Sociology Clep

A standard of poverty based on a minimum level of subsistence below which families should not be expected to exist.

Absolute poverty

A social position attained by a person largely through his or her own efforts.

Achieved status

An interactionist theory of aging that argues that elderly people who remain active will be best-adjusted.

Activity theory

In a legal sense, a process that allows for the transfer of the legal rights, responsibilities, and privileges of parenthood to a new legal parent or parents.

Adoption

Positive efforts to recruit minority group members or women for jobs, promotions, and educational opportunities.

Affirmative action

A term coined by Robert N. Butler to refer to prejudice and discrimination against the elderly.

Ageism

The most technologically advanced form of preindustrial society. Members are primarily engaged in the production of food but increase their crop yield through such innovations as the plow.

Agrarian society

The condition of being estranged or disassociated from the surrounding society.

Alienation

The process by which a majority group and a minority group combine through intermarriage to form a new group.

Amalgamation

Durkheim's term for the loss of direction felt in a society when social control of individual behavior has become ineffective.

Anomie

A theory developed by Robert Merton that explains deviance as an adaptation either of socially prescribed goals or of the norms governing their attainment, or both.

Anomie theory of deviance

Processes of socialization in which a person "rehearses" for future positions, occupations, and social relationships.

Anticipatory socialization

Anti-Jewish prejudice.

Anti-Semitism

The former policy of the South African government designed to maintain the separation of Blacks and other non-Whites from the dominant Whites.

Apartheid

Specialized language used by members of a group or subculture.

Argot

A social position "assigned" to a person by society without regard for the person's unique talents or characteristics.

Ascribed status

The process by which a person forsakes his or her own cultural tradition to become part of a different culture.

Assimilation

Power that has been institutionalized and is recognized by the people over whom it is exercised.

Authority

A kinship system in which both sides of a person's family are regarded as equally important.

Bilateral descent

The use of two or more languages in particular settings, such as workplaces or educational facilities, treating each language as equally legitimate.

Bilingualism

The number of live births per 1,000 population in a given year. Also known as the crude birthrate.

Birthrate

A political philosophy promoted by many younger Blacks in the 1960s that supported the creation of Black-controlled political and economic institutions.

Black power

Karl Marx's term for the capitalist class, comprising the owners of the means of production.

Bourgeoisie

A component of formal organization in which rules and hierarchical ranking are used to achieve efficiency.

Bureaucracy

The process by which a group, organization, or social movement becomes increasingly bureaucratic.

Bureaucratization

An economic system in which the means of production are largely in private hands and the main incentive for economic activity is the accumulation of profits.

Capitalism

Hereditary systems of rank, usually religiously dictated, that tend to be fixed and immobile.

Castes

The relationship between a condition or variable and a particular consequence, with one event leading to the other.

Causal logic

An enumeration, or counting, of a population.

Census

Max Weber's term for power made legitimate by a leader's exceptional personal or emotional appeal to his or her followers.

Charismatic authority

A term used by Max Weber to refer to a group of people who have a similar level of wealth and income.

Class

In Karl Marx's view, a subjective awareness held by members of a class regarding their common vested interests and need for collective political action to bring about social change.

Class consciousness

An approach to the study of formal organizations that views workers as being motivated almost entirely by economic rewards.

Classical theory

A social ranking based primarily on economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence mobility.

Class system

A social system in which there is little or no possibility of individual mobility.

Closed system

A temporary or permanent alliance geared toward a common goal.

Coalition

The standards of acceptable behavior developed by and for members of a profession.

Code of ethics

Jean Piaget's theory explaining how children's thought progresses through four stages.

Cognitive theory of development

The practice of living together as a male-female couple without marrying.

Cohabitation

The maintenance of political, social, economic, and cultural dominance over a people by a foreign power for an extended period of time.

Colonialism

A spatial or political unit of social organization that gives people a sense of belonging, based either on shared residence in a particular place or on a common identity.

Community

A theory of urban growth that sees growth in terms of a series of rings radiating from the central business district.

Concentric-zone theory

A sociological approach that assumes that social behavior is best understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups.

Conflict perspective

Going along with one's peers, individuals of a person's own status, who have no special right to direct that person's behavior.

Conformity

An interactionist perspective that states that interracial contact between people of equal status in cooperative circumstances will reduce prejudice.

Contact hypothesis

The systematic coding and objective recording of data, guided by some rationale.

Content analysis

Subjects in an experiment who are not introduced to the independent variable by the researcher.

Control group

A view of conformity and deviance that suggests that our connection to members of society leads us to systematically conform to society's norms.

Control theory

A factor held constant to test the relative impact of an independent variable.

Control variable

A relationship between two variables whereby a change in one coincides with a change in the other.

Correlation

A term used by Bowles and Gintis to refer to the tendency of schools to promote the values expected of individuals in each social class and to prepare students for the types of jobs typically held by members of their class.

Correspondence principle

A subculture that deliberately opposes certain aspects of the larger culture.

Counterculture

A literal interpretation of the Bible regarding the creation of man and the universe used to argue that evolution should not be presented as established scientific fact.

Creationism

An increase in the lowest level of education required to enter a field.

Credentialism

A violation of criminal law for which formal penalties are applied by some governmental authority.

Crime

Due to the stereotyping, this term has been abandoned by sociologists in favor of new religious movements.

Cult

The viewing of people's behavior from the perspective of their own culture.

Cultural relativism

A school of criminology that argues that criminal behavior is learned through social interactions.

Cultural transmission

General practices found in every culture.

Cultural universals

The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior.

Culture

Ogburn's term for a period of maladjustment during which the nonmaterial culture is still adapting to new material conditions.

Culture lag

The feeling of surprise and disorientation that is experienced when people witness cultural practices different from their own.

Culture shock

Latino folk medicine using holistic health care and healing.

Curanderismo

The number of deaths per 1,000 population in a given year. Also known as the crude death rate.

Death rate

A neighborbood that residents identify through defined community borders and through a perception that adjacent areas are geographically separate and socially different.

Defended neighborhood

An aspect of the socialization process within total institutions, in which people are subjected to humiliating rituals.

Degradation ceremony

The systematic, widespread withdrawal of investment in basic aspects of productivity such as factories and plants.

Deindustrialization

A term used to describe the change from high birthrates and death rates to relatively low birthrates and death rates.

Demographic transition

The scientific study of population.

Demography

A large, organized religion not officially linked with the state or government.

Denomination

An approach that contends that industrialized nations continue to exploit developing countries for their own gain.

Dependency theory

The variable in a causal relationship that is subject to the influence of another variable.

Dependent variable

Behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society.

Deviance

A theory of deviance proposed by Edwin Sutherland that holds that violation of rules results from exposure to attitudes favorable to criminal acts.

Differential association

The process by which a cultural item is spread from group to group or society to society.

Diffusion

The process of making known or sharing the existence of an aspect of reality.

Discovery

The process of denying opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups because of prejudice or other arbitrary reasons.

Discrimination

A functionalist theory of aging introduced by Cumming and Henry that contends that society and the aging individual mutually sever many of their relationships.

Disengagement theory

Two unrelated adults who have chosen to share one another's lives in a relationship of mutual caring, who reside together, and who agree to be jointly responsible for their dependents, basic living expenses, and other common necessities.

Domestic partnership

A set of cultural beliefs and practices that helps to maintain powerful social, economic, and political interests.

Dominant ideology

Reductions taken in a company's workforce as part of deindustrialization.

Downsizing

A view of social interaction, popularized by Erving Goffman, under which people are examined as if they were theatrical performers.

Dramaturgical approach

A two-member group.

Dyad

An element or a process of society that may disrupt a social system or lead to a decrease in stability.

Dysfunction

A religious organization that claims to include most or all of the members of a society and is recognized as the national or official religion.

Ecclesia

Numerous ways that people with access to the Internet can do business from their computers.

E-commerce

The social institution through which goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed.

Economic system

A formal process of learning in which some people consciously teach while others adopt the social role of learner.

Education

An authority pattern in which the adult members of the family are regarded as equals.

Egalitarian family

A view of society as ruled by a small group of individuals who share a common set of political and economic interests.

Elite model

The restriction of mate selection to people within the same group.

Endogamy

A legal strategy based on claims that racial minorities are subjected disproportionately to environmental hazards.

Environmental justice

Talcott Parsons's functionalist view of society as tending toward a state of stability or balance.

Equilibrium model

A religious group that is the outgrowth of a sect, yet remains isolated from society.

Established sect

The reputation that a particular individual has earned within an occupation.

Esteem

A group that is set apart from others because of its national origin or distinctive cultural patterns.

Ethnic group

The tendency to assume that one's culture and way of life represent the norm or are superior to all others.

Ethnocentrism

The study of an entire social setting through extended systematic observation.

Ethnography

A theory of social change that holds that society is moving in a definite direction.

Evolutionary theory

The requirement that people select mates outside certain groups.

Exogamy