Revision sheet: Social Structure and Culture

📋 Course Outline

1. Social Structure and Elements
2. Social Status Classifications
3. Social Institutions and Communities
4. Inequality and Stratification
5. Class and Stratification Theories
6. Sociological Research Methods
7. Research Analysis and Sampling
8. Culture and Its Forms
9. Cultural Components and Classification
10. Cultural Change and Contemporary Issues

📖 1. Social Structure and Elements

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Social structure : the stable, established network of relationships between the parts and elements of society — В.Занден
• Social status : the position an individual occupies in society
• Social role : A social role is what people are expected to do because of the position or status they occupy.
• Social institution : a structure composed of statuses and roles directed toward satisfying a specific social need

💡 Memory Hook

SRI: status, roles, institutions

📖 2. Social Status Classifications

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Master status : a status that is more important than a person’s other statuses

📝 Essential Points

📌 Ascribed status is acquired by birth or is given to a person, whereas achieved status is obtained through the person’s own effort and striving.

📌 Personal status is defined by characteristics such as industriousness, education, honesty, fairness, and responsibility, whereas social status is defined by demographic, ethnic, or economic characteristics such as being a Mongolian citizen or a Buddhist.

💡 Memory Hook

Ascribed status is given; achieved status is earned

📖 3. Social Institutions and Communities

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Social community : a relatively stable association of people who are similar to some extent in their living conditions, lifestyle, consciousness, norms, values, or interests
• Social group : A social group consists of people who consciously interact, share norms and values, recognize themselves as members, and are recognized by others as members.
• Nation : a historically formed community based on common language, territory, economy, psychology, and culture

📖 4. Inequality and Stratification

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Social stratification : a system of inequality characterized by patterned relationships between social strata

📝 Essential Points

📌 Social differentiation divides members of society according to personal and social characteristics, whereas social inequality means unequal opportunities to access wealth, prestige, and power.

📌 Prejudice is an attitude or opinion by which one group defines another, whereas discrimination is a real action that gives one group advantages while restricting another group’s opportunities.

💡 Memory Hook

Prejudice is an attitude; discrimination is an action

📖 5. Class and Stratification Theories

📝 Essential Points

• P. Sorokin defined a class as people similar in profession, property ownership, and the amount of power they possess. — П.Сорокин

• K. Marx argued that abolishing private property would remove the basis of classes and create the conditions for a classless society. — К.Маркс

• M. Weber argued that classes are not communities but represent a possible basis for collective action. — М.Вебер

📖 6. Sociological Research Methods

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Sampling method : studies selected representative units instead of including every person in a territory or group
• Experimental method : collects information by repeating or continuing a phenomenon or process in deliberately prepared conditions
• Content analysis : selects meaningful units from documents as variables and statistically analyzes their frequency and relationships

💡 Memory Hook

Sample, experiment, questionnaire, documents, observation

📖 7. Research Analysis and Sampling

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Population : the complete set of people or units to which a study is directed
• Median : the value that divides a distribution into two equal parts

📝 Essential Points

📌 A census studies every unit or person in the target population, whereas a sample survey studies only a selected part of that population.

💡 Memory Hook

Census studies everyone; sampling studies part of the population

📖 8. Culture and Its Forms

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Culture : the totality of material and spiritual values shaped by human intelligence and labor, and it expresses the level of human development

📝 Essential Points

📌 The axiological approach treats culture as values, whereas the anthropological approach treats everything created through human activity as culture.

💡 Memory Hook

Material culture is tangible; non-material culture is symbolic

📖 9. Cultural Components and Classification

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Symbol : an object or action whose socially accepted meaning expresses the meaning of another object or action and functions as a code
• Language : Language is a communication system using sounds and signs with conventional meanings; it creates, stores, transmits, and expresses culture.

📝 Essential Points

📌 Dominant culture is followed by most members of society, whereas subculture is associated with a particular class, stratum, or social group.

📌 Folk culture is created by often anonymous artists without requiring professional training, mass culture is distributed broadly through mass media, and elite culture is created by professional artists for or associated with the upper social group.

📖 10. Cultural Change and Contemporary Issues

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Cultural diffusion : the spread and renewal of cultural elements from their original territory to neighboring regions through intercultural contact
• Cultural globalization : the process by which separate cultures converge into an integrated global culture through developments in transport, economic relations, and information communication

📝 Essential Points

• The three main sources of cultural change are:
  • environmental change
  • contact with other groups
  • new discoveries or inventions

💡 Memory Hook

Contact and innovation → diffusion, integration, and cultural change

📊 Synthesis Tables

Core Social Distinctions

Notion	Meaning	Contrast
Status	Position occupied in society	Different from role, which is expected behavior
Social group	Consciously interacting members sharing norms and membership	More specific than a statistical community
Prejudice	Attitude or opinion about another group	Different from discrimination, which is action
Census	Study of the whole population	Different from sampling, which studies part of it