A-Level Sociology: Key Sociologists & Theories Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key sociologists, core theories, key terms, and research methods across Education, Family/Households, and Research Methods.

Émile Durkheim (Theory of Education)

Theory stating that education creates social cohesion and moral consensus, teaches shared values and norms, and creates a collective conscience.

Talcott Parsons (Theory of Education)

Theory stating that education allocates people to roles based on ability (meritocracy) and selects talent for different positions in society.

Karl Marx (Theory of Education)

Theory stating that education reproduces class structure, serves capitalist interests by creating an obedient workforce, and ideologically indoctrinates the working class.

Correspondence Principle (Bowles & Gintis)

Theory stating that the hidden curriculum teaches working-class obedience, discipline, and punctuality because schools mirror the factory hierarchy.

Ideological State Apparatus / ISA (Louis Althusser)

Theory stating that education functions as an ideological state apparatus to reproduce capitalism through ideology rather than coercion.

Labeling Theory (Howard Becker)

Theory stating that labels applied by teachers influence student identity, with negative labels applied to working-class and ethnic minority students leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Pygmalion Effect (Rosenthal & Jacobson)

Theory demonstrating that telling teachers certain students are "bloomers" improves their performance as teacher expectations become self-fulfilling.

Natalie Sharpe (Theory on Gender Feedback)

Theory stating that teachers' comments on girls differ from boys, praising girls for appearance/behavior and boys for ability, which shapes educational aspirations.

Michelle Stanworth (Marginalization in Education)

Theory stating that teachers have lower expectations of girls, leading to girls being marginalized in classrooms and affecting their subject choices and career aspirations.

Sue Lees (Patriarchal Control in Schools)

Theory stating that school culture subjects girls to sexual harassment and uses "slag" labels to control girls' sexuality, reinforcing patriarchal control.

George Murdock (Four Functions of the Family)

Theory stating that the nuclear family is universal and performs four essential functions: sexual regulation, reproduction, socialization, and economic cooperation.

Talcott Parsons (Theory of the Family)

Theory stating that the nuclear family features an instrumental father and expressive mother to meet emotional and economic needs, fitting modern industrial society.

Friedrich Engels (Monogamous Family & Property)

Theory stating that the monogamous family emerged with private property and that patriarchy serves to control women's sexuality and ensure legitimate heirs.

Ann Oakley (Housework & Unpaid Labor)

Theory stating that housework is unpaid labor performed by women that has been historically undervalued yet sustains capitalism.

Germaine Greer (Institutionalized Female Oppression)

Theory stating that family and marriage institutionalize female oppression by trapping women through economic dependency and sexuality control to naturalize patriarchy.

Judith Stacey (Postmodern Family Theory)

Theory stating that postmodern families are plural, diverse, and fluid, where people actively construct different family forms rather than adhering to a single family type.

Erving Goffman (Front/Backstage Family Model)

Theory stating that the family operates on a front/backstage basis (public face vs private reality), where members perform roles and identity is created through interaction.

Positivism (August Comte)

Theory stating that society can be studied like the natural world using scientific methods to discover social laws through observation and quantification.

Verstehen (Max Weber)

Interpretive approach meaning "understanding," emphasizing that sociologists must understand the meanings behind social action, setting social sciences apart from natural sciences.

Falsifiability (Karl Popper)

Theory stating that science progresses by testing hypotheses and rejecting those falsified, prioritizing refutation over confirmation.

Émile Durkheim (Positivist Suicide Method)

Method using official statistics (secondary data) on suicide under a positivist approach, treating suicide as a social fact.

Aaron Cicourel (Critique of Official Statistics)

Theory stating that official statistics are unreliable because they reflect policing and bureaucratic practices rather than actual behavior, requiring qualitative methods to understand meanings.

William Labov (Observation Method)

Method using overt and covert participant observation in natural settings to study language variation.

Reflexivity (Alvin Gouldner)

Theory stating that researchers must acknowledge their own values and biases because they cannot be truly objective and their subject position matters.

Peter Townsend (Mixed Methods Methodology)

Method combining quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to study poverty comprehensively.