AQA GCSE Sociology key terms

Common standards applied to everyone regardless of family ties; also called universalistic standards, these describe how Parsons believed schools and wider society judge achievement.

Household work, such as cleaning, cooking and caring, carried out without wages.

Data or a sample that does not accurately reflect the wider population being studied.

A sample that does not reflect the relevant characteristics of its population.

An interview without a fixed sequence of questions, allowing the researcher to explore participants’ answers in depth.

A social convention learned through socialisation and experience rather than formally documented.

A small, privileged social class at the top of the class hierarchy, associated with substantial wealth, often inherited, and access to high status and influence.

Relating to towns and cities, often densely populated.

The extent to which a research measure captures what it is intended to measure.

A belief about what is important, desirable or morally right.

Agreement among members of a society about important values and goals.

A survey asking people about crimes they have experienced during a specified period and potentially whether they reported them to the police.

Education directly related to employment or a career, such as engineering, travel and tourism, or health and social care.

Income received from paid work, usually calculated or paid hourly, daily, weekly or monthly.

Assets owned, such as property, land, savings and shares.

Payments intended to support people’s welfare, for example when their income is low or they face unemployment, disability or old age.

Reliance on state benefits for income. Murray argued that welfare could encourage continuing reliance by weakening incentives to earn a living.

Changes to the organisation, funding or rules of welfare provision, including benefit levels and eligibility.

A derogatory label implying that someone receives welfare support while avoiding work or responsibility.

A negative label portraying a benefit recipient as undeserving. A benefit cheat receives benefits fraudulently; receiving benefits alone does not establish wrongdoing.

A system in which the state takes responsibility for citizens’ health and welfare through services and financial support, such as the NHS and benefits system.

Crime committed by people in relatively high-status occupations during their work, such as tax evasion or false expense claims.

Crime committed through a person’s professional or occupational position, such as fraud.

A worker doing non-manual, usually office-based work that primarily involves mental rather than physical effort.

The occupational class including manual workers in industry and agriculture in Halsey, Heath and Ridge's study.

People who are in paid employment but whose household resources are still insufficient to escape poverty.

A perspective through which someone understands society and the social world.