3.2 Seeing differently: working with concepts
In the previous section, you explored how the key ideas of inequalities and interconnections could be seen in Video 2. These ‘key ideas’ are something that social scientist sometimes refer to as concepts. But what is a concept? In simple terms, a concept is just an idea. But it’s an idea that has been defined in specific ways.
When used in the social sciences, concepts like inequality and interconnection are usually carefully defined. This is because the way social scientists use them, may differ from their use in everyday language.
Activity 3: What do concepts do?
Try and rewrite the following sentences by including the suggested concept. You can remove any of the words in the original sentence as part of editing it or add to it as needed.
Question 1
Sentence: Access to public services shapes everyday life.
Reword the above sentence to include the concept of inequalities.
Discussion
One way you might have reworded this sentence was to add ‘inequalities’ at the start of the sentence, so the sentence would read: Inequalities in access to public services shape everyday life.
Including the concept of inequality adds focus to the idea because it has a more specific and detailed meaning. In Section 3, inequality was defined as ‘the uneven access to or allocation of resources or opportunities within a society’. This can result in advantage or disadvantage between individuals or groups. As you can see, the inclusion of the concept of inequality adds depth to the sentence.
Question 2
Sentence: The transport of fruit around the world relies on global relationships.
Reword the above sentence to include the concept of interconnection (or things that are interconnected).
Discussion
In this sentence, you could have just added ‘interconnected’ without removing any words: The transport of fruit around the world relies on interconnected global relationships.
Including the word ‘interconnected’ here can suggest that the relationships are linked and dependent or that they mutually influence each other. The definition of interconnection provided was ‘instances where two or more things are linked, connected or interact in some way’.