’s identity and life chances. |
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| The behavior performed by an individual who holds a particular social status. |
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| All of the roles attached to a single status. |
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| A situation that can occur when there is tension among the various roles attached to a status, or even between the roles attached to different statuses. |
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| Goffman’s term for the setting where social performances meant to be seen take place. The front stage defines the situation in a general way for both an audience and a performer. |
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| Goffman’s term for the actions or interactions not intended for public view but that support a public role performance. |
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| Goffman’s term for those areas irrelevant to the performance of a particular social role or to a particular social situation. |
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| Goffman’s term for the activity engaged in by a social actor in order to guard against unintended gestures, improper use of language, and other social faux pas. |
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| Goffman’s term for the props used by a social actor makes believe that the role being played is genuine. |
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| A situation in which participants in an interaction ritual become caught up in each other’s emotions, leading to a mutual intensification of emotional energy, shared feelings, and common focus of attention. |
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| Generally, all socially transmitted social practices and knowledge systems, including languages, beliefs, values, material objects and know-how, that are transmitted from one generation to the next, and that enable humans to adapt to and thrive in a given environment. |
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| Complex patterns of behavior that are genetically preprogrammed and that regulate the activities of members of a species; instinctual behaviours tend to be found in all members of a species and are innate. |
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