Studying society

Studying society

Sociological terms
1. Sociological approach: understanding human society that focuses on social structures.
2. Psychological approach: Understanding the human behaviour by looking at individuals make-up.
3. Biological approach: Looking at biological make-up (DNA, chromosomes etc)
4. Power: This is the ability of other people to get us to do what they want whether we want to or not.
5. Social control: Ways of ensuring people behave in socially acceptable ways such as socialisation, laws etc.
6. Culture: A group of people who share norms, values and beliefs.
7. Subculture: A smaller group of people who share the same norms,values + beliefs but that are different from the main culture.
8. Socialisation: The process of learning norms, values and beliefs. This can be primary or secondary socalisation.
9. Institution of socialisation: The different social structures that are involved in socialising members of society such as the family, education system, mass media, religion etc.
10. Race: Differences in culture, nationality, skin colouretc. are biological.
11. Ethnicity: Differences in culture but it's not based on biology - this is based on social differences.
12. Sex: Female and male
13. Age: This is biological, but there are sociological points to make such as being treated differently due to age.
14. Gender: The social categories of masculine and feminine.
15. Stereotype: Having a 'typical' image of a person based on social categories such as gender, age, job etc.
16. Deviance: Acting in a way that goes against cultures/ societies norms, values and beliefs.
17. Norms: Ways to act, behave that are seen as 'normal' within a culture/subculture.
18. Values: The things that a culture/subculture believe are important such as earning a living or owning a house.
19. Beliefs: The things that a culture/subculture believes in, such as God or innocence.
Sampling methods
1. A sample is a slesction of the population who are chosen to take part in research.
2. Stratified sampling: This involves picking people from different groups within the population. (E.g. different gender, ethnicities, ages etc)
  1. Strengths: This sample will be representative and give the view points of all different groups in the population.
  2. Weaknesses: It is more time consuming than other methods.
3. Random sampling: This sample is selected by picking names out of a hat ( or computer)
  1. Strengths: No researcher bias in who is selected. Everyone gets an equal chance. It is also quick and easy.
  2. Weaknesses: The sample might be all the same sort of people (e.g/ too many males) so it ill not be representative.
4. Quota sampling: The researcher picks participants until they have the number they need.
  1. Strengths: Quick and easy to select the right sort of people for the research.
  2. Weaknesses: The sample is likely to be biased.
5. Systematic sampling: The researcher uses a system to pick participants e.g. every tenth name on the list.
  1. Strengths: The participants will be a cross section of the population, so it will hopefully be representative.
  2. Weaknesses: Only the people on the register stand a chance.
6. Snowball sampling: The researcher selects one person, then they ask them to put them i touch with other people.
  1. Strengths: Useful to researching hard to contact groups like gangs.
  2. Weaknesses: Very time consuming, so only small samples are used and the results are not generalizable.
Ethics
1. Ethics are morals. Researchers follow ethical guidelines. which are certain rules about how they must treat their participants. .
2. Sociologists have to make sure that when an ethical issues arises in research, they do everything they can to address it.
3. The main ethical issues
  1. You must get consent or parental consent for anyone under 16.
  2. After research, debrief participants.
  3. You must not harm or distress participants.
  4. Give them (participants) the chance to withdraw.
  5. Maintain confidentiality
  6. Keep everything anonymous.
  7. You must not deceive participants.
Research methods.
1. Primary research is the best way to get accurate, reliable data. The problem is it is very time consuming.
2. Secondary data can be useful because it's cheap and easy. However, It may be bias or inaccurate.
3. Most sociologists use a mix of both.
4. Primary research
  1. Strengths
    1. The information has been collected yourself, so it is more likely to be accurate.
    2. The information is more likely to be relevant.
  2. Weaknesses
    1. It's time consuming and expensive.
    2. It can be difficult to collect a large amount of information.
  3. Primary research methods.
    1. Questionnaires
    2. Interviews
    3. Observations
    4. Experiments
5. Secondary research
  1. Strengths.
    1. It is easy to collect a lot of information quickly and cheaply.
    2. There are a lot of sources of data available
  2. Weaknesses
    1. It is more likely to be biased
    2. The researcher might have their own agenda
  3. Secondary research methods
    1. Statistics
    2. Media reports, blogs, etc.
    3. Letters, emails etc
    4. Research studies

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	Created by sophie.hamilton2 about 10 years ago