A B C D E F G H I L M N P Q R S T U W X
Ageism
A form of discrimination that judges people on their age rather than on their actual ability and personal characteristics.
Agency
Concept referring to the willed and voluntary nature of an individual’s life and action, as opposed to the constraint and determinism of social structures.
Alienation
The state of estrangement, or of being cut off from others. In sociology, the Marxian sense of alienation is used to show how alienation can occur in the labour process, whereby the commodification of working causes the worker to be estranged from him or herself, the products of their labour, and from their fellow workers. In this way alienation is not only a state of being and a subjective feeling but a structured field of social action in modern industrial capitalist societies.
Alternative modernities
The trajectories towards modernisation of a society that do not follow the historical paths taken first in Britain, then in Western Europe, and North America.
Americanisation
The process whereby a nation or culture is purported to take on more and more characteristics of the United States (whose global military and economic dominance also involves the exporting of its technology and cultures).
American Revolution (1775–83)
One of the first of the modern revolutions, this political struggle was won by the settlers of the North American colonies established by Britain along the Atlantic coast. These colonies federated into the United States of America. This is also known as the American War of Independence.
Anomie
The French sociologist, Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) introduced the concept of anomie (‘without law’, ‘without norms’) to sociology in 1893. A concept often mistaken for alienation, it is not about estrangement so much as social disorder brought about by different rates of social evolution—especially between the rapid development in economic and technological innovations brought about by the industrial revolution that outstrip the ordering traditions of the religious, social, legal, and political institutions of society. Anomic disorder is the objective measure of the gap between these spheres of social action, whereby new goals and desires are made possible but the societal frames for giving them shape and limit are not yet developed. The specialised division of labour of modern industrial societies creates the social conditions of the cult of individualism but the norms for governing this new sphere of social action are not yet in place so that suicide, crime, political strikes, psychological breakdown, and family dysfunctions are said to multiply.
Artefacts
Objects created and used by humans as part of their material culture.
Asceticism
The practice of disciplining one’s self for some other higher goal or good. This typically involves the renunciation of bodily needs and desires. Traditionally the goal of ascetic practices was for religious reasons but in modern societies also for reasons of health, fashion, slimming, etc.
Australian identity
The idea that the Australian nation can be unified and pinned down under one set of characteristics that make it unique and different to all other nations.
Australian settlement
A shorthand description of the process of colonisation of the continent, migration into Australia, and the establishment of a nation state. More specifically, it refers to the main policy agenda of the Commonwealth governments in and around the time of Federation, 1901: namely, White Australia Policy, tariffs, Arbitration and Industrial Reconciliation, the basic wage as a family wage, and pensions. This use of the term is also closely associated with the popular sense of Australia at the outset of the twentieth century as a ‘Workingman’s Paradise’.
Autonomous society
A society that does not impute its social, political, and economic orders to some external social sources—whether divine or natural. It attempts to take responsibility for its own ordering processes, traditions, and institutions, which in turn requires a collective reflexivity that continuously readjusts itself to the changing material circumstances of its own survival. The challenge for such modern societies is to combine collective social life with large technocratic states, capitalist markets, and individual freedom.
Autonomous subject
The idea that an individual is responsible for one’s own being and becoming in the world. It does not mean that the individual is the complete master of his or her own fate, but it does mean that we are responsible for the consequences of how we deal with our fates and what destinies we choose for ourselves. Autonomy also means that we are not just individuals but reflexive subjects who think about what we experience and have ways of learning from our reflections.
Baby boomer
Someone born between 1945 and 1965 who was thus part of the population explosion and prosperity of the post-World War II societies of Western Europe, North America, Japan, and Australasia.
Biomedical model
Often also called the ‘medical model’, this term refers to the idea that medicine is dominated by ‘bio’ explanations of individual and group problems based on natural science models of cause and effect, at the exclusion of other causes, such as social causes.
‘Born modern’
The idea that a nation, such as Australia, is settled and developed out of and after the scientific, technological, and capitalist revolutions that had taken place in Britain and Western Europe.
Capitalism
The economic system that currently dominates the globe and is based on the private ownership of resources and the means of producing goods and services for profit through the market.
Civil law
Codes and regulations governing the relationships between private individuals. This is separate to the laws against the state dealt with by criminal law.
Civil religion
The institutions and stories that bind people together in a secular society with an almost religious reverence. The concept goes back to eighteenth-century discourses but in recent time has been revived by the work of Bellah, Putnam, and Shils.
Civil society
A way of conceiving public life and activities that differentiates spheres of social action. Civil society is those forms of social association and action that can be distinguished from private individual and kinship systems, from the market and the bureaucratic apparatus of the state. Civil society not only consists of unions, voluntary associations, cooperatives, and mutualist associations, but also forms of social participation and sociability in public settings. It also can include the mass media and some market activities but the purpose of civility is interpreted as for non-economic goals. Societies with dynamic and large civil spheres of sociability are said to be more democratic, open, and autonomous societies.
Class
This term refers to one of the main ways in which societies are stratified and divided; the economic inequalities between people. It is most commonly associated with the analyses of Marx (the social relations of production determined by forms of property ownership or lack thereof ) and Weber (market position and economic capacity of individual members of society).
Class-consciousness
The term used predominantly by Marx and Marxists for the process whereby different classes come to understand themselves as a united whole working in opposition to other classes.
Colonialism
The conquest or control of one nation or territorial unit by another.
Colonisation
The process of creating colonies in a foreign land to bring that land under the control and subjugation of the home nation.
Commodity/Commodification
The creation of a product for exchange (for money or another item) rather than for personal use or consumption.
Community
One of the most vague and contested concepts in sociology, this generally refers to groups of people who have some sense of having things in common. The forms of community range from families, localities, networks, societies, and clubs. The ties that bind communities might include shared kinship, ethnicity, culture, place, and interest.
Consumerism/Consumer culture
A culture based on the belief that the constant consumption of products and services is the basis of a good life, and in which social divisions and status are based on such consumption (rather than work, race etc.).
Continuous market expansion
The idea, often associated with neo-liberal economic theories, that economic growth and incorporation of ever-increasing areas of life into market relations constitute the sign of ‘progress’ or good economic management.
Coolie question
The debate in the late 1800s and early 1900s across the British New World settler societies about the use of large numbers of indentured foreign workers (usually Chinese) and its effects on white workers and white society.
Cosmopolitanism
Derived from the ancient Greek to mean ‘citizen of the world’, this term emphasises a global network of polities and exchange relations of universal markets and rule of law based on a common humanity that transcends national boundaries and identities.
Counter-culture
The types of social organisation or cultural groups that challenge the dominant norm and values held within a society, often seen to arise in the 1960s.
Credit revolution
The expansion of interest-based loans and instant credit during the late twentieth century that contributed to the growth of consumerism after that time.
Criminal law
The series of codes and legal sanctions that deal with the violation of a society’s most cherished norms.
Cult of the individual
The idea that the individual is an autonomous entity that must be worshipped and maintained against all other forces.
Cult of the pioneer
The celebration and valorisation during the early twentieth century of early white settlers and their ‘taming’ of the bush and frontier in the nineteenth century.
Cultural homogeneity
The idea that a society has one culture in which everyone participates and values.
Cultural imperialism
The dominance and control of one society’s or group’s culture by that of another for the gain of the latter.
Cultural memory/Collective memory
The stock of knowledge found in a society that has been recorded as the ‘official’ version of events or history out of the enormous complexity of social reality.
Cultural traffic
The movement and exchange of values, ideas, beliefs, mores, and products between two or more destinations.
Culture
The values, beliefs, norms, mores, and material artefacts that create a ‘design for life’. Culture is both an ordering disposition for members of a society, and the everyday expressivity of its members, individually and collectively.
Culture of poverty
Associated with the work of American anthropologist Oscar Lewis, this concept focuses on the way in which a family or community fails to emphasise means for positive achievement, and instead expresses resignation, fatalism, and hopelessness, through cycles of dysfunctional and self-defeating behaviours.
Culture-blindness
The process of ignoring the cultural background and needs of individuals and groups (especially minorities) and assuming all people ‘are the same’ or should be assimilated into such a condition.
Decolonisation
The process by which former colonies gain independence from their colonial masters.
Deliberative democracy
The idea, often associated with the work of the German social theorist, Jurgen Habermas (1929– ), that democracy can only legitimately function if its citizens discuss, debate, and deliberate on issues, rather than merely engage in periodic representative voting.
Dialogic democracy
The model of democracy similar in many ways to deliberative democracy, which argues that citizens need to be engaged in debate over what is the best decision or course of action in such a way that the force of better argument determines their final decision. As in any dialogue, communication and constant re-negotiation are at the centre of dialogic democracy.
Diaspora
Dispersal of a group of people from their homeland across large distances.
Discourse
Texts, speech, language that produce knowledge and organise meaning in particular social systems and institutions.
Disenchantment
Term developed by the German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1919) to describe the increasing ‘demagicalisation’, secularisation, and rationalisation of life. It refers to the way in which we no longer attribute events or causes in our lives and the universe to the supernatural—gods or demons or spirits—but to ‘natural’ processes. Weber highlights the disenchanting process through the technological application of the scientific domination of nature that is combined with sceptical and systematic modes of apprehending the world and the development of abstract and instrumental systems of bureaucracy for organising societies.
Division
The boundaries and processes that separate people from each other and emphasise
their differences, rather than bringing them together on the basis of similarities.
Double involvement
A concept developed by British sociologist Anthony Giddens (1938– ), which sees humans as both going about their everyday life and simultaneously reproducing the larger structures of social life.
Double shift
The problem faced by many women of doing one shift of work outside the home in the labour market, then coming home to work a second shift at home (cleaning, cooking etc.). Also called the ‘second shift’.
Egalitarianism
The belief that all people in a society or nation are intrinsically equal and should be treated as such, exemplified in the catch cry, ‘fair go’.
Enclosure Acts
The laws passed by British Parliament mainly between 1760 and 1830 aimed at reorganising British agriculture so as to make efficient use of new agricultural technology. These laws individualised communal land into private plots, required farmers to build expensive fences around the land, and forbade agricultural labourers from gleaning food off their landlord’s property. As a result, many of the peasants and poorest farmers of Britain were forced to move to the cities to survive.
Enlightenment
The intellectual movement that emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe (especially France and Scotland). It revolted against religion, superstition, and faith, calling for a new world based on rationality and equality. It was to have profound consequences for Western society, being used as the creed for numerous revolutions and counter-revolutions. Its influence and legacy still lie at the basis of Western culture and intellectual thought.
Environmental determinism
The idea that people’s behaviour and society’s development are ultimately shaped by the physical and natural environment.
Ethnographic research
A type of research pioneered by sociologists at the University of Chicago—and concurrently by anthropologists such as Branislow Malinowski (based in London) and Franz Boas (New York)—in which the researcher immerses her/himself in the culture/group they are discovering in an attempt to understand the members of that group and thus gain a ‘thick description’ of their behaviour and way of life. Both traditions can be traced further back to the travel writings from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, and in nineteenth century investigative journalism with a social reform agenda. In sociology, ethnography is often called ‘community studies’.
Evangelical Revival
The influential social movement beginning in the late 1700s in Britain and the US that ‘revived’ Protestant ideas of individual salvation and moral purity as opposed to church structures and establishments.
Feminism/Feminist
The various individuals, theories, doctrines, and social movements concerned with the experience of women, especially the oppression and unequal treatment of women. Marxist feminism, liberal feminism, radical feminism, cultural feminism, post-modern feminism, and eco-feminism have been just some of the schools of thought that indicate the diversity of positions and views within the broader rubric ‘feminism’.
Fetishisation/Fetishism
The process whereby things are given value rather than the people who create them. For Marx, this has occurred with commodities under capitalism. As in religion, products become entities/gods in themselves that people desire and worship and are thus affected by.
Fordism
The production system so named for the innovations first proposed and developed by Henry Ford in his Detroit car factory. It is based on mass production and mass consumption through assembly-line technology and standardised commodities.
Functionalism
The paradigm of sociological thinking that believes every part of a society (institution, belief-system etc.) has an existence in society because it has a function in the reproduction of the societal whole. Dominant in American sociology until the late 1960s.
Gender
The social expectations, beliefs, and rules that are ascribed to the different biological sexes.
Gender politics of technology
The way in which technology is developed differently for men and women and thus reinforces certain gendered assumptions about each sex.
Gendered division of labour
The organisation of activities, chores, and tasks around alleged ‘differences’ between the sexes, such as women cook indoors while men cook outdoors.
Gentrification
The process whereby affluent people move into formerly poor, inner-city, or working class neighbourhoods and proceed to renovate and beautify the properties, which in turn raises property values and forces out poorer residents.
Gerontocracy
A form of social organisation by which the eldest of the social group control resources and hold power. This is frequently a gendered process with patriarchy (‘rule of the father’) the historically dominant form of pre-modern societies.
Global city
A city that acts as a hub for global traffic (economic and cultural) and becomes networked with other such cities, often making them political entities that are relatively autonomous from national governments.
Globalisation
The economic, cultural, and political interdependence and interconnectedness of all nations on the planet, best captured in the definition by American sociologist of religion and sociological theorist, Roland Robertson (1938– ): ‘the time-space compression of the world and the increased consciousness of the world as a whole’.
Governmentalisation/Governmentality
A concept usually associated with French philosopher, historian, and sociologist Michel Foucault (1926–84), who attempted to capture the process involving the coordination and administration of individuals and various parts of social life by authorities (such as schools, hospitals, the state) through developing techniques that make self-disciplining an unreflexive act of the social ordering of the knowledge–power nexus.
Habitus
The concept used most prominently by French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) to capture the ensemble of habits, feelings, traditions, languages, and smells that one habituates in everyday life. The habitus is that which we take for granted, and therefore structures our dispositions, our common sense in our embodied selves, our kinship and friendship circles, and our institutions as we experience them. The concept refers to embodiment of past experiences of social life that creates in individuals a subconscious disposition, a ‘feel for the game’ of social life. Bourdieu used this concept to avoid falling into the reductionism of philosophies of agentic free will or structural determinism.
Hegemony
An old political concept referring to political predominance of one state over another, or of one class over another, but which is first developed and introduced into modern political sociology by the Italian Weberian–Marxist political theorist, journalist, and activist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), who died in prison at the hands of Mussolini’s fascist government. Gramsci highlights that the domination of one group over another is never achieved by brute economic or political means alone but through the shared common sense character developed by cultures and societies. Rulers therefore rule by consent and ideas and not just by force or physical coercion. The spheres of civil society, everyday life, media, and social associations are therefore important sites of ideological struggle in and for themselves.
Household economy
The economic system (including work, production, consumption, providing of services) carried out in the home/private sphere and that is estimated to be almost half of all economic activity in the Australian economy (around $470 billion in 2000).
Hybridisation
A term taken from biological sciences that refers to the meeting of different cultures and the synthesis and grafting between them that produces syncretic, ever-changing, new cultures.
Hyper-individualism
The idea that contemporary societies have become dominated by the belief in individual self-interest and gratification above all else. This is viewed as having detrimental social effects.
Identity
A social process of fixing what something is or who someone is, and thus the means by which we come to understand what is around us. The key dichotomy of identity is the imputation of sameness and difference.
Ideology
Systems of ideas and beliefs, attitudes and opinions. For some critics, ideologies that mask inequalities and injustices and thus serve the interest of a dominant group. Ideology critique is then viewed as an important political aspect of sociological investigation. The assumption is that the unmasking of false ideological constructions of society will lead to more rational and more just political and social order. For others, however, all interpretations of social reality are insufficient, impartial, but nevertheless necessary for the purposes of human living and action, and this applies to the task of sociological theory itself.
Imperialism
The attempt by one nation state or group to extend its imperium and power over others so as to benefit from the latter’s labour and territorial resources.
Indigenisation
The use or appropriation of foreign (often former colonial) artefacts by indigenous people and the adaptation of such artefacts to suit indigenous needs.
Individualism
The belief system or philosophy that emphasises the sacrosanct nature of the individual and their rights to liberty (of speech, thought, action etc.). It is often associated with liberalism and the Enlightenment.
Industrialisation
The process of technological innovation to dominate nature and extract surplus wealth from it so that labour input is reduced and wealth creation is multiplied. Initially applied to the primary areas of mining, fishing, forestry, pastoralism, and agriculture, it has since been applied across the whole spectrum of human activities and imagination. These technological innovations have also required an application of sciences to the industry of labour (and labour management), machinery production, and design culture.
Industrial Revolution
The gradual process beginning in the mid eighteenth century in Britain whereby machinery and new types of energy became the basis of production in society, replacing human-power and animal-power. This process starts as the industrialisation of the countryside, agricultural production and labour relations, then moves to the cities in the industrialisation of manufacturing. A third industrial revolution in the twentieth century has been in the transport, communications, media, and service industries.
Information economy
The economic system based on the production, selling, and consumption of information made possible through new technological advances such as the microchip and Internet.
Insider/Outsider
A dichotomy of inclusion and exclusion that divides and identifies people on some marker of similarity or difference, as an ‘us’ or a ‘them’. It is the insiders who have the capacity to define the boundary and the relationship but it is the outsiders who better understand the causes of this process.
Liberal democracy
The political system based on representative voting, the right to privacy and property and equality before the law. Drawing on the philosophical tradition of liberalism, liberal democracy emphasises the liberty of the individual and the tolerance of many perspectives and minority views.
Liberalism
The system of political thought or philosophy that argues that the liberty of the individual is the most important component of the ‘good society’. Emphasising the right to own property, equality of opportunity, and to speak one’s mind, liberalism views equality before the law, and the dangers of tyranny (i.e. violence and coercion by unaccountable government to its people), as its main social and political tasks.
Lifestyle
The concept, usually associated with the work of Max Weber, used to analyse the way in which different status groups conduct their life and consumption in order to distinguish themselves from others, such as talking in particular ways, listening to particular music, or following certain sports.
Lifeworld
A concept coming from the phenomenological tradition of social thought that emphasises the everyday world that people inhabit and experience in their daily lives.
Littoral state
A state, city, nation, or government developed along a coastline or near water (such as major river or lake systems) in which its inhabitants have a common knowledge and awareness of the sea, and their connections to other seaports and maritime regions.
Lumpenproletariat
The term used by Marx to refer to the ‘rabble-proletariat’—the ‘flotsam of society’ comprised of various marginalised people such as petty criminals, beggars, and streetpeople. Today, it is more commonly referred to as the ‘underclass’.
Marxist
A person, theory, or doctrine inspired by the work of Karl Marx, or works out of various Marxist traditions of thought and work.
Masculinity/Masculine
The social conventions and expectations that are ascribed to the male sex, including physical strength and prowess, autonomy, and rationality. Masculine is the gender attribute to the male sex.
McDonaldization
A concept developed by the American sociologist, George Ritzer (1940– ), referring to the way in which the mass production and service techniques of the fast-food industry become applied to more and more of society.
Medicalisation
The way in which more and more parts of our experience become understood through medical terms and knowledge, including the bio-medical model, and therefore seen as medical problems.
Mega-city
Any city of more than 10 million people.
Modernisation
The complex interrelation of a number of social processes, including industrialisation and urbanisation, which lead to the emergence of a new type of society we call ‘modernity’.
Modernity
The type of society that first emerged in Britain and that is starkly different to all previous societies, having such characteristics as industrialism, secularism, urbanism, and democracy.
Multiculturalism
The Federal Government policy adopted in the 1970s that recognises all cultures as equally contributing to the well-being and development of Australia, and thus celebrating cultural diversity.
Nation
An ancient term but with a peculiar modern meaning, the modern nation is the symbolic and cultural organisation of a territory based on the sovereignty of the state (and the mutual recognition of other states in a modern nation state system), combined with citizenship, and a constructed national identity of the population living inside the designated territory.
Neo-individualism
The resurrection in the last quarter of the twentieth century of the cult of the individual and its effects, including an emphasis on individual self-responsibility and freedom, and a sense of entitlement.
Neo-liberalism
A broad collection of political and economic ideas (proposed by thinkers such as Friedman, Hayek, and Nozick) that re-examined the ideas of classical liberalism and argued for the defence of individual liberty and the market against the coercive power of the state, especially the bureaucracy of the modern welfare state. It was to be highly influential in the Western world after the Reagan and Thatcher governments of the 1980s adopted many of its tenets.
Network cities
A group of cities interconnected by webs of technological networks, economic, and cultural exchanges that are increasing in density and complexity. The most important network city regions in the world include London and south-east England; Boston to Washington DC; San Diego, LA, and San Francisco; Tokyo to Osaka; and the Pearl River Delta in south-east China. Network cities do not necessarily require geographical proximity, however; Frankfurt, London, Tokyo, and New York, for example, are global cities whose financial and commodity networks are clearly inter-dependent.
New Left
A political movement emerging in the 1960s based primarily on a new intelligentsia that wanted to avoid the perceived mistakes of the ‘Old Left’ such as Stalinism, and embraced humanism and other movements such as psychoanalysis.
New paternalism
See ‘State paternalism’.
New Right
A political movement advocating the social adoption of many of the theories of neo-liberalism. Associated with the governments of Reagan in the US and Thatcher in Britain, it reorganised the global economic order around ideas of marketisation, individual responsibility and the reduction of state bureaucracy and welfare.
New social movements (NSMs)
Groups of people, usually outside the main political system, who have emerged since the mid 1960s and attempted to change social institutions, behaviour, and beliefs surrounding particular issues such as gender inequality, racism, environmental destruction, war, etc.
NGOs (Non-Government Organisations)
Independent organisations not established by governments or states but which provide social services, advocate social change, and lobby governments to change certain laws and policies. Examples of internationalist NGOs include Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the Red Cross. Examples of local NGOs include welfare agencies (such as Brotherhood of St Laurence, St Vincent de Paul), trade unions, and other forms of mutual aid and community associations. NGOs are important expressions and parts of the public sphere and civil society.
Performance/Performativity
The concept that identity and subjectivity have to be acted out and engaged in to be made real.
‘Personal is political’
A motto and phrase often adopted as a catchcry in the women’s movement of the 1960s. It refers to the idea that all dimensions of our lives are shaped by power and the administration of it, not just the official political institutions of the public sphere. More recently, in an age of media saturation and celebrity adulation, feminists and others have returned to the idea that the political is not always personal.
Place/Place-making/Re-making
The manner in which a geographical area or space is given meaning, symbolic importance, and value to the humans who interact with it and shape it.
Pleasure ethic
The view of life as primarily about fun, enjoyment, and hedonism rather than the discipline and asceticism characteristic of the work ethic.
Pleasurescapes
The organisation of space and social geography so as to maximise fun and pleasure, rather than functionality or aesthetics.
Post-colonialism
The movement towards the independence of former colonies of Western powers, and the body of social theory that describes oppressor–oppressed relations shaped by race and culture in imperial and post-imperial contexts and sites.
Post-Fordism
The economic system of post-mass production that developed mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, with new technological systems enabling product miniturisation, diversification, and specification, and fewer and cheaper labour forces spread across the continents for different stages of production. These innovations in ‘labour flexibility’ and production specialisation in turn enabled capitalists to aim at creating a greater number of niche markets (smaller but higher profit-generating markets). The need for generating new and returning consumers increases the quantity, complexity, and intensity of advertising.
Post-industrial
A term used for the type of society in which knowledge, service industries, and information technology come to dominate the economy and social relations, and where most workers are not involved in primary or secondary industries.
Post-materialist
A concept often associated with the recent work of the American sociologist Ronald Inglehart and Australian economist Clive Hamilton, but which was also made popular by such thinkers as E.F. Schumacher (‘small is beautiful’) and Ivan Illich in the sixties and seventies. They argue that earning income and acquiring material goods should not be the main values by which society is organised. Inglehart predicted that society would become more and more post-materialistic over time, but others have argued the reverse is true with the expanding power and scope of global consumerism.
Postmodern/Postmodernity/Postmodernism
A set of difficult and often messy terms for the idea that modernity has given way to a new society, one where ideas of progress and monolithic conceptions of truth have been challenged if not jettisoned. Postmodernity usually refers to the type of social organisation characteristic of post-industrial societies, while postmodernism often refers to the cultural and philosophical beliefs that accompany such social change, and therefore works better as a descriptor of those who embrace the values of post-modernism rather than of a society as a whole.
Primate city
The first or capital city of a nation state, which frequently also dominates economically, politically, and culturally the national urban hierarchy.
Privatisation
The selling of government (and therefore publicly owned) assets to private investors/ shareholders, usually in accordance with neo-liberal principles of smaller government and market efficiency.
Privatisation of everyday life
The process whereby people become cut off from others, either by choice or not, in most of their activities. The development of individuals’ private rooms, cars, and the Internet all allow a person to live their everyday life in a much more solitary manner.
Private sphere
The realm of domestic life and activity, as opposed to the world that goes on outside of the home, known as the public sphere. From the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century in modern societies, the private sphere has been largely the domain of women and dependents, while men have dominated the public sphere. The sexual division of labour and the private–public spheres are more complex today.
Public sphere
The realm of work and civil society of a modern nation state existing outside of the home and private sphere, and that serves the interests of the deliberative dimensions of liberal democracy and the reproduction of a self-reflexive social order through an array of cultural institutions and activities.
Qualitative
The type of research concerned with interpretations, meanings, and impressions, rather than numerical data.
Quantitative
The type of research by which statistical patterns are found and numerical data recorded.
Racism
The belief and discourse that a hierarchy exists among people based on skin colour or cultural behaviour.
Re-enchantment
The idea that spirituality and enchantment are being reworked in contemporary, secular societies, and that these were never really eliminated in the first place, as argued, for example, by Marx in the mid nineteenth century, in his concept of the ‘fetishism of commodities’ but evident in contemporary popular expressions of new age religions, paganism, astrology, and eastern religions in Western settings.
Representation
The body of theory, associated with the work of British-Jamaican sociologist, Stuart Hall (1932– ), which states that all cultural artefacts and symbols, such as speech, writing, photography etc., are embodiments and representatives of our thoughts, feelings, and values.
Romanticism
A diverse, complex, and contradictory range of social movements that swept across Europe in the early 1800s comprising artists, writers, philosophers, musicians, and others, which acted as both an extension and critique of the Enlightenment. It counterpointed nature to reason, history to universal logic, the expressive to the contemplative, the sublime to the picturesque, the medieval to the ancient, transcendence to immanence, the spiritual to the material, and so forth. Above all, it celebrated the poetic imagination and the sensual as the secret to a good life and the human experience.
Second shift
See ‘Double Shift’ above.
Secularisation
The process whereby religion, superstition, and the supernatural are privatised and delegitimated as instituted and hegemonic sources of public knowledge and meaning.
Self-determination
The idea that individuals or groups have the right (and the responsibility) to choose and shape their own political, economic, and cultural futures.
Self-management/Self-regulation
A concept associated with the work of the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (1926–84) who came to argue that modern, liberal forms of government are based on ‘technologies of the self ’—that is, teaching techniques for self-monitoring and self-discipline that allow individuals to regulate their behaviour in accordance with social rules and conventions.
Self-reflexive
An individual and social process of reflecting upon one’s actions and beliefs in order to understand the self better in a society that privileges the autonomy of the self and the responsibility that this entails for self-creation and reliance.
Settler capitalism
The type of colonialism undertaken in places such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa where pastoralism dominated the expansion of the colonies and colonial elites maintained their links with the home country through exporting agricultural products back there.
Sexual identity
The process by which our sexual activities and behaviour comes to be an important marker of who we are and what ‘type’ of person we are, e.g. heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual etc.
Sexual revolution
The series of social changes beginning in the 1960s that challenged traditional norms surrounding marriage, sexual activity, and the position of women in society.
Social capital
A concept that refers to the positive connections between people and the virtues that emerge from them, such as trust and reciprocity. It emphasises that social knowledge and bonds are a form of capital that modern economies use for profit-making and technological innovation. Both the market and the state are viewed from this perspective as second orders dependent on the capital developed socially by societies, networks, and associations of civil society.
Social change
The historical transformation, sometimes slow, sometimes quick, of institutions and cultural beliefs.
Social cohesion
The way in which a society or group of people are able to maintain close bonds, interdependency, and a sense of common identity.
Social construction
The way in which people collectively give meaning to an object or event in the world.
Social justice
A complex and contested idea that generally refers to the manner in which social inequality and disadvantage are dealt with in order to create a more fair or equitable society.
Social structure
Patterns (traditions, habits) or orders (institutions, systems) in social life that seem relatively stable and directive of human behaviour.
Sociology of everyday life
The idea that all aspects of our lives involve social interaction and human contact, and are thus can be understood sociologically.
Solidarity
The forms of sociality and sociability from partners, families, associations, networks, movements, institutions, and total societies that develop a sense of unity, common interests, and mutual support or recognition. The most famous use of this term is Durkheim’s distinction between mechanical (pre-modern) solidarity, where the needs of the whole society take precedence over the individual’s needs and interests, and organic (modern) solidarity, where the cult of individualism is made possible by a specialised division of labour that increases inter-dependency while supporting expressive individual liberties.
Squatters/Squattocracy
The dominance of the Australian rural hinterland by wealthy white settlers who took the land that was deemed to be unused for pastoralism. This group became a powerful social, economic, and political force in the development of ‘free’ Australian colonies, and then the nation state.
State paternalism
The intervention by the state to aid those deemed needy that often ties this help to demands for a change in behaviour to such help.
Subcultures
Groups of people whose activities, beliefs, and social organisation often set them apart from other cultures in the same society, or that are different or oppositional to the hegemonic common culture of society.
Sustainability
The ability to live life and organise society so as to minimise degradation of the natural environment and not exploit or exhaust the non-renewable resources needed for healthy living. At this point in history, ‘sustainability’ is more of a normative goal and story than an achieved policy.
Symbolic capital
A concept used by the French sociologist and anthropologist, Pierre Bourdieu (1930– 2002), to point out the way in which resources can have the quality of a type of ‘capital’, but not be seen as such. For example, educational qualifications allow you to do many things, including learn more and earn more, and thus they are a form of capital, a source of profit.
Taylorism
The type of ‘scientific’ management of workers associated with the writings of the American, F.W. Taylor (1856–1915). Taylor argued that for industrial output to increase, managers needed to establish hierarchies at work, compartmentalise offices and jobs, increase the specialisation of workers, and further the division of labour. This form of management generally brought a loss of autonomy for workers and a more regimented work environment. Taylor is seen as the founding pioneer of modern industrial management and social psychology of workers, in the service of the capitalist employers.
Terra nullius (‘empty land’)
The legal idea adopted by the British that Australia was unclaimed by a sovereign entity when they arrived in the late 1700s because it was uncultivated and therefore not put to any ‘civilised’ use.
Third Way politics
A political program aimed at steering a middle course between socialism and capitalism by accepting some tenets regarding market efficiency while attempting to maintain ‘humane’ outcomes from social change. Since the end of the Cold War, this term has been superseded by the concept of ‘sustainable development’.
Time
The concept that humans are historical and temporal creatures who always live in and experience the world via the relationship between past, present, and future.
Underclass
A social group so marginalised from economic and social participation (especially labour force participation) that it falls ‘below’ the class system.
Urban growth
A measure of the net growth of cities that combines both birth and death rates with emigration and immigration rates.
Urbanisation
A measure of rural to urban migration. In modern societies since the eighteenth century, urbanisation has taken place at exponential rates of increase across the globe.
Welfare state
The use of the state as a mechanism for redistributing wealth in an attempt to combat social inequality and improve the well-being of all its citizens. This generally includes a raft of different strategies involving a combination of resources and policies such as social security benefits, tax cuts and transfers, social insurance schemes, infrastructure, provision of community resources (e.g. library, childcare), utilities (e.g. electricity, sewerage, water), public facilities (e.g. parks), and social services (including public health and education).
The West
A highly problematic term used to talk generally about the societies of Western Europe, and their former New World settler-society colonies, that have modernised and hold similar values surrounding science, reason, and the individual, as well as the shared legacy of Graeco-Roman civilisation and Judeo-Christian beliefs.
White Australia Policy
The federal immigration policy that dominated Australia until the late 1960s and that favoured arrivals from particular ‘white’ countries such as Britain. It was enacted as official policy through the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, but had been at work unofficially since settlement in 1788.
Work society
A type of society organised around the sanctifying of production, labour, and the work ethic.
Work/life collision/balance
The idea that contemporary society is increasingly dominated by the demands of work that undermine our ability to meet other demands such as family commitments.
Workers’ movement
The dominant social movement of the nineteenth century that attempted to organise labourers for collective action through unionism, parliamentary politics, and socialist revolution in order to achieve better wages, conditions, and political power.
World system
Often associated with the work of Immanuel Wallerstein (b. 1930), who developed a theory of the historical development of capitalism as a world-system that is not built nationally but globally, with regions of domination (metropolitan centres) over peripheries and semi-peripheries that entail the exploitation of the resources and labour of the provinces by the centres. It incorporates the arguments of comparative advantage and free trade of classical economics and combines this with the Marxist arguments of exploitation whereby the development of one part of the world-system entails the under-development of others.
Wowser
An Australian slang term for someone whose moralism and Puritanism combined with their own sense of moral superiority of their own character and values sees them impinge on the desires and activities of others.
Xenophobia
The fear of things ‘foreign’ and culturally different, especially of peoples of different ethnicity (Racism).
