First-year courses · Social sciences

Introduction to sociology with Canadian examples

Intro sociology flashcards with Canadian examples: theories, socialization, culture, deviance, stratification, race, gender, institutions and research methods.

39 cards7 topicsAbout 15 minutes a roundTypical first-year Introduction to Sociology

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About this deck

Sociology studies how groups, institutions and social structures shape individual lives, and how people in turn create and change those structures. This deck covers what a first-year sociology course usually includes: the major theoretical perspectives, socialization and culture, deviance and social control, stratification and inequality, race, ethnicity and gender, social institutions such as family and education, and the main methods sociologists use.

There is no technical prerequisite, but you will get more from these cards if you start noticing everyday life with a sociological eye. Ask why a rule or habit exists, who benefits from it, and how people learn it. That shift from personal troubles to public issues is the core skill of the course.

For each theory card, practise applying all three main perspectives to the same example, such as tuition fees or social media use. Functionalists ask what purpose something serves, conflict theorists ask who gains and who loses, and symbolic interactionists ask what it means to the people involved. Canadian examples on the cards are there to anchor ideas; add your own from news or your community.

Students often confuse sex (biological characteristics) with gender (socially constructed roles and identities), and race with ethnicity. Another frequent error is treating cultural relativism as approving every practice; it simply means trying to understand a practice within its own cultural context before judging it.

Before you start: None; strong reading and writing skills help.

All 39 cards

Cover the definitions with a sheet of paper and test yourself, or use the study modes above.

Theories

Sociological imagination: C. Wright Mills's idea of linking personal experience to wider social forces and history.Example: Seeing one graduate's job search difficulties as part of a broader youth labour market trend.
Structural functionalism: Perspective that sees society as a system of interrelated parts that each contribute to overall stability.Example: Schools teach skills and also sort people into future occupations.
Manifest function: The intended and openly recognized consequence of a social pattern or institution.Example: Universities exist to educate students and produce research.
Latent function: An unintended and often unrecognized consequence of a social pattern or institution.Example: Campus life helps many students find long-term partners.
Conflict theory: Perspective that views society as an arena of inequality where groups compete for scarce resources and power, drawing on Marx.Example: Examining how housing costs shut lower-income families out of certain neighbourhoods.
Symbolic interactionism: Perspective that focuses on how people create and interpret meanings through everyday face-to-face interaction.Example: How a hockey jersey becomes a symbol of local identity.
Feminist theory: Set of perspectives that examine how gender shapes power, inequality and experience across social life.Example: Studying who does most unpaid household and care work.
Intersectionality: Concept, introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw, that overlapping identities such as race, gender and class combine to shape distinct experiences of advantage or disadvantage.Example: A racialized immigrant woman may face barriers different from those of either white women or racialized men.

Culture and socialization

Socialization: The lifelong process by which people learn the norms, values and roles of their society and develop a sense of self.Example: A child learning to say please and thank you.
Agents of socialization: The people, groups and institutions that teach social norms, especially family, schools, peers, media and religion.Example: TikTok trends shaping how teens talk and dress.
Looking-glass self: Cooley's idea that our self-image forms from how we imagine others see and judge us.Example: A student who believes classmates think they are funny comes to see themselves as funny.
Resocialization: Learning new norms and values while discarding old ones, often in a total institution like the military or a prison.Example: Recruits at basic training adopt new routines, language and identities.
Culture: The shared beliefs, values, practices, language and material objects that make up a group's way of life.Example: Tim Hortons runs, curling clubs and the national anthem can all be studied this way.
Norms: Shared rules and expectations that guide behaviour in a group, ranging from informal habits to formal laws.Example: Lining up at a bus stop.
Mores: Strongly held norms with moral weight, whose violation brings serious disapproval or punishment.Example: Rules against abusing children.
Folkways: Everyday customs and conventions whose violation brings only mild reactions.Example: Holding a door for the person behind you.
Ethnocentrism: Judging another culture by the standards of your own and treating your own as superior.Example: Calling another group's food habits strange just because they differ from yours.
Cultural relativism: Trying to understand a practice in terms of the culture in which it occurs before evaluating it.Example: Learning why some families share one household across three generations.
Subculture: A group within a larger society that shares distinctive values, norms or styles while still participating in the wider culture.Example: Competitive gamers or skateboarders.

Deviance and control

Deviance: Behaviour that violates the norms of a group or society, which can vary across time and place.Example: Smoking indoors was once common in Canadian restaurants and is now banned.
Strain theory: Merton's argument that crime and rule-breaking increase when society promotes goals like wealth but blocks legitimate means to reach them.Example: Turning to theft when stable jobs are scarce.
Labelling theory: View that deviance comes from the reactions of others; being publicly tagged as deviant can push a person toward further deviance.Example: A teen labelled a troublemaker begins to act the part.
Social control: Formal and informal methods a society uses to encourage conformity to its norms.Example: Fines and police (formal); gossip and eye-rolls (informal).

Stratification and inequality

Social stratification: The ranking of categories of people in a hierarchy based on unequal access to wealth, power and prestige.Example: Differences in income and education between neighbourhoods of a city.
Social mobility: Movement of individuals or groups between positions in a ranking system, upward or downward, within or across generations.Example: A first-generation university graduate earning more than their parents.
Bourgeoisie and proletariat: Marx's two main classes in capitalism: owners of the means of production and workers who sell their labour for wages.Example: A factory owner and the workers on the line.
Market Basket Measure: Canada's official poverty line since 2019, based on the cost of a specific basket of goods and services for a modest standard of living in a given region.Example: Thresholds differ between, say, rural Saskatchewan and Toronto.

Race, ethnicity and gender

Race: A socially constructed category that groups people by perceived physical traits such as skin colour, with real social consequences but no sound biological basis.Example: Census categories for racialized groups have changed over time.
Ethnicity: Shared cultural heritage, such as ancestry, language, religion or traditions, with which a group identifies.Example: Ukrainian Canadians in Alberta keeping traditions like Easter egg painting.
Systemic racism: Patterns built into policies, practices and institutions that produce unequal outcomes for racialized groups, even without individual intent.Example: Hiring that relies on unpaid internships many people cannot afford to take.
Gender: Socially constructed roles, behaviours and identities linked to being a woman, a man, or of another identity such as non-binary, distinct from biological sex.Example: Expectations about who should stay home with a newborn.
Gender socialization: Learning the behaviours and attitudes a society considers appropriate for each gender.Example: Toy aisles divided into pink and blue sections.

Institutions

Social institution: A lasting set of norms, roles and organizations built around a basic social need, such as family, education, religion, economy or government.Example: The public school system in each province.
Hidden curriculum: Unstated lessons schools teach about values and behaviour, such as punctuality, obedience and competition.Example: Learning to raise your hand and wait your turn.
Secularization: The decline of religion's influence over social institutions and everyday life.Example: Quebec's shift from church-run to state-run schools and hospitals during the 1960s.
Bureaucracy: Weber's model of formal organization with a hierarchy, written rules, specialized roles and impersonal procedures.Example: A provincial health ministry with departments and standard forms.

Research methods

Participant observation: Research method in which the sociologist joins a group's activities to study it from the inside.Example: Working shifts at a food bank to study volunteer culture.
Survey research: Collecting standardized answers from a sample of people through questionnaires or interviews.Example: Statistics Canada's General Social Survey.
Census: Count of an entire population with information on its characteristics; in Canada it is held every five years.Example: Statistics Canada held censuses in 2021 and 2026.