Intro to Sociology: Terms

Racism

- a system of domination that operates in social processes and social institutions - the attribution of characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a population sharing certain physically inherited characteristics

Crime

- any type of behavior that breaks a law - any action that contravenes the laws established by a political authority

Social Facts

- aspects of social life that shape our actions as individuals (ex. state of the economy or the influence of religion) - according to Émile Durkheim, the aspects of social life that shape our actions as individuals

Random Sample

- chosen so that every member of the population has an equal probability of being included - method in which a sample is chosen so that every member of the population has the same probability of being included

Cults

- composed of individuals who reject what they see as the values of the outside society - a fragmentary religious grouping to which individuals are loosely affiliated but which lacks any permanent structure

Kinship

- connections among individuals, typically established either through marriage or through the lines of descent that connect blood relatives - a relation that links individuals through blood ties, marriage, or adoption

Latent Functions

- consequences of social activity of which participants are unaware - functional consequences that are not intended or recognized by the members of a social system in which they occur

White-Collar Crime

- crime typically carried out by people in the more affluent sectors of society - criminal activities carried out by those in professional jobs

Hypothesis

- educated guess - an idea or a guess about a given state of affairs put forward as a basis for empirical testing

Sociological Imagination

The application of imaginative thought to the asking and answering of sociological questions. Someone using the sociological imagination "thinks himself away" from the familiar routines of daily life.

Fertility

The average number of live-born children produced by women of childbearing age in a particular society.

Relative Deprivation

The experience of being deprived of something to which one believes to be entitled.

Neocolonialism

The geopolitical practice of using capitalism, business globalization, and cultural imperialism to influence a country, in lieu of either direct military control or indirect political control.

Politics

The means by which power is employed to influence the nature and content of governmental activities.

Sex Ratio

The number of males for each female in a population.

Independent Variable

The one that is changed by the scientist.

Culture Shock

The personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, a move between social environments, or simply travel to another type of life.

Affirmative Action

The policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who suffer from discrimination within a culture.

Serial Monogamy

The practice of engaging in a succession of monogamous sexual relationships.

Cultural Relativism

The practice of judging a society by its own standards.

Education

The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.

Anticipatory Socialization

The process, facilitated by social interactions, in which non-group-members learn to take on the values and standards of groups that they aspire to join, so as to ease their entry into the group and help them interact competently once they have been accepted by it.

Demography

The study of the size, distribution, and composition of populations.

Economy

The system of production and exchange that provides for the material needs of individuals living in a given society. Economic institutions are of key importance in all social orders.

Medicalization of Deviance

The tendency to define deviance as a manifestation of an underlying sickness, to find the causes of deviance within the individual rather than in the social structure, and to treat deviance through the intervention of medical personnel.

Interactionist Perspective

Theoretical perspective that derives social processes (such as conflict, cooperation, identity formation) from human interaction. It is the study of how individuals act within society.

Postindustrial Society

Transition from the production of goods to the production of services, with very few firms directly manufacturing any goods.

Subculture

Values and norms distinct from those of the majority, held by a group within a wider society.

Cultural Universals

Values or modes of behavior shared by all human cultures.

Validity

the extent to which a concept, conclusion or measurement is well-founded and corresponds accurately to the real world

Reliability

the extent to which an experiment, test, or measuring procedure yields the same results on repeated trials

Total Institutions

A place of work and residence where a great number of similarly situated people, cut off from the wider community for a considerable time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life.

Gesellschaft

A rationally developed mechanistic type of social relationship characterized by impersonally contracted associations between persons.

Functionalist Perspective

A theoretical perspective based on the notion that social events can best be explained in terms of the functions they perform- that is, the contributions they make to the continuity of a society.

Counterculture

A way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing social norm.

Stereotypes

A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Capitalism

An economic system based on the private ownership of wealth, which is invested and reinvested in order to produce profit.

Glass Ceiling

An unofficially acknowledged barrier to advancement in a profession, especially affecting women and members of minorities.

Conflict Perspective

Argument that deviance is deliberately chosen and often political in nature

Social Movement

Collective attempts to further a common interest or secure a common goal through action outside the sphere of established institutions.

The Sacred

Describing something that inspires awe or reverence among those who believe in a given set of religious ideas.

SES (Socioeconomic Status)

Economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family's economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education, and occupation.

Schooling

Education or training received, especially at school.

Verstehen

Empathic understanding of human behavior

Organic Solidarity

Explains what binds technologically advanced, industrialized societies together.

Class Consciousness

Term used in social sciences and political theory, particularly Marxism, to refer to the beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests.

Power

The ability of individuals or the members of a group to achieve aims or further the interests they hold. Power is a pervasive element in all human relationships.

Looking-Glass Self

Social psychological concept, created by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902, stating that a person's self grows out of society's interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others

The Social Construction of Reality

- 1966 book about the sociology of knowledge by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann - (social construction) theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world

Role Conflict

- It can be something that can be for either a short period of time, or a long period of time, and it can also be connected to situational experiences. - Intra-role conflict occurs when the demands are within a single domain of life, such as on the job.

Culture

- The values, norms and material goods characteristic of a given group - The most distinctive properties of human social association

Race

- a classification system that assigns individuals and groups to categories that are ranked or hierarchical - differences in human physical characteristics used to categorize large numbers of individuals

Achieved Status

- a concept developed by the anthropologist Ralph Linton denoting a social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit; it is a position that is earned or chosen - reflects personal skills, abilities, and efforts

Religion

- a cultural system of commonly shared beliefs and rituals that provides a sense of meaning and purpose by creating an idea of reality that is sacred, all-encompassing, and supernatural - a set of beliefs adhered to by the members of a community, incorporating symbols regarded with a sense of awe or wonder together with ritual practices

Anomie

- a feeling of aimlessness or despair provoked by modern social life - a concept first brought into wide usage in sociology by Durkheim, referring to a situation in which social norms lose their hold over individual behavior

Impression Management

- a goal-directed conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of others about a person, object, or event - preparing for the presentation of one's social role

Family

- a group of persons directly linked by kin connections, the adult members of which assume responsibility for caring for children - a group of individuals related to one another by blood ties, marriage, or adoption, who form an economic unit, the adult members of which are often responsible for the upbringing of children

Reference Group

- a group that provides a standard for judging one's own attitudes or behaviors - family, peers, classmates, and co-workers are crucial

Colonialism

- a political-economic system under which powerful countries establish, for their own profit, rule over weaker peoples or countries - the process whereby Western nations established their rule in parts of the world away from their home territories

Marriage

- a socially and legally acknowledged and approved sexual union between two adult individuals - a socially and legally approved sexual relationship between two individuals

Experiment

- enables a researcher to test a hypothesis under highly controlled conditions established by the researcher - a research method in which variables can be analyzed in a controlled and systematic way, either in an artificial situation constructed by the researcher or in naturally occurring settings

Ethnography

- firsthand study of people using participant observation or interviewing - socializes, works, or lives with members of a group, organization, or community and perhaps participates directly in its activities

Primary Group

- groups characterized by face-to-face interaction, intimacy, and a strong, enduring sense of commitment - characterized by intense emotional ties (families, peers, friends)

Social Stratification

- inequalities among individuals and groups within human societies - the existence of structured inequalities between groups in society in terms of their access to material or symbolic rewards

Ethnocentrism

- judging other cultures in terms of the standards of one's own - the tendency to look at other cultures through the eyes of one's own culture, and thereby misrepresent them

Assimilation

- new immigrant groups would assume the attitudes and language of the dominant white community - the acceptance of a minority group by a majority population in which the new group takes on the values and norms of the dominant culture

Deviance

- nonconformity to a given set of norms that are accepted by a significant number of people in a community or society - modes of action that do not conform to the norms or values held by most members of a group or society

Discrimination

- refers to actual behavior toward another group - behavior that denies to the members of a particular group resources or rewards that can be obtained b others

Ethnicity

- refers to cultural practices and outlooks of a given community that have emerged historically and tend to set people apart - cultural values and norms that distinguish the members of a given group from others

Prejudice

- refers to opinions or attitudes- positive or negative- held by members of one group toward another - the holding of preconceived ideas about an individual or group, ideas that are resistant to change even in the face of new information

Survey

- researchers ask subjects to provide answers to structured questionnaires - a method of sociological research in which questionnaires are administered to the population being studied

Social Structure

- system of socioeconomic stratification, social institutions, or other patterned relations between large social groups - structure of social network ties between individuals or organizations

McDonaldization of Society

- the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world - efficiency, calculability, uniformity, and control through automation are the four guiding principles

Socialization

- the process where by an innocent child becomes a self-aware, knowledgeable person, skilled in the ways of the culture into which he or she was born - the social processes through which we develop an awareness of social norms and values and achieve a distinct sense of self

Gender

- the pyschological, social, and cultural differences between males and females - social expectations about behavior regarded as appropriate fro the members of each sex/ refers not to the physical attributes distinguishing men and women but to socially formed traits of masculinity and femininity

Bureaucracy

- the rule of officials - a type of organization marked by a clear hierarchy of authority and the existence of written rules of procedure and staffed by full-time, salaried officials

Sociology

- the scientific study of human social life, groups, and societies. - study of human groups and societies, giving particular emphasis to analysis of the industrialized world

World Systems

- theory that argues that the world capitalist economic system is not merely a collection of independent countries engaged in diplomatic and economic relations with one another but rather must be understood as a single unit - pioneered by Immanuel Wallerstein, this theory emphasizes the interconnections among countries based on the expansion of a capitalist world economy (made up of core countries, semiperipheral countries, and peripheral countries)

Life Chances

-social science theory of the opportunities each individual has to improve his or her quality of life - Lebenschancen - concept was introduced by German sociologist Max Weber

Ascribed Status

-the social status a person is assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life - it is a position that is neither earned nor chosen but assigned.

Malthusian Theory

A doctrine about population dynamics developed by Thomas Malthus, according to which a population increase comes up against "natural limits," represented by famine and war.

Rational-Legal Authority

A form of leadership in which the authority of an organization or a ruling regime is largely tied to legal rationality, legal legitimacy and bureaucracy.

Authority

A government's legitimate use of power.

Fecundity

A measure of the number of children that is biologically possible for a woman to produce.

Homogamy

Inbreeding, especially as a result of isolation.

Patriarchy

Male dominance in society.

Horizontal Mobility

Movement from one position to another within the same social level, as changing jobs without altering occupational status, or moving between social groups having the same social status.

Structural Mobility

Occurs when social changes affect large numbers of people.

Control Variable

One element that is not changed throughout an experiment, because its unchanging state allows the relationship between the other variables being tested to be better understood

Caste

One's social status given for life.

"Pink-Collar" Work

Performs jobs in the service industry.

Formal Organizations

Rationally designed to achieve its objectives, often by means of explicit rules, regulations, and procedures

Industrial Society

Refers to a society driven by the use of technology to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labor.

Racial Profiling

Refers to the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.

Dominant Culture

Refers to the established language, religion, values, rituals, and social customs. These traits are often the norm for the society as a whole.

Cultural Lage

Refers to the notion that culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, and that social problems and conflicts are caused by this lag.

Institutional Discrimination

Refers to the unjust and discriminatory mistreatment of an individual or group of individuals by society and its institutions as a whole, through unequal selection or bias, intentional or unintentional; as opposed to individuals making a conscious choice to discriminate.

Matriarchal

Social organizational form in which the mother or oldest female heads the family.

Diffusion

Social process through which cultural knowledge, practices, and materials spread from one social system to another.