AQA GCSE Sociology key terms

An explanation that connects behaviour to the organisation of society, such as its class structure and inequalities.

An interview using the same prepared questions, normally in the same order, for each respondent.

A culture within a wider culture, with distinctive norms, values or practices.

How a person sees or identifies their own social class, which may differ from a classification based on occupation, income or wealth.

Poverty defined according to whether people consider themselves to be living in poverty.

In Marx’s analysis, the difference between the value workers create and the wages they receive, which capitalists appropriate as the basis of profit.

Monitoring people and gathering information to help prevent crime, for example through CCTV.

Research using questionnaires or structured interviews, with standardised questions asked in the same order.

Young and Willmott's term for a home-centred nuclear family in which spouses make similar contributions of equal importance, although their roles are not interchangeable.

A sample selected by taking every nth member of a sampling frame.

Selecting every nth member of a sampling frame after a randomly chosen starting point.

The whole group of people or institutions that a researcher intends to investigate.

Beliefs teachers hold about how pupils are likely to behave or achieve.

Developments in technology, such as the internet or mobile phones, which can change social life.

The use of violence and intimidation to achieve political goals.

An approach that uses a set of ideas to explain how society works.

An organisation of workers or employees that promotes and protects their interests, for example by negotiating pay and working conditions.

Authority accepted because of established customs and inherited status.

A general direction of change shown by data over time.

Cross-checking findings from qualitative research against evidence from a quantitative method.

The secondary education system established following the 1944 Education Act, comprising grammar, secondary technical and secondary modern schools.

The combination of paid work, domestic work and emotional work, such as maintaining relationships and supporting family members.

In Murray’s theory, a group at the bottom of society distinguished by welfare dependency and behaviour and values that he believed differed from mainstream expectations. This is a contested description, not simply another name for everyone in poverty.

Working fewer than full-time hours while being willing to work more hours if they become available.

Being without a job while actively seeking work and available to start, or having found a job and being due to start it shortly.

A group that buys and uses goods and services. Zaretsky argues that families support capitalism through this spending.

A household whose members work together to produce goods or food, for example through farming or a family craft business.