ReviseSociology

Category: Culture and Identity

  • Four Types of Culture

    Folk culture, mass or popular culture, high culture and low culture

  • An Introduction to Culture, Socialisation, and Social Norms

    In sociology, it is essential to understand the social context in which human behaviour takes place – and this involves understanding the culture in which social action occurs. Culture is a very broad concept which encompasses the norms, values, customs, traditions, habits, skills, knowledge, beliefs and the whole way of life of a group of…

  • From Pilgrim to Tourist – Or A Short History of Identity, Zygmunt Bauman

    If the modern problem of identity was how to construct an identity, the postmodern problem of identity is how to avoid fixation and keep the options open. If the catchword of modernity was creation, the catchword of postmodernity is recycling. The main identity-bound anxiety of modern times was the worry about durability; it is concern…

  • What is Individualisation?

    where individuals are forced to spend more time and effort deciding on what choices to make.

  • Mobile Phones and Digital Nomadism

    Mobile phones seem to be having a profound impact on the way we interact with each other and on how we understand ourselves and our relation to place. Their increased usage has mean that many of us have moved away from ‘chance socialness’ to ‘chosen socialness’; they encourage us to not be nostalgic about physical…

  • Why Fitness Instructors are Like Peasants

    If you sign up to a gym this January, spare a thought for the personal trainers lurking around reception, they’re really just peasants, despite the nice pecs, at least according to some recent research by Geraint Harvey as summarised in this Thinking Allowed podcast. Harvey offers an interesting perspective on the injustice which exists in the…

  • Sociological Theories of Consumerism and Consumption

    Many of us spend a lot of time thinking about the things we might consume, and how we might consume them, and we do this not only as individuals, but as friends, partners, and families, and so intensely do we think about our consumption practices that the things we buy and the experiences we engage…

  • Erving Goffman and Judith Butler’s Perspectives on Identity

    A summary of one chapter from Steph Lawler’s Book – ‘Identity: Sociological Perspectives’ – Masquerading as ourselves: Self-Impersonation and Social Life In this chapter Lawler deals with the work of Erving Goffman and Judith Butler – for both identity is always something that is done, it is achieved rather than innate – it is part…

  • Nadiya Hussain’s Gift to A Level Sociology

    The Chronicles of Nadiya, fronted by last year’s Bake-Off winner Nadiya Hussain, is  a surprisingly solid piece of sociological TV. (Episode 1 is available on iPlayer until Friday 23rd Sept 2016, or on eStream until Armageddon if yer one of my students.) Given Bake Off’s significant contribution to the reproduction of class inequality, I was…

  • Anthony Giddens’ Runaway World – A Summary

    There has been a considerable amount of research and theorising into globalisation and its consequences over the past decade, yet little of this has filtered down to students of A level Sociology. This article aims to address this by summarizing Anthony Giddens’ views on globalisation and its consequences for culture and identity in the West,…