Society refers to organised social relationships and institutions; culture to learned meanings, practices and objects used in social life. A society can contain many cultural traditions, with variation within any named group.
Material culture includes human-made objects such as a sign or a phone; nonmaterial culture includes meanings, expectations and values. A speed-limit sign is cultural both as an object and through its learned symbolic meaning.
Recognise material and nonmaterial culture
Distinguish value, belief, norm and custom
A value is a principle about what matters; a belief a claim held to be true; a norm a behavioural expectation; a custom an established practice. They can overlap in everyday life without being identical concepts.
Original shop example: the group values fairness and expects customers to wait their turn. That expectation is the norm. A belief that queueing treats customers fairly may support it, while actual behaviour may fall short of the ideal.
Distinguish linked concepts
Distinguish status and role
A status is a social position; a role the expectations associated with it. Ascribed status is assigned rather than acquired, sometimes at birth and sometimes later; achieved status is acquired through activity, decisions or accomplishment.
Being a class representative is an acquired position in the fictional example; listening to classmates is part of its expected role. The term achieved does not imply equal access to opportunities or that every outcome results only from personal effort.
Separate position and expectation
Compare subculture, counterculture and dominance
A subculture has distinctive practices within a wider society and can share many of its values. A counterculture actively challenges important dominant norms or values; difference alone is not opposition.
Dominant culture concerns institutional influence over what is treated as normal or legitimate, rather than numerical size alone. These descriptions are analytical concepts, not judgements that one culture is inherently superior.
Distinguish difference and opposition
Understand multiple identities
Social identity concerns self-understanding through affiliations and positions, together with how others identify or respond to a person. A student can also identify with a team, region, family, language or other groups.
These affiliations need not be equally important in every setting or fixed for life. Categories such as gender, age, class, disability or religion can matter differently to different people; appearance cannot establish someone’s self-identification.
One person, several affiliations
Separate ethnicity, national identity and legal status
Ethnicity is self-identification linked to shared/perceived heritage, which may involve ancestry, culture, language or religion. A category does not establish identical behaviour or a fixed biological type.
National identity is a felt connection to one or more nations; legal nationality/citizenship is a separate legal relationship. Neither should simply be substituted for ethnic group, birthplace or a person’s own account of belonging.
Keep identity concepts distinct
Explain change without assuming uniform effects
Global contact, technology, migration and institutional change can introduce new meanings or reinforce existing attachments. People may combine practices, retain traditions or challenge expectations; no one response follows automatically.
A fictional learner meets an unfamiliar greeting at a new school. A misunderstanding could arise from different expectations and be clarified through conversation; the example does not claim migrants necessarily lose identity or enter conflict.
Interpret the fictional greeting case
Analyse online presentation and stereotypes
People can choose aspects of an online presentation and respond to audiences, while platform rules, access and existing power relations constrain choices. A profile gives selected evidence rather than the whole person.
A stereotype assigns simplified group traits without examining individual variation. A claim about everyone in a group needs evidence and can obscure differences even when intended as praise; do not infer identity from clothing or a picture.
Evaluate an identity claim
Apply the concepts to one fictional group
Original case: a school music club values cooperation, expects members to take turns, uses a shared badge and elects a coordinator. The value, norm, material symbol and acquired position can be distinguished in one account.
The coordinator’s role includes organising rehearsals. Club members can share this activity while having many other affiliations, and the case does not establish any member’s nationality, ethnicity, religion or home circumstances.
Apply concepts to the original music club
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Alearned, shared meanings, practices and material objects associated with social life
Ba type of art only
Ca language only
Da law
2.What is a value?
Easy
Aa rule
Ba law
Ca custom
Dan ideal or principle about what is important or desirable
3.What is a norm?
Easy
Aa law only
Ba food
Ca socially expected pattern or rule of behaviour in a context
Da belief
4.What is a role?
Easy
Aa food
Bexpected behaviour linked to a position
Ca belief
Da rule
5.What is social identity?
Easy
Ahow people see themselves in relation to groups
Ba legal document
Ca tax
Da bank
6.What is ascribed status?
Easy
Astatus earned
Bstatus bought
Cstatus elected
Da social position assigned rather than gained through personal choice or accomplishment
7.What is achieved status?
Easy
Astatus inherited
Bstatus unchanged
Ca social position acquired through activity, decisions or accomplishment
Dstatus given at birth
8.What is a subculture?
Easy
Aa language
Ba group with distinctive cultural practices within a wider society
Cthe dominant culture
Da whole country
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9.What is a multicultural society?
Easy
Aa society containing varied cultural traditions and practices
Bone culture only
Cno culture
Done religion only
10.What is a custom?
Easy
Aa law
Ba tax
Ca belief
Da traditional way of doing things
11.What is a belief?
Easy
Aa norm
Ba law
Csomething accepted as true
Da tax
12.Which is an example of a value?
Medium
Awearing a uniform
Bthe stated principle that others deserve respect
Cshaking hands
Dqueueing
13.At a fictional shop, customers are expected to wait their turn. Which item describes that norm rather than a general value?
Medium
Athe expectation that customers join the queue and wait their turn
Bhonesty as a belief
Cequality as a belief
Dfreedom as a belief
14.Why can expectations about behaviour vary across contexts and societies?
Medium
Anorms are universal
Bnorms never change
Cno reason
Dsocial histories, institutions and interpretations can differ, including within one society
15.How can globalisation affect identity?
Medium
Ait fixes identity
Bno effect
Ccross-border contact can introduce new identifications, reinforce others or produce mixed forms
Dit removes identity
16.How can social media affect identity?
Medium
Ait fixes identity
Bpeople can present themselves and interact with audiences, within platform and social constraints
Cit removes identity
Dit has no effect
17.Which concept is national identity, distinguished from legal nationality/citizenship?
Medium
Aa person’s sense of belonging or connection to one or more nations
Ba religion
Ca class
Dan age
18.What is ethnicity?
Medium
Aa skin tone only
Ba religion only
Can age
Dself-identification and shared/perceived heritage, which can include culture, ancestry or language
19.Why can identity be described as multiple?
Medium
Aidentity is fixed
Bidentity is legal only
Cpeople can identify with several groups and positions in different contexts
Dpeople have one identity
20.Why might values change over time?
Medium
Ano reason
Binstitutions, technology, debate and social relationships can reshape what people consider important
Cthey never change
Dthey are fixed by law
21.In a fictional new school, a learner meets unfamiliar greeting expectations. What could explain a misunderstanding without assuming all migrants experience conflict?
Medium
Aparticipants interpret a greeting differently and have not yet clarified their expectations
Bnorms are identical
Cthere is no change
Dthey lose identity
22.What distinguishes a counterculture from a subculture that has a distinctive style but does not necessarily oppose wider values?
Medium
Ato copy others
Bto obey all norms
Cto avoid style
Dit actively challenges important values or norms of the dominant culture
23.What is the dominant culture?
Easy
Aa minority
Ba custom
Ccultural meanings or practices with powerful institutional influence, not necessarily the numerical majority
Da subculture
24.What is cultural diversity?
Easy
Ano variety
Bvariety of cultures within society
Cone culture
Dno culture
25.What is socialisation?
Medium
Alearning and negotiating social meanings, expectations and roles through interaction
Bleaving society
Cignoring norms
Dbreaking norms
26.What is a stereotype?
Medium
Aa fact
Ba law
Ca custom
Da simplified generalisation that overlooks variation within a group
27.Norms are rules about behaviour.
Easy
True or false?
28.Values are ideals or principles about what people consider important.
Easy
True or false?
29.An achieved status is, by definition, a position assigned at birth rather than acquired through action.
Easy
True or false?
30.A person can have more than one social identity.
Easy
True or false?
31.Culture never changes.
Medium
True or false?
32.Which supplied examples are human-created cultural elements, as distinct from an unmodified natural process?
Medium
Aa norm of waiting one’s turn
Ba value of fairness
Cshared beliefs about what is true
Da speed-limit sign with a learned public meaning
Ethe Earth’s gravitational attraction considered as a physical process
33.Which supplied social positions or affiliations can be relevant to social identity, without determining every individual’s identity in the same way?
Medium
Agender
Bethnicity
Cage
Dsocial class
Ea laboratory measurement of wavelength considered only as a physical quantity
34.Explain the difference between norms and values, using an example of each.
