NM

definitions

  • sociology: the study of companions and group life

  • sociological imagination: the ability to see the connections between our personal lives and the social world we live in

  • social structure: patterns of social relationships and behaviours that work as a system to constrain individual choice

  • agency: the ability to influence the world around us

  • economics: the study of the world from the standpoint of the economy

  • political science: the study of the world from the standpoint of the state

  • sociology: the study of the world from the standpoint of civil society

  • civil society: a set of organisations, associations, movements that exist outside both the state and the economy

  • pragmatic social behaviourism: a theory of how our sense of self emerge from social interactions

  • generalised other: an internalised sense of expectations of others

  • phenomenology: the philosophical study of how we experience things from our own point of view

  • symbolic interactionism: the study of face-to-face interactions with particular attention to the creation of meaning

  • dramaturgy: everyday social life is like a theatrical performance in which we are all actors on a metaphorical “stage”

  • impression management: we act in such a way that others will form desired impressions of us and our current situation

    • about communication, not just ‘deception’

  • ethnomethodology: the study of the methods people use for producing recognisable social orders

    • ‘ethno’: pertaining to member of a social group

    • ‘method’: a systematic procedure for accomplishing something

    • ‘ology’: the study of

  • queer theory: a “conceptualisation which sees sexual power as embedded in different levels of social life” (Stein n Plummer, 1994, quoted in Pasco 2005:331) and interrogates areas of the social world not usually seen as sexuality

  • heterosexism: a system of belief that privileges heterosexuality as the “normal” and “natural” form of sexual attraction

  • homophobia: discrimination, prejudice n violence against gay n lesbian people

  • heteronormativity: “the myriad ways in which heterosexuality is produced as a natural, unproblematic, taken-for-granted phenomenon” (Kitzinger 2005:478)

    • “these include the presumptions that there are only 2 sexes; that it is ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ for people of different sexes to be attracted to one another; that these attractions may be publicly displayed and celebrated: that social institutions such as marriage and the family are appropriately organised around different-sex pairings; that same-sex couples are (if not ‘deviant’) a ‘variation on’ or an ‘alternative to heterosexual couple’

  • conversation analysis (CA): focuses on the sequential organisation and overall structure of conversation (eg turn-taking)

  • membership categorisation analysis (MCA): focuses on how people selectively invoke social categories in their talk

  • discourse: a textually mediated system of practice that creates “truth” and knowledge

  • conceptualisation: the refinement and specification of abstract concepts

  • operationalisation: the development of specific research procedures that help us identify empirical observations that represent those concepts in the real world

  • Max Weber:

    • class: groups of ppl who are in similar market situation n share similar economic opportunities and life chances

      • property owners, propertyless intelligentsia, petty bourgeoisie, manual working-class

    • status: the social honour and prestige associated with an individual/group (may not align w economic class)

    • party: the power derived from political organisation and ideology

    • power: the ability to impose one’s will on others

  • Pierre Bourdieu:

    • economic capital: wealth, income, financial inheritances, monetary assets; what you own

    • social capital: resources based on connections n group membership

    • cultural capital: what you know and how you live it

      • institutionalised cultural capital: status conferred by institution (eg education)

      • objectified cultural capital: cultural goods that we own

      • embodied cultural capital: skills, competencies n knowledge