A Brief List of Sociological Concepts and Terms
An internship facilitates the transition from student to professional through explicit applications of
academic learning to internship work experiences. Expand and customize this list to better reflect your own
academic coursework in Sociology, Gerontology, Nonprofit Leadership, and your other majors and minors.
Add concepts, theories, research generalizations, ideas, and insights. Review your list each day before writing
the “Reflections and Applications” section of your daily internship journal entries. This “aided recall” practice
will prompt more and stronger reflections connecting your academic learning to your internship experience.
Accommodation
Acculturation
Alienation
Anomie
Achieved Status
Ascribed Status
Assimilation
Authority
Beliefs
Bureaucracy
Closed System
Cohort Group
Cohort Identity
Collective Behavior
Conflict Theory
Culture
Cultural Pluralism
Cultural Relativism
Definition of the Situation
Demography
Discrimination
Epistemology
Ethnocentrism
Exchange Theory
Extended Family
False Consciousness
Feminist Theory
Folkways
Formal Organization
Gender Theory
Ideal Norms
Identity
Heterosexism
Gender Inequality
Gender Socialization
Groupthink
Identity
Impression Management
Informal Structure
Instrumental Leadership
Internalization
Language
Latent Function
Laws
Macro-level Analysis
Manifest Function
Master Status
Meso-level Analysis
Micro-level Analysis
Mores
Nonverbal Communication
Norms
Nuclear Family
Organizational Culture
Paternalistic Relationships
Power
Prejudice
Presentation of Self
Primary Group
Primary Socialization
Racism
Real Norms
Reference Group
Role
Role Conflict
Role Strain
Secondary Group
Self
Sexism
Sexual Orientation
Situation
Social Change
Social Class
Social Cohesion
Social Control
Social Conformity
Social Conflict
Social Context
Social Differentiation
Social Determinism
Social Deviance
Social Dynamics
Social Forces
Social Groups
Social Institutions
Social Mobility
Social Movements
Social Networks
Social Organization
Social Position
Socio-economic Status (SES)
Socio-emotional Leadership
Socialization
Social Stratification
Social Structure
Status
Status Inconsistency
Stereotype
Structural Functionalism
Subculture
Symbols
Symbolic Interaction
Taboo
Values