A minority ethnic group refers to a community that has its own distinct national or cultural traditions, language, or customs while living within a larger society. This term captures the idea that a group maintains a separate cultural identity inside the broader population, often sharing a sense of belonging to that group alongside the dominant culture. Because of this distinct identity, members may experience different social experiences or treatment, even though they live within the same country. The other terms describe different ideas: distribution of wealth is about how resources are spread across a population; welfare state refers to government systems that provide social services; social inequality describes unequal access to resources or status in society, not the existence of a culturally distinct group living inside a larger society.

In social research, a fixed set of questions used to collect data from many people is called a questionnaire. The key idea is standardization: every respondent gets the same questions in the same order, which makes it possible to compare responses across individuals, quantify the data, and analyze it reliably. Questionnaires are especially good for obtaining comparable, scalable data, often using closed-ended items that campers can easily code and tally. Open questions, by contrast, let respondents answer in their own words and are not standardized, so they’re harder to compare across a large group. Social surveys refer to the overall data-collection approach, not the instrument itself, while a respondent is the person answering the questions.

Language codes and schooling: formal schooling relies on an elaborated code, a style of language that uses precise vocabulary, explicit connections between ideas, and full sentences so meaning is clear without needing shared context. This makes it well-suited for explicit instruction, where teachers present definitions, reasons, and explanations step by step and students are expected to articulate abstract ideas clearly. In contrast, a restricted code depends on context, shared knowledge, and fewer explicit details, which is typical of everyday talk and social interactions but not ideal for formal teaching. The other concepts describe different ideas—one about communication relying on context and implicit meaning, another about delaying rewards, and another about social factors affecting access to education—so they don’t fit the role of a language style used in formal schooling.

The main idea here is how a government actively supports people who are worse off and tries to lessen inequality through public policies. The welfare state is the system that does this. It includes programs like health care, pensions, unemployment benefits, public education, and housing assistance funded by taxation. By providing these services and transfers, the government redistributes resources to raise living standards and reduce gaps between rich and poor. Other terms describe different things: meritocracy is about rewarding people for ability and effort, not about providing for those in need; dependency culture is a critique suggesting welfare can create reliance, not the system itself; social inequality is the outcome of unequal resources, not the policy approach to address it.