shtuff

Social Movements

Institutionalized attempts to change society by establishing or influencing organizations, lobbies, unions, and political parties.

Relative Deprivation

an intolerable gap between the social rewards people receive and the social rewards they expect to receive.

Resource Mobilization

The process by which social movements crystalize and engage in more collective action because of their growing power.

collective action

Occurs when people organize mass voting campaigns, large demonstrations, disruptive blockades, and the like, to bring about social change.

Environmental racism

The tendency to heap environmental dangers on the disadvantaged and especially on disadvantaged racial minority groups.

Risk society

a society in which technology distributes environmental dangers among all categories of the population although to varying degrees.

Normal accident

An accident that occurs inevitably although unpredictably because of the complexity of modern technologies.

Technological determinism

The belief that technology is the main factor shaping human history.

Social change

The alteration of social structures and cultures.

Technology

The practical application of scientific principles.

Mass media

Print, radio, television, and other communication technologies mass media transmit from a few sources to many people.

Social media

apps and websites that allow people to interact and create and share content via cellphone networks and the internet. social media transmit information from many sour es to one, few or many people.

Cultural studies

a field of analysis that focuses not just on cultural meanings that producers try to transmit but also on the way audiences filter and interpret mass media messages in the context of their own interests, experiences, and values.

deviance

departure from a norm that evokes a negative reaction from others.

law

a norm stipulated and enforced by government bodies

crime

deviance that is against the law

formal punishment

penalization by the judicial system for breaking a law

informal punishment

mild sanction that is imposed during face-to-face interaction rather than by the judicial system.

stigmatization

a process of negatively evaluating people because of a marker that distinguishes them from others.

victimless crimes

violations of the law in which no victim has stepped forward and been identified.

self-report surveys

surveys that as whether they have been involved in criminal activities as perpetrators or victims.

street crimes

crimes including arson break and enter assault and other illegal acts that are disproportionately committed by people from lower classes.

white-collar crimes

illegal acts committed by respectable high statues people in the course of work

labelling theory

holds that deviance results not so much from the actions of the deviant as from the response of others who label the rule breaker as deviance.

strain

the result of a culture teaching people to value material success, but society failing to provide enough legitimate opportunities for everyone to succeed.

control theory

holds that the rewards of deviance and crime are ample. therefore, nearly everyone would engage in deviance and crime if they get away with it. the degree to which people are prevented from violating norms and laws accounts for variation in the levels of deviance and crime.

medicalization of deviance

the process of applying medical definitions to deviant behavior, a practice that is becoming more prevalent.

moral panic

widespread fear that occurs when many people fervently believe that some form of deviance or crime poses a profound threat to societies well being.

recidivism rate

the percentage of imprisoned people who commit another crime usually within two years after release from prison.

restorative justice

focuses not on punishment but on rehabilitating offenders through reconciliation with victims and the larger community.

nuclear family

a cohabiting man and woman who maintain a socially approved sexual relationship and have at least one child.

traditional nuclear family

a nuclear family in which the husband works outside the home for money and the wife works without pay in the home.

extended family

expands the nuclear family vertically by adding another generation, one or more of the spouses’ parents, to the household.

crude divorce rate

the number of divorces that occur in a year for every 1000 people in the population.

crude marriage rate

the number of marriages that occur in a year for every 1000 people in the population.

total fertility rate

the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she had the same number of children as do women in each age cohort in a given year.

child support

money paid by the noncustodial parent to the custodial parent for the purpose of supporting the children of a separated marital cohabiting or sexual relationship.

blended family

includes the children of one or both spouses from a previous marriage.

prejudice

an attitude that judges people on their groups real or imagined characteristics

discrimination

unfair treatment of people because of their group membership.

scapegoat

a disadvantaged person or category of people whom others blame for their own problems.

ethnic group

comprises people whose perceived cultural markers are deemed socially significant. ethnic groups differ from one another in terms of language, religion, customs, values, ancestors, and the like.

race

a social construct used to distinguish people in terms of one or more physical markers usually with profound effects on their lives.

vertical mosaic

a highly ethnically and racially stratified society.

visible minority

a government designation unique to Canada, refers to non-indigenous people who are non Caucasian in race or non-white in color including south Asian, Chinese, black, Filipino, Latin American, Arab, southeast Asian, west Asian, Korean, and Japanese Canadians.

symbolic ethnicity

a nostalgic allegiance to the culture of the immigrant generation or that of the old country that is not usually incorporated into everyday behaviour.

racism

the belief that a visible characteristic of a group such as skin color indicates group inferiority and justifies discrimination.

institutionalized racism

bias that is inherent in social institutions and is often not noticed by members of the majority group.

Metis

Canadians of indigenous and European origin who reside mainly in the western provinces and Ontario.

non status Indians

indigenous people who live throughout Canada and were once status Indians but lost that status.

status Indians

indigenous people who live throughout Canada and are registered as Indians under the Indian act most of whom belong to a band that signed a treaty with the crown.

First nations

Status Indians and non-status Indians.

expulsion

the forcible removal of a population from a territory claimed by another population.

genocide

the intentional extermination of an entire population defined as a race or a people.

colonialism

involves people from one country invading and taking political, cultural, and economic control over people in another country.

internal colonialism

involves one race or ethnic group subjugating another in the same country. It prevents assimilation by segregating the subordinate group in terms of jobs, housing, and social contracts.

assimilation

the process by which a minority group blends into the majority population and eventually disappears as a distinct people in the larger society.

conquest

the forcible capture of land and the economic and political domination of its inhabitants.

slavery

the ownership and control of people.

split labor market

a labor market in which low wage workers of one race and high wage workers of another race compete for the same jobs. In that situation high wage workers are likely to resent the presence of law wage competitors. Conflict is bound to result, and racist attitudes develop or become reinforced.

pluralism

the retention of racial and ethnic culture combined with equal access to basic social resources.

transnational communities

communities whose boundaries extend between or among countries.