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• This chapter explores the groups individuals form, unequal orders, social control, roles, and status, and the need for specific terms and concepts in sociology.
• Sociology explores how society functions, whether it is harmonious or conflict-ridden, whether statuses and roles are fixed, how social control happens, and what inequalities exist.

Introduction to Sociological Terminology

• Sociology requires specific terms because its familiar subject matter can obscure precise understanding.
• Terminology is essential to avoid conflating sociological knowledge with common sense or naturalistic explanations.
• Sociological concepts have histories reflecting social thinkers' efforts to map social changes from pre-modern to modern.
• Sociologists distinguish between primary and secondary groups, and community versus society, to understand interaction types.
• Stratification concepts address structured inequalities.
• Sociology uses diverse approaches to understanding society, marked by different ideas and concepts.
• Karl Marx focused on class and conflict, while Emile Durkheim emphasized social solidarity and collective conscience.
• Structural functionalists view society as harmonious, while conflict theorists see it as conflict-ridden.
• Some sociologists study micro-interactions, while others focus on macro-structures.
• Concepts like status and role begin with the individual, while social control and stratification start with larger contexts.
• Classifications and types in sociology serve as tools to understand reality, entry points to understanding.
• Sociology uses and questions concepts and categories, acknowledging the coexistence of different definitions and views.
• Sociology's multiplicity of approaches reflects society's diversity.

Social Groups and Society

• A key part of society is human interaction, communication, and construction of social groups.
• Human groups and collectivities exist in all societies, but types differ across societies.
• A simple gathering of people does not automatically create a social group because a social group needs more to it than mere co-location
• An aggregate is a collection of people in the same place at the same time with no connection.
• Waiting passengers at a railway station, airport, bus stop, or at the cinema are examples of aggregates.
• Aggregates are often called quasi groups.
• A quasi group lacks structure, organization, and awareness of grouping.
• Social classes, status groups, age, gender groups, and crowds can be considered quasi groups.
• Quasi groups can evolve into social groups over time such as a social class forming a political party.
• A social group has:
• Persistent interaction for continuity.
• Stable interaction patterns.
• A sense of belonging among members who are conscious of the group and its rules, rituals, and symbols.
• Shared interests.
• Shared norms and values.
• A definable structure.
• Social structure is regular, repetitive interaction patterns between individuals or groups.
• A social group has continuously interacting people sharing interests, culture, values, and norms.

Types of Groups

• Sociologists and anthropologists categorize groups in different ways, contrasting traditional small-scale societies with modern large-scale ones.
• The difference between close, intimate interaction in traditional societies and impersonal interaction in modern societies is noteable.

Primary and Secondary Social Groups

• Some groups matter more than others and deeply affect our lives through personal relationships.
• A primary group consists of a small group of individuals connected through intimate, face-to-face interaction and cooperation with a sense of belonging like family, villages and close friends.
• Secondary groups are larger in size and have more formal and impersonal relationships and are goal oriented.
• Schools, government offices, hospitals, and student associations are secondary groups.

Community and Society, or Association

• The idea of contrasting traditional agrarian life with modern urban life is in terms of social relationships and lifestyles, is something that classical sociologists considered a lot.
• Community refers to enduring personal relationships with significant involvement.
• Society or association refers to impersonal and superficial relationships typical of modern urban life.
• Commerce and industry require rational and self-interested interactions, involving contracts instead of deep personal connections.
• Primary groups can be compared to the community, whereas secondary groups can be compared with the association.

In-Groups and Out-Groups

• In-groups foster a sense of belonging, differentiating "us" from "them".
• Those belonging to a school may recognize other such schools as the "out-group".
• Out-groups are those to which members of an in-group do not belong.
• Out-group members may face hostility from the in-group.
• Migrants can be considered an out-group.

Reference Groups

• People compare themselves to groups whose lifestyles they aspire to emulate known as reference groups.
• These groups influence culture, lifestyle, aspiration, and goal setting although we don't belong to these groups.
• During colonial times, middle-class Indians used Englishmen as reference groups although this was different for men and women.

Peer Groups

• Peer groups are kinds of primary groups and usually consist of people with similar qualities and it creates social pressure.
• Social pressure exerted by peers is also knowns as peer pressure which influences behavior.

Social Stratification

• It describes the structured inequalities between groups in society regarding resources.
• Social stratification is structural inequalities between different groupings of people.
• Society is like geological layering of rock, with the favored at the top and the underprivileged at the bottom.
• Inequality of power and advantage is important for sociology and stratification impacts health, education, work, and political influence.
• Historically slavery, caste, estate, and class define system of stratification.
• Slavery is an extreme inequality where some are owned by others.
• Historically, slavery existed in ancient Greece, Rome, and the Southern USA.
• Bonded labor, including child labor, continues today.
• Estates characterized feudal Europe.

Caste

• Caste systems rely on ascribed status at birth, not achievements.
• Status attributes by birth define an individual's position more so than in class systems.
• Traditional India had a caste hierarchy based on purity, with Brahmins (priests) superior and Panchamas ('outcastes') inferior. The traditional system is in terms of the Varna of Hindu society - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras.
• The four-fold varna includes Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras.
• Caste is a combination of the Varna-based view of society, and also innumerable occupation based caste groups known as Jatis.
• The caste system in has changed over time because some groups improved their social standing and also rituals are performed differently.

Class

• Marx defined social classes by their relationship to the means of production.
• Key questions are who owns land/factories (bourgeoisie) and who only owns their labor (proletariat)?
• Weber described life-chances as rewards afforded by market capacity as economic relations determine inequality but also prestige or political power.
• Functionalism assumes that stratification is found in all societies due to its placing and motivating people in the social structure.
• Inequality is said to be an evolved tool by which societies ensure that the most qualified people fill important positions however this may not be true.
• Caste systems are rigid, while class systems are open and achievement-based and legal barriers restricting class and caste mobility have been abolished.
• Stories of achievement exist, however class structure persists and social mobility in western societies are far removed from the ideal model of perfect mobility.
• Sociology addresses challenges to the caste system and the persistence of discrimination economically or socially.

Status and Role

• Status is a position in society while role is what is expected of you in that position.
• Every society has positions, each individual has a spot and associated role.
• Status is a social position with defined rights and duties and roles are that one's behaviour is determined by the status.
• A status become standardised into an insitituionalised Role.

Achieved and Ascribed Status

• People in modern societies have many statuses during their lives.
• Ascribed status is acquired at birth or involuntarily shown through age, race or kinship.
• Achieved status is gained via personal effort, ability, and choices and are shown through ones education, qualifications, or expertise.
• Modern societies are characterized by achieving accomplishments instead of just something you are born into.
• Both ascribed status and achieved status matter.
• Both every status and prestige are related as every position is based on values and social relations of the status.
• The kind of value attached to the status is prestige and it is attached to the role more so than the individual.
• High and low status roles vary across geographies and time periods.

Role Performance

• People perform roles as expected and a child will learn to behave in accordance with how her behavior will be seen.
• Role conflict is incompatibility among roles corresponding to one or more statuses and a common example is that of the middle class working woman.
• Khasi matriliny can generates intense role conflict for men since this is a custom.
• Role-stereotyping is the a practice of enforcing specific roles for some members of the society.
• Social places and statuses is that there are those who learn the expectation but also those who create or change.

Society and Social Control

• Social control is a concept in sociology, referring to how society regulates its members.
• It helps bring people back into line and in line with the social rules.
• For perspective, social ontrol refers to the use of force to regulate the behaviour of individuals and groups and enforcing of values and patterns for maintaining order in society.
• Social control can restrain deviant behavior and mitigate tensions in society.
• Stability through is maintained through in social order and social cohesion.
• But social control can also be seen as dominant classes controlling the rest of society.
• Social control involves processes, techniques, and strategies that regulate individual or group behavior.
• The main function of social control is either force or regulation.
• Social control can be informal (personal, unofficial) or formal (codified, systematic).
• Formal social control uses law and the state, emphasized in modern society.
• Informal social control is usually more personal and not so official and includes smiles, body language, criticism, ridicule used in everyday life and happens through family, religion, and kinship.
• Sanctions include rewards or punishment to enforce expected behavior. Social control can be positive if a society rewards good behaviour, or negative sanctions enforce rules and restrain deviance. Deviance is failing to live up to the norms a groups values.
• What is 'deviant' varies with how people value certain things and is as widely variable as the norms and values that distinguish different cultures and subcultures.
• Ideas of deviance change over time.