Category: Sociology Optional
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What is Goffman’s dramaturgical theory ( Impression Management)?
Dramaturgical perspective was introduced in sociology in 1959 by Erving Goffman in his book ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’. Erving Goffman studied the interactions that take place in society at the micro-level. He took this perspective from theatre, he uses theatre as a metaphor to represent how people behave in society and represent…
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Short Notes on Race and ethnicity and Examples
Race and ethnicity have been used interchangeably in the past, however the need to define the two has been recognized, in doing so, race has been recognized as the biological segregation of people, based on their skin color and ethnicity has been recognized more in terms of their culture. Ethnicity as a concept is separate…
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What is institutionalization in sociology?
The process by which beliefs, norms, social roles, values, or certain modes of behaviour are embedded in an organisation, a social system, or a society as a whole is called institutionalization. These concepts are said to be institutionalized when they are sanctioned and internalised within a group or a society. Through institutionalization, rules and procedures…
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Understanding Max Weber’s “Iron Cage”
Iron cage is a concept proposed by the Sociologist, Max Weber, and one of its first references is seen in his well-known work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. However, the word was never used by him directly as he always wrote in the German language. It was Talcott Parsons, who coined the…
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What is an Egalitarian Society
Egalitarian Society: The term is derived from the French word e´gal which means equal. Egalitarianism as a political ideology can be defined as the doctrine that sees each and every person as equal in their moral status, thereby granting them equal rights and opportunities. As a social doctrine, it advocates the removal of economic inequalities…
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Ideal and Real Culture – Differences and Examples
Ideal culture refers to the practices, values or norms that society is supposed to follow or desires to achieve. It refers to those goals that a society considers ideal, or worth aiming for. We see what we want to see and we say what we want to say instead of what the actual interpretation of…
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Short Notes on Ethnocentrism and Examples
The term ethnocentrism was coined by William Graham Sumner in 1906 when he saw the tendency among people to differentiate between in-group and out-group. It can be understood as the view of perceiving one’s own culture as better than anyone else’s culture in terms of language, behaviors, religion, customs, etc. This is because each individual,…