context

(noun)

The surroundings, circumstances, environment, background, or settings that determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event or other occurrence.

Related Terms

Examples of context in the following topics:

  • Social Context and Sexual Behavior

    • Social context influences sexual behavior; sexuality is expressed and understood through socialized processes.
    • Since sexuality is expressed through means learned by socialization, social context is bound to influence sexual behavior.
    • In other contexts, the hug could be interpreted as sexual interest.
    • Thus, social context is essential when one considers potentially sexual behavior.
    • In a different context, the same gesture could have very different connotations.

  • The Life Course

    • The life course approach analyzes people's lives within structural, social, and cultural contexts.
    • The life course approach, also known as the life course perspective, or life course theory, refers to an approach developed in the 1960s for analyzing people's lives within structural, social, and cultural contexts.
    • The life course approach examines an individual's life history and sees for example how early events influence future decisions and events, giving particular attention to the connection between individuals and the historical and socioeconomic context in which they have lived.
    • Explain the life course perspective as it relates to a person's development from infancy to old age, in terms of structural, social and cultural contexts

  • Stages of Socialization Throughout the Life Span

    • Context: In earlier periods, the socializee (the person being socialized) more clearly assumes the status of learner within the context of the initial setting (which may be a family of orientation, an orphanage, a period of homelessness, or any other initial social groups at the beginning of a child's life), the school (or other educational context), or the peer group.
    • There is also a greater likelihood of more formal relationships due to situational contexts (e.g., work environment), which moderates down the affective component.
    • Socialization, as noted in the distinction between primary and secondary, can take place in multiple contexts and as a result of contact with numerous groups.

  • The Nature of a Family

    • In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence.
    • In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence.

  • Eye Contact

    • Eye contact develops in a cultural context and different gazes have different meanings all over the world.
    • In some contexts, the meeting of eyes arouses strong emotions.

  • Sociological Theories of Deviance

    • Sociological theories of deviance are those that use social context and social pressures to explain deviance.
    • The study of social deviance is the study of the violation of cultural norms in either formal or informal contexts.
    • Sociological theories of deviance are those that use social context and social pressures to explain deviance .
    • The study of social deviance is the study of the violation of cultural norms in either formal or informal contexts.

  • Social Definition of Race

    • Most social scientists and biologists believe race is a social construct affecting sociopolitical, legal, and economic contexts.
    • The social construction of race has developed within various legal, economic, and sociopolitical contexts, and may be the effect, rather than the cause of major race-related issues.

  • Socialization Throughout the Life Span

    • Any study that focuses on how cultural context influences individual development is an example of the life course approach.
    • The life course approach was developed in the 1960s for analyzing people's lives within structural, social and cultural contexts.
    • The life course approach studies the impact that sociocultural contexts have on an individual's development, from infancy until old age.

  • The Role of Socialization

    • In his 1995 paper, "Broad and Narrow Socialization: The Family in the Context of a Cultural Theory," sociologist Jeffrey J.
    • The term "socialization" refers to a general process, but socialization always takes place in specific contexts.

  • Theoretical Perspectives on Childhood Socialization

    • Also called development in context theory or human ecology theory, the ecology systems theory specifies five different types of nested environmental systems: the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystem.
    • The exosystem describes the link between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role an the individual's immediate context.
    • A child, his school, and his parents are all part of a cultural context whose constituents are united by a sense of common identity, heritage, and values.
    • Microsystems, and therefore mesosystems and exosystems, are impossible to understand when divorced from their macrosystemic context.