Sociological Dictionary
The following list of terms and their definitions are incomplete, continually revised, and
not as well documented as they should be. In a number of cases, I have modified others’
definitions to suit my own understanding and conception of these terms.
Accountability = A situation in which citizens can discern representative from
unrepresentative governments and can sanction them appropriately (Manin et al 1999:
10).
Achievement = A social condition in which individuals are in positions in a stratification
system because of qualities within their control, due to some meritocratic ideal (see
Kerbo 1999).
Adaptation = how organisms adjust to the environment. It is the fit between the
characteristics of the organism and the environment (Sanderson 1999).
Alienation = The process whereby the worker ceases to regard work as an intrinsically
enjoyable activity, regarding it as dehumanizing and crushing to the spirit (Marx).
Ascription = A social condition in which individuals are placed in positions in a
stratification system because of qualities beyond their control (Kerbo 1999).
Assimilation = 1. The process by which different cultures are absorbed into a single
mainstream culture. 2. Adaptation process of particular immigrant groups following a
sequential path from initial economic hardship/discrimination to eventual upward social
mobility arising from (a) increasing knowledge of host society, (b) acceptance by the host
society.
Beliefs = shared cognitive assumptions about what is true and what is false (Sanderson
1999). These are at times very close to values, but in general, they refer to proper child
rearing techniques, differences between men and women, the nature of the universe and
human beings’ place within it. It is philosophical.
Bureaucracy = designed to rationally administer goods and services within an
organization. It’s the best we could come up with. It’s the best way to cope with
administrative requirements. Since it limits individuality (cogs in the machine), and
emphasizes rationality (at the expense of bias), bureaucracy is designed to limit political
gain.
Capitalism = A way of organizing economic life
A.
B.
Private ownership of the means of production.
Profit as an incentive: 1000 years before the industrial revolution, individuals
and groups searched for profit. What separates capitalism from other
economies are the ways in which profits can be sought. See C and D below.
C.
D.
Free competition for markets to sell goods, acquire cheap raw materials, and
use cheap labor.
“Capitalist Imperative” -- Restless expansion and investment to accumulate
capital.
Circulation Mobility = The amount of mobility accounted for by exchange movements
up and down the occupational structure.
Civil Liberties = fundamental individual right protected by law and expressed as
immunity from unwarranted governmental interference.
Conceptualization = understanding and defining what a phenomenon is in order to
explain it to others as you understand it.
Conformity = Agreement between an individual’s behavior and a group’s standards or
expectations (http://www.bartleby.com/59/17/conformity.html)
Credential Inflation = the increase in the number and types of credentials needed to
access an occupation, similar to the laws of inflation. Once everyone has one type of
credential, that credential becomes worthless. New credentials are needed.
Credentialism = the system whereby occupational aspirants need certain types of
credentials to access an occupation.
Cuckoldry = the act whereby a female gets a man to care for her child that isn’t his.
Cultural Diffusion = the process by which aspects of culture from one group are
incorporated into another.
Culture = the values the members of a given group hold, the languages they speak, the
symbols they revere, the norms they follow, the beliefs they have, and the material goods
they create.
Deindustrialization = a systematic decline in the industrial base.
Democracy = rule by the people. Democracy is typically marked by (a) free and open
elections, (b) the ability to form political parties.
Demography = those factors involving the nature and dynamics of human populations.
Size and density of the population, its growth and decline, etc (Sanderson 1999).
Descriptive Representation = Occurs when the composition of the representative body
more accurately reflects the sociodemographics and experiences of the citizenry
(Mansbridge 1999: 629; Pitkin 1972: Chapter 4). Proponents assert that those
representatives who share the same sociodemographic and experiential characteristics of
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their constituencies have the sufficient empathy to evaluate and construct representative
policy (Dietz 2003; Phillips 1995; Squires 2001).
Dimension = a) one part of the definition of a concept and b) a group of related
indicators of the same concept.
Discrimination = Unequal or unfair treatment of one social group or category by
another.
Ecology = The totality of the physical environment to which humans must adapt. Soil,
climate, patterns of rainfall, nature of plant and animal life, geography, etc (Sanderson
1999).
Elites = Three major definitions:
1.
2.
3.
Statistical elite = Those who have the most of scarce and valued
resources. If you make a list, they are the top percent. e.g. Pareto
(1901) in Rise and Fall of the Elites.
Domhoff definition = as those “members of the upper class who have
taken on leadership roles in the corporate community and the policy
network, along with high-level employees in corporations and policy
network organizations” (2000: 95). Domhoff argues that they form a
class, with interests and similar life chances.
Inclusive = Those who, by virtue of their wealth, charisma, or position
or positions within an organization or group of organizations, have the
capacity to be key forces in local or national projects, depending on
their status as either local or national elites.
Two major types of elites:
1.
2.
State elite = political leaders whose power stems from political and
organizational resources.
Non state elites = economic elite; power stems from control of economic
resources.
Ethnic Enclaves = social territories in which a concentration of ethnic minorities reside,
work, and pull together economic resources to better their life chances (Portes).
Ethnic Group = A social group or category having a socially meaningful distinctiveness
that rests on cultural criteria (Sanderson 1999). e.g. Italian, Chinese, Jewish
Ethnocentrism = A universal social doctrine holding that one’s own culture or society is
superior to all others (Sanderson 1999)
Exploitation = an economic process that occurs when one party compels another to give
up more than it receives in return (Wright, Zeitlin, Sanderson).
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Feudalism = A politico-economic system found in some agrarian societies in which a
private landlord class holds land in the form of fiefs.
Fiefs = A grant of land given by an overlord to a vassal (lower lord) in return for the
performance of such obligations as military service and personal protection.
Functional Analysis = It represents the basic methodological tactic of assuming that
certain phenomena should be analyzed and understood from the point of view of their
adaptive significance, that is, from the vantage point of their usefulness in fulfilling some
aim or objective (Sanderson 1999: 8).
Glass Ceiling = This refers to women’s inability to attain management positions within
their occupation. They try to advance, and see others at the top as if looking through a
glass ceiling, but are denied advancement.
Groupthink = The process by which members of a group ignore ways of thinking and
plans of action that go against the group consensus.
Hypergyny = Society in which the majority of women marry at or above their social
status.
Ideological Conditions = Refers to intangible elements: thoughts, attitudes, beliefs,
values, etc.
Impression Management = the process whereby we attempt to manipulate how others
perceive us. We purposively act in such a way as to change or maintain our perception of
others.
In-groups vs out-groups: (Giddens et al 2003) In-groups = groups toward which one
feels loyalty and respect. Out-groups = groups toward which one feels antagonism and
contempt.
Income = Money, wages, and payments periodically received as returns from an
occupation or investment (Kerbo 2003).
Indicator = a warning that the phenomenon is present (or not).
Industrial Revolution = Transformation of a technology resting heavily on human and
animal labor into a technology characterized by machines (Sanderson 1999).
Legitimation = how social stratification system, level of inequality, and elite power is
made acceptable to the general population (Kerbo 2003). Legitimate = from Sanctioned
by the laws of reasoning; logically admissible or inferable to sanctioned or authorized by
law or right; lawful; proper (OED online).
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Levels of Measurement =
Nominal (choices can not be rank ordered) Religious affiliation, gender, college major
Ordinal (choices can be rank ordered) Strength of attitude toward _______, religiosity
Interval (choices can be rank ordered with a measurable distance between categories)
Age, IQ
Ratio (choices can be rank ordered with a measureable distance between categories and
have a legitimate zero point) Income, scale of political participation
Material Conditions = A society’s material infrastructure is its most basic component in
the sense that without it, physical survival is literally impossible (or highly improbable)
(Sanderson 1999). Technology, ecology, economy, demography.
Means of Production = the material aspects of society, including the economy, the
technology, the factories, the businesses, the farms, etc.
Meritocracy = a system whereby people achieve their place in the stratification system
through either living up to certain ideals or following socially sanctioned achievement
rules (Dubrow; Kerbo 1999).
Miscegenation = The mixing or interbreeding of (people of) different races or ethnic
groups, esp. the interbreeding or sexual union of whites and non-whites (from the OED
online).
Mode of Production = A society’s combined level of technological development
combined with the overall organization of its economy, including the division of labor
(Sanderson 1999; Zeitlin 1994).
Neolithic Revolution = a name for the transition from hunter gatherer societies to the
beginnings of horticultural and agricultural societies (Kerbo 2003; Sanderson 1999).
Net Worth = (what you have) – (what you owe).
Occupational Structure= coined by Blau and Duncan (1967). Refers to enduring
patterns of occupational distributions within a society.
Operationalization = the process of measuring a concept; it starts with dimensions and
abstract indicators and ends with empirically observable indicators and variables.
Organizations = a group with identifiable membership engaged in concerted collective
actions to achieve a common purpose.
Norms = definite principles or rules people are expected to observe.
Politics = refers to making decisions considered binding to an aggregate of persons.
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Political Structure = enduring patterns of relationships among people, groups,
institutions, etc. involved in political enterprise. It consists of the patterns of interplay
between rules, rulers and the ruled (Powell 2000).
Pool = Informal, unstructured circumstance with no discernable pattern of relationships
(e.g. Hunter’s (1959) identification of “top leadership, U.S.A.” as “a reservoir of
leadership on tap…”(174)).
Postindustrial Society = where the economic production base has turned from
production of goods to production of services.
Power = the probability a person or a group has to realize their will despite the resistance
of others (Weber). “Power” is applied to people and phenomena as both an action and a
capacity for action.
Prejudice = Favorable or unfavorable opinions or attitudes held by members of one
group toward another.
Primary vs secondary groups (Giddens et al 2003): Primary groups = small groups
characterized by face-to-face interaction, intimacy, and strong, enduring sense of
commitment. Secondary groups = large, impersonal groups often involving fleeting
relationships, e.g. school mates you see in class but have no strong ties to.
Race = A category of persons who are identified by themselves and by others as having a
socially meaningful distinctiveness that rests on biological criteria (Sanderson 1999).
e.g. Black, white, Hispanic
Racism = An elaborate ideology holding that one race is biologically superior and that all
others are biologically inferior to it. This doctrine regards the unequal economic and
social positions of different races as the outcome of their genetic differences (Sanderson
1999).
Racial/Ethnic Antagonism = Refers to active opposition between racially or ethnically
defined groups. Elements of antagonism include prejudice and discrimination (Dubrow
and Sanderson 1998).
Rationality = the extent to which people attempt systematically to work out the conduct
of their affairs (Hughes et al 1995).
Reference Groups = a group that provides a standard for judging one’s own behavior
and attitudes (Giddens et al 2003).
Religion = shared beliefs and values pertaining to the postulation of supernatural beings,
powers, or forces (Sanderson 1999).
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Religious Terminology (Giddens et al 2003): Church = large, established religious
bodies, Sect = smaller, less formal groups of believers, trying to revive an established
church, Denomination = established sect, Cult = resemble sects, but are not trying to
revive an established church. Religious movement = attempt to promote a new religion or
a new interpretation of an established religion.
Representation = The relationship between the interests of the masses and outcomes.
Masses perceive representation when they believe that political outcomes (e.g.
legislation) are in accord with their desires. A government is responsive if it adopts
policies that are signaled as preferred by the masses (Manin et al 1999: 9).
Representation and responsiveness are very much alike, and some use the terms
interchangeably (Stimson 1999).
Residential Segregation = the geographic separation of social groups. Theoretically, it
has been linked to occupational segregation (Simkus 1978), ethnic segregation resulting
from differences between status groups (Guest and Weed 1976), ethnic and racial
segregation as mechanism for underclass creation (Massey 1990), and economic
segregation (Jargowsky 1996).
Right = The standard of permitted and forbidden action within a certain sphere; law; a
rule or canon (OED online). Three different types of rights:
A.
Civil rights = Rights of the individual in law.
B.
Political rights = Rights to participate in elections and run for office.
C.
Social rights = Rights of every individual to enjoy a minimum standard of
economic welfare and security.
Rigidity = “…the continuity (over time) in the social standing” of the members of a
social stratification system (Grusky 2000: 6). Note that “the amount of rigidity (or
‘social closure’) in any given society will typically vary across the different types of
resources and assets” available for access, acquisition and distribution (Grusky 2000: 6).
Science = a set of techniques for the acquisition of knowledge relying upon observation
and experience; it also refers to the body of knowledge itself.
Scientific Method = (from Zeitlin 1994):
1. rational pursuit of truth, unfettered by superstition or bias.
2. all aspects of human life are subject to critical examination.
3. a sense of intellectual progress, that through scientific discourse we are arriving at
an understanding of the phenomenon in question.
4. attempts at positivist, universal law… a law that satisfactorily explains existing
phenomena and can predict the behavior of future, similarly related phenomena.
Positivism is the application of scientific principles to all natural and human
phenomena.
5. method is guided by reason and observation, with an eye towards the rational, and
the empirical.
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Secular Thinking = emphasis on rational-logical thought in ways that differ from
spirituality.
Secularization = process whereby an increasing percentage of society adopt secular
thinking.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy = where our expectations of reality lead us to behave in such a
way as to produce that reality (Branaman 2001).
Slavery = a form of labor organization in which some persons are legally owned as a
form of human property, are compelled to work by their owners, and are deprived of
most or all political rights (Sanderson 1999).
Social Capital = the social knowledge and connections that enable people to accomplish
their goals and extend their influence (Giddens et al 2003).
Social Categories = people sharing a common characteristic without necessarily
interacting or identifying with one another (Giddens et al 2003).
Social Construction of Reality = the reality experienced by people depends on the
meanings they learn from others in their society and social groups (Berger and Luckman
1966).
Social Context = The material and ideological conditions of society.
Social Differentiation = A social condition in which people possess distinct individual
qualities and social roles (Kerbo 2003). This is a nominal, or non-rank ordered social
situation.
Social Group = a collection of people who share a common identity and regularly
interact with one another on the basis of shared expectations concerning behavior
(Giddens et al 2003).
Social Inequality = A social condition in which people have unequal access to scarce
and valued resources in society (Kerbo 2003; Sanderson 1999). This is a rank ordering of
society.
Social Mobility = Individual or group movement within the class system.
 Horizontal Mobility = Movement across equal ranks
 Vertical Mobility = movement in unequal ranks
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Social Movement = A sustained campaign of claims making, using repeated
performances that advertise the claim, based on organizations, networks, traditions, and
solidarities that sustain these activities (Tilly and Tarrow: 8 Contentious Politics).
Social Movements = Organized challenges to authorities that use a broad range of
tactics, both inside and outside of conventional politics, in an effort to promote social and
political change (Meyer 2003 in Contexts).
Social Roles = socially defined expectations that a person in a given social position
follows. People wear many hats.
Social stratification = The existence of structured inequalities among persons and
between social groups with respect to the access, acquisition and distribution of scarce
and valued resources; inequalities are usually based on power, privilege, and prestige (see
Giddens et al 2003; Lenski 1966; Sanderson 1999; Slomczynski and Shabad 2000). This
is a rank ordering of society.
Social Structure = A general terms for any collective social circumstance that is
unalterable and given for the individual. They are enduring patterns of behavior that set
limits on thought and action and cannot be changed by any individual will (Abercrombie
et al 1994: 391; Rytina 1997).
Social System = Any pattern of social relationships (Collins 1988: 46) with any
collection of interrelated parts (Abercrombie et al 1994: 392).
Socialization = The process whereby the helpless infant gradually becomes a self-aware,
knowledgeable person, skilled in the ways of the culture of their birthplace (Giddens et al
2003).
Society = a system of interrelationships at the boundaries of which is a substantive level
of interaction cleavage between it and its neighbors (Giddens et al 2003; Mann 1986).
Sociobiology = The extent to which, and the ways in which, human social behavior and
the structure of societies are determined by human biology (Sanderson 1999, 2001).
Evolutionary Psychology is similar discipline.
Sociology = the scientific study of human social life in all its aspects (Sanderson 1999).
Status = “…perceived, and in some degree accepted, social superiority, equality and
inferiority among individuals” (Chan and Goldthorpe 2007) arising out of repeated social
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interactions. See also Shils’ (1968) notion of deference position: the degree of deference
accorded to individuals or groups in a given social situation.
Status Crystallization = The relationship between the social resources and assets within
a given society; if the relationship is “strong, the same individuals … will consistently
appear at the top of all … hierarchies, while other individuals … will consistently appear
at the bottom of the stratification system” (Grusky 2000: 6).
Status Inconsistency = A weak relationship between the social resources and assets
within a given society; for example, when someone has low economic assets and high
social status (or social honor), status inconsistency is present.
Structural Mobility = The amount of mobility due to macro-changes in the occupational
structure.
Subcultures = A smaller culture existing within the framework of a larger culture
(Sanderson 1999).
Technology = the information, tools, and techniques with which humans adapt to their
environment (Sanderson 1999). From the digging hoe to the supercomputer, from the
irrigation system to the highway.
Theory = a specific statement or interrelated set of statements designed to explain some
particular phenomenon (Sanderson 1999).
Values = abstract ideals, the socially defined conceptions of worth, the moral conception
of right and wrong (Sanderson 1999).
Wealth = Accumulated assets in the form of various types of valued goods, such as real
estate, stocks, bonds, cash on hand (Keister 2000).
W. I. Thomas’ Theorem = "If men define things as real, they are real in their
consequences" (W. I. Thomas, The Unadjusted Girl. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.,
1923).
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