Revision sheet: Social Structure, Research, and Culture

📋 Course Outline

1. Elements of Social Structure
2. Social Status Categories
3. Social Institutions and Communities
4. Ethnic and National Communities
5. Inequality and Stratification
6. Classes, Measures, and Power
7. Sociological Research Methods
8. Sampling and Data Analysis
9. Culture and Its Components
10. Cultural Forms and Change
11. Modern Cultural Issues
12. Cultural Universals and Classification

📖 1. Elements of Social Structure

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Social structure : the established and stable network of relationships among the parts and elements of society — В.Занден
• Social status : the position that a person occupies in society
• Social role : A social role is what people are expected to do because of the position or status they have acquired.
• Social institution : an organized complex of statuses and roles directed toward satisfying a specific social need

💡 Memory Hook

SRI: Status, Roles, Institutions

📖 2. Social Status Categories

📝 Essential Points

📌 Ascribed status is a status given to a person, whereas achieved status is acquired through the person’s own effort and persistence.

📌 Personal status is determined by qualities such as diligence, education, honesty, fairness, and responsibility, whereas social status is determined by demographic, ethnic, and 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

📝 Essential Points

• The main social institutions are:

  • family
  • education
  • political institutions
  • economic institutions
  • religious institutions

• Family institutions reproduce, raise, and educate the next generation.

• Educational institutions transmit and create knowledge and culture, socialize younger generations, and prepare human resources.

💡 Memory Hook

FEPERS: Family, Education, Politics, Economy, Religion, Society

📖 4. Ethnic and National Communities

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Social group : people who consciously interact, share norms and values, recognize their membership, and are recognized by others as members
• Ethnicity : An ethnicity is a community connected by a common language, psychological characteristics, customs, traditions, way of life, and culture, usually living in one territory.
• Nation : A nation is a community historically formed on the basis of common language, territory, economy, psychology, and culture.

💡 Memory Hook

Clan → tribe → ethnicity → nation

📖 5. Inequality and Stratification

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

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

📝 Essential Points

📌 Social differentiation is the division of social members according to personal and social characteristics, whereas social inequality is unequal access to economic wealth, prestige, and power.

📌 Direct discrimination produces unequal treatment under the same or similar conditions based on age, sex, ethnicity, or religion, whereas indirect discrimination results from standards, norms, or actions that create unequal outcomes without an explicit difference.

💡 Memory Hook

Differentiation separates groups; stratification ranks them unequally.

📖 6. Classes, Measures, and Power

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• White-collar class : The white-collar class consists of intellectual workers, including managers, specialists, assistants, executives, and technical-level intellectual workers.
• Blue-collar class : The blue-collar class consists of physical workers, from highly skilled manual workers to workers performing simple tasks requiring little preparation or skill.
• Power : Power is the ability to make someone do what one wants and includes political pressure, influence, and personal or official prestige.

📝 Essential Points

• Socioeconomic position is the objective measure of inequality and is determined by education, income, and occupation.

💡 Memory Hook

White-collar work is intellectual; blue-collar work is physical.

📖 7. Sociological Research Methods

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

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

📝 Essential Points

📌 General methods are used at particular stages across almost all sciences, whereas special methods are mainly used within one specific science.

💡 Memory Hook

Sample → experiment → questionnaire → documents → observation

📖 8. Sampling and Data Analysis

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Mode : the value of the characteristic with the highest frequency in a distribution
• Median : the value of a characteristic that divides a distribution into two equal parts

📝 Essential Points

📌 A census studies all units or people in the target population, whereas a sample survey studies only a selected part of that population.

💡 Memory Hook

A census studies everyone; a sample studies part of the population.

📖 9. Culture and Its Components

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Culture : the totality of material and spiritual values shaped by human intelligence and labor and expresses the level of human development
• Language : Language is a communication system using conventionally meaningful sounds and signs, and it creates, stores, transmits, and expresses culture.
• Norm : A norm is a rule of behavior, and cultural norms may be formal or informal.

📝 Essential Points

• Non-material culture includes:
  • ideas
  • theories
  • teachings
  • customs
  • traditions
  • art
  • literature
  • education
  • philosophy
  • ethics

💡 Memory Hook

SLKNV: Symbols, Language, Knowledge, Norms, Values

📖 10. Cultural Forms and Change

📝 Essential Points

📌 Static culture is viewed as stable and unchanging, whereas dynamic culture is examined through movement and change.

📌 Ethnocentrism places one’s own ethnic or national culture at the center and considers it superior, whereas cultural relativism regards each culture as unique and valuable.

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

💡 Memory Hook

Diffusion → integration → diversification → expansion → accumulation

📖 11. Modern Cultural Issues

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Cultural immunity : Cultural immunity is a culture’s capacity to protect its values, strengthen its existence, and respond to external influence or cultural imposition.
• Cultural identity : Cultural identity is awareness of one’s cultural norms, practices, language, values, and status as a bearer of that culture.
• Cultural globalization : Cultural globalization is the process by which separate cultures converge into an integrated global culture through advances in transport, economic relations, and information communication.
• Cultural industry : The cultural industry produces and distributes cultural goods and works based on individual creativity, skills, and talent and protected by intellectual property.

💡 Memory Hook

Global communication → cultural globalization and cyberculture

📖 12. Cultural Universals and Classification

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Cultural universal : A cultural universal is a general characteristic, norm, rule, or value found in all cultures.

📝 Essential Points

• Murdock identified 72 universal cultural patterns, including (Жорж Мёрдок):
  • toolmaking
  • body decoration
  • prohibitions on incest
  • dance
  • sport
  • religious rituals
  • gift-giving
  • visiting
  • burial customs
  • language and education

📌 Dominant culture is followed by most members of society, subculture is associated with a class, stratum, or social group, and counterculture opposes the dominant culture’s values.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Social Inequality Concepts

Concept	Meaning	Typical indicator
Social differentiation	Division by personal or social characteristics	Group distinctions
Inequality	Unequal access to wealth, prestige, or power	Opportunities
Social stratification	Patterned system of inequality	Social strata
Discrimination	Actions restricting another group’s opportunities	Direct, indirect, or institutional treatment