Sociological Theories (AQA A Level Sociology): Flashcards

Merton argued there are functional alternatives, e.g. single-parent families can also carry out primary socialisation.

False.

Merton argued some parts of society are functionally autonomous, e.g. curriculum reforms need not affect the legal system or religion.

Latent functions are the unintended and often unrecognised functions of an institution, which can be positive or negative, e.g. schools reinforcing class divisions.

Functionalism is criticised as teleological because it assumes things exist because of their outcomes, failing to explain how functions arise.

Functionalism is unscientific because it is not falsifiable: it sees deviance as both functional and dysfunctional.

Dennis Wrong criticised functionalism as an overly deterministic view that treats people as passive.

Postmodernists see functionalism as outdated because it assumes universal norms still exist in a fragmented, diverse society.

Neo-Marxism is a group of 20th-century theories that build on Marx's ideas while responding to criticisms, especially his overemphasis on economic determinism.

False.

Humanistic Neo-Marxists such as Gramsci take a more interpretivist approach, placing greater emphasis on ideology, culture and human agency.

Gramsci argued that worsening economic conditions are necessary but not enough for revolution, because ideas and ideology play a central role.

Hegemony is the dominance of the ruling class over others, not just through force, but through ideas and culture.

Gramsci argued that the capitalist state cannot rule by force alone: it needs the consent of the people.

Dual consciousness is Gramsci's idea that workers' ideas are shaped both by ruling-class ideology and by their actual experiences of exploitation and poverty.

Organic intellectuals are working-class thinkers and leaders who challenge bourgeois ideas and promote socialist values instead of capitalist ones.

Maduro argued that religion can support political struggle; e.g. parts of the Catholic Church in Latin America backed Liberation Theology.

True.

The ruling class can rely on the police, courts or army to suppress resistance, e.g. police were deployed against striking miners in the UK.

False.

The Frankfurt School argued that culture and ideology are just as important as economics in maintaining capitalism.

False needs are desires for products and lifestyles that serve capitalism, not real human well-being.

Mass media helps the ruling class by spreading entertainment and distraction, e.g. celebrity gossip, which diverts attention from inequality and injustice.

The Frankfurt School argued that consumer culture makes people lose their capacity for critical thinking.

Althusser meant that political and ideological structures are not mere reflections of the economy; they can also influence and support it.

Ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) are institutions such as education, media, religion and the family that maintain control through ideas and beliefs.

The state uses repressive state apparatuses, such as the police and courts, when consent breaks down, to suppress dissent.

Althusser saw free will as an illusion because it is produced by ideological structures, e.g. education promotes the myth of meritocracy.

False.

Althusser argued that socialism would emerge from contradictions between the three structures of society.

Althusser's theory is criticised as still deterministic because it argues that structures shape everything, leaving little room for individual action.

In Walby's triple systems theory, women are oppressed by patriarchy, capitalism and racism.

Saying the three systems in triple systems theory intersect means that women's experiences are shaped by multiple forms of oppression at once.

Paid work disadvantages women because they are concentrated in low-paid, part-time jobs, while men dominate higher-status, better-paid positions.

True.

Violence against women, e.g. domestic abuse, functions as a means of control and is often minimised or ignored by institutions such as the police.

Walby argues that cultural norms regulate women's sexuality, often holding them to double standards.

Cultural institutions reinforce male dominance by depicting women in narrow, stereotypical roles, e.g. mother or wife, or by sexualising them.

True.

It recognises that class, race and gender intersect, so a working-class Black woman may face oppression differently from a white middle-class woman.

Essentialism is the belief that all women share the same experience of patriarchy.

Some Western feminists are accused of being ethnocentric because they judge women's experiences in other cultures through their own cultural norms.

Discourses are ways of talking and thinking about the world that shape how we understand gender, power and identity.

Cixous describes language as phallocentric: male-dominated and reflecting a male view of the world.

Poststructuralist feminists believe social change can be created by changing language, e.g. challenging sexist language in media, schools and politics.

False.

Poststructuralists challenge the belief that a universal truth can be discovered through science and reason, and that society inevitably progresses.

Instead of universal explanations, poststructuralist feminism focuses on individual experiences and local contexts.

Walby criticises poststructuralist feminism as too abstract because it is overly academic and language-focused, offering little practical help for women's real-world problems.

Segal criticised poststructuralist feminism for ignoring structural inequalities such as poverty and gender-based violence.

True.

Walby points out that women still share common disadvantages, e.g. a greater risk of sexual assault.

Weber's two levels of analysis are the level of cause, which explains behaviour through structural factors, and the level of meaning, which explains it through subjective meanings.

Calvinists worked hard and lived frugally because they saw work as a religious calling that glorified God's name.

False.

Calvinists were living out a religious ethic; their work ethic unintentionally helped give rise to modern capitalism.

Weber argued that Calvinism promoted disciplined work, frugality and reinvestment, fostering the spirit of modern capitalism.

Instrumentally rational action is calculated, goal-oriented action, e.g. maximising profit by paying low wages.

An example of traditional action is following customs because 'it has always been done that way'.

Schutz argued that Weber's theory is too individualistic because it overlooks the shared nature of meanings, e.g. of a handshake.

False.

Some actions fit more than one type, e.g. Trobriand Islanders' ritual gift exchange could be seen as traditional or as strengthening trade.

Symbolic interactionism examines how people create meaning through interaction and the use of symbols, especially language.

According to Mead, humans interpret the meaning of a stimulus before responding, rather than responding automatically.

Mead argued that we interpret others' meanings by taking the role of the other.

The looking-glass self is the idea that our self-concept is shaped by how we believe others see us.

A deviant career is the sequence of stages a person moves through, shaped by labels and others' reactions, that leads to a deviant identity.

The aim of impression management is to project a particular image and control the impressions our performance creates.

Role distance is Goffman's idea of a gap between our real self and our roles, e.g. an actor is not truly the character they play.

False.

Goffman argued that roles are only loosely scripted, giving us freedom in how we perform them, e.g. some parents are strict, others easy-going.

Interactionism is said to ignore wider structures because it focuses on face-to-face interactions, ignoring structures such as class inequality, and fails to explain where labels originate.

Phenomenology is an interpretivist perspective, developed by Husserl, that sees the social world as a product of the human mind and focuses on the shared meanings people use to make sense of it.

Schutz called the shared categories we use to classify the world typifications.

Schutz argued that shared common-sense categories create the natural attitude, the taken-for-granted reality everyone shares.

False.

Durkheim treated suicide statistics as objective facts; Taylor argued they reflect social meanings rather than absolute truths.

An appeal suicide is a way of sending a message, with an expectation of survival, though death may still occur.

A sacrifice suicide is ending one's life to help or save others, e.g. a soldier jumping on a grenade.

Garfinkel developed ethnomethodology from phenomenology.

Indexicality is where meanings are context-dependent and not fixed, which can threaten social order by making communication difficult.

Garfinkel says social order is created from the bottom up, through common-sense knowledge and everyday interactions.

False.

That is interactionism; ethnomethodology focuses on the methods or rules people use to produce meanings in the first place.

In ethnomethodology, reflexivity is using common-sense knowledge to make meanings seem obvious, even when they are not, which keeps interaction running smoothly.

Garfinkel's breaching experiments involve deliberately breaking social norms to see how people react.

Craib criticises ethnomethodology because its findings are often trivial, pointing out the obvious.

Structuralists argue that ethnomethodology ignores power and inequality, overlooking how class, patriarchy and power shape what counts as common sense.

The duality of structure is Giddens' idea that structure and agency are interdependent: structures shape actions, but actions create and sustain structures.

Giddens argued that structure has two elements: rules and resources.

Language illustrates structuration because it guides behaviour, yet it only exists because people use it, and through use they reproduce and change it.

Archer argued that Giddens underestimates how much structures can resist change.

For Waters (1995), globalisation is a social process that reduces the constraints of geography on economic, political, social and cultural life.

Martell says that for individuals, physical distance and time zones matter less.

True.

Virtual space allows people anywhere in the world to interact instantly, sharing the same online space at the same time.

Two economic causes of globalisation are the growth of transnational corporations (TNCs) and global production chains; worldwide markets are another.

Globalisation has been driven by the decline in the power of nation-states and the rise of global organisations, e.g. the UN and EU.

Postmodernists see globalisation as largely positive because it creates a global consumer class.

Jameson and Harvey see postmodern society as not a complete break from the past, but simply the latest stage of capitalism.

Flexible accumulation is Harvey's term for the post-Fordist production that followed the 1970s economic crisis, producing for niche markets with fast turnover of styles.

Postmodernists see identity as shaped by what we consume, rather than fixed roles such as class, gender or occupation.

False.

They argue it has weakened working-class unity, replacing it with individualism.

Globalisation benefits capitalism by opening new markets and allowing TNCs to move production to low-wage countries.

A rainbow alliance is where new social movements, such as environmentalism, feminism and anti-racism, unite to challenge capitalism.

Postmodernists argue that Marxism is outdated because it still relies on the Enlightenment belief in objective truth and progress.

One strength is that it explains the adaptability of capitalism, showing how capitalism evolves to survive economic crises.

Late modernity is the stage in which the features of modern society, especially rapid social change, have intensified, rather than a completely new type of society.

Giddens and Beck still follow the Enlightenment project, believing we can discover objective knowledge and use it to improve the world.

Disembedding is where interaction no longer requires face-to-face contact, so social life can happen across time and space, e.g. online banking.

False.

Giddens argues that we are still in modernity, but it is now more dynamic, unstable and global.

For Giddens, reflexivity is where traditions no longer dictate behaviour, so people constantly reflect on and adapt their behaviour using new information.

Beck argues that today's risks are manufactured by human activity, such as climate change and pollution.

Awareness of risks, often via the mass media, prompts demands for change, which Beck calls reflexive modernisation.

Beck argued that these technologies generate new risks so large and complex that humans struggle to contain them, e.g. Chernobyl.

False.

Beck argues that global interconnectedness means risks spread rapidly.

Giddens and Beck offer a strong alternative because they accept rapid change but argue that modernity's structures still shape life.

Elliott notes that rich and powerful groups can limit their exposure to risk, e.g. by living in low-pollution areas, while the poor cannot.

Rustin argues that risk comes not from technology alone but from the way technology is used under capitalism.

Positivists believe it is both possible and desirable to apply the logic and methods of the natural sciences to society.

Popper argued that good scientific theories are bold and falsifiable.

Popper says science thrives in open or liberal societies that encourage criticism and debate.

A paradigm is, for Kuhn, a shared framework of theories, methods, techniques and assumptions that acts as a worldview for scientists.

Normal science is solving the 'puzzles' set by the paradigm rather than creating anything radically new.

A scientific revolution is triggered when anomalies build up, and rival paradigms compete until one is accepted.

False.

Realists argue that science often studies unobservable phenomena; e.g. physicists cannot see subatomic particles, but can measure their effects.

For Keat and Urry, the difference is that in open systems, such as sociology, variables cannot be controlled, so precise prediction is impossible, whereas in closed systems it is possible.

Durkheim studied suicide to establish sociology as a scientific discipline.

False.

Interpretivists aim for in-depth understanding of meanings (verstehen), because humans have free will.

Durkheim argued that Catholic suicide rates were lower because Catholics were more integrated than Protestants.

Popper sees Marxism as unscientific because, when predicted revolution did not occur, explanations like 'false consciousness' made Marxism impossible to disprove.

Ford shows that sociology can be scientific because he hypothesised that comprehensive schools would increase social class mixing, and was able to test and falsify this hypothesis.

Douglas (1967) argued that suicide statistics are socially constructed by coroners.

Atkinson claimed that we can never know the 'real' rate of suicide, only how the living interpret deaths.

Kuhn claimed sociology is not yet a science because it is pre-paradigmatic: perspectives such as functionalism and Marxism disagree on basic assumptions.

True.

Postmodernists argue science is no more valid than other worldviews and is shaped by its relationship with capitalism.

Realists see Marxism as scientific because it studies underlying structures, such as capitalism, that cause events even though they are unobservable.

Value freedom is the idea that sociologists can keep their own beliefs, opinions and prejudices completely out of their research.

Comte believed sociologists could discover what was best for society, objectively and with scientific certainty.

Twentieth-century positivists promoted 'objectivity through neutrality'.

False.

They argued that it is not sociology's job to fix society, nor the sociologist's concern how those in power use research.

Gomm argues that value freedom is impossible because whoever funds the research controls the values behind it.

Value freedom supports replicability because if researchers keep their values out, their methods and findings can be checked and repeated by others, increasing trust in the results.

Phillips (1977) argued that values shape data collection because it is a social process, involving interaction between researchers and participants.

Domain assumptions are, for Gouldner (1970), the unconscious worldviews, shaped by culture, that all sociologists hold.

False.

Gouldner believed value-free sociology is a myth, because sociology is a social product shaped by human values.

Becker argued that sociologists should 'take the side of the underdog', such as marginalised groups.

Postmodernists reject any perspective as more true than another because they argue that all knowledge is shaped by values and assumptions, and this even applies to postmodernism itself.

Value involvement can undermine credibility because if sociology is seen as activism rather than science, it may be dismissed as propaganda.

Value relevance is Weber's idea that values inevitably shape the choice of topic, as researchers study what they regard as socially important.

Weber argued that during data collection, a hypothesis must stand or fall solely on whether it matches the observed facts.

Weber argued values should be made explicit so that others can see where possible bias may enter the analysis.

False.

Weber argued that sociologists must take responsibility for the potential harm their research might cause.

Social policy is a government strategy to tackle social issues, such as poverty, unemployment and homelessness.

Worsley defined a social problem as an issue in society that causes personal troubles or public conflict, e.g. poverty.

A sociological problem is any pattern or behaviour in society that sociologists want to study, whether or not it is seen as a problem.

False.

Politicians are more likely to adopt policies that win votes; e.g. higher taxes on the wealthy may be ignored.

Ideological bias can limit sociology's influence on policy because governments tend to favour research that fits their political values; e.g. a Conservative government is more likely to use New Right research.

Globalisation limits sociology's influence on policy because international organisations, such as the EU and IMF, influence national policies, sometimes more than domestic sociologists.

Research commissioned by government departments may be more likely to influence policy than independent critical research.

Interest groups can affect social policy because powerful groups, such as businesses, can pressure governments to reject or adopt policies; e.g. not raising the minimum wage.

Functionalists see social policy as helping society run smoothly by fixing dysfunctions through gradual change.

False.

Marxists argue that policies mainly benefit the ruling class; e.g. welfare benefits keep workers healthy enough to work.

The Black Report (1980) reflected social democratic views by highlighting class inequalities in health and recommending reforms via welfare spending.

Radical feminists see some policies as reflecting patriarchy; e.g. tax and benefit systems assume women are dependent on men.

Charles Murray argued that welfare benefits create an 'underclass' dependent on the state.

Left realists say crime is reduced by policies that tackle deprivation, poverty and inequality, e.g. community policing.