ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the key concept of discourse and the related concepts of ideology and hegemony. The chapter explains the issues involved and explore more fully how they form part of the web of social life. It discusses each of these key terms in turn before exploring how they manifest themselves in social life, using the "work ethic" as an example. The chapter shows that discourse, ideology and hegemony are important features of social life. It explains how society operates by being aware of frameworks of meaning and how they both reflect and reinforce power relations. Sociology, as a listening art and a seeing art, helps people to look beyond atomism and start to see what is going on in the background - to see who is gaining and who is losing. One of the things discourses and ideologies do is to establish social expectations, to create meanings about what people should and should not do.
