B & C
B
BALANCE OF POWER. The theory that military conflict can be avoided if both sides have roughly equivalent military power.
BUREAUCRACY. A formal organization marked by a clear hierarchy of authority, the existence of written rules of procedure, staffed by full-time salaried officials, and striving for the efficient attainment of organizational goals.
BUREAUCRATIZATION. Refers to the tendency of bureaucracies to refine their procedures to ever more efficiently attain their goals. More generally, refers to the process of secondary organizations taking over functions performed by primary groups.
C
CAPITALISM. An economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution in which the goal is to produce profit.
CAPITALISTS. Those who own companies, or stocks and shares, using these to generate economic returns or profits.
CARRYING CAPACITY. The number of a species that a particular ecosystem can support without suffering irreversible deterioration.
CASH-CROP PRODUCTION. Production of crops for world markets rather than for consumption by the local population.
CASTE. A closed form of stratification in which an individual's status is determined by birth and cannot be changed.
CAUSATION. A 'cause and effect' relationship exists wherever a change in one variable (the independent variable) induces change in another (the dependent variable). Causal factors in sociology include individual motivation as well as many external influences on human behavior that often go unrecognized.
CHRONIC DISEASE. Disease of long duration, often not detected in its early stages, and from which the patient will not recover (such as high blood pressure or diabetes).
CHURCH. A body of people belonging to an established religious organization.
CITIZEN. A member of a state, having both rights and duties associated with that membership.
CIVIL DISORDERS. Social conflict (such as riots) that the government becomes involved in to restore public order.
CIVIL RELIGION. Secular forms of ritual and belief similar to those involved in religion--such as political parades or ceremonies.
CIVIL RIGHTS. Legal rights held by all citizens in a given state.
CLAN. A broad extended kin group found in many pre-industrial societies.
CLASS. Most sociologists use the term to refer to socioeconomic differences between groups of individuals which create differences in their life chances and power.
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS. An objective awareness of the class system, including the common interests of people within your class.
COGNITION. Human thought processes including perception, reasoning, and remembering.
COHABITATION. Living together in a sexual relationship of some permanence, without being legally married.
COLLECTIVE ACTION. Social action undertaken in a relatively spontaneous way by a large number of people.
COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE. Large numbers of people engaging in violent social behavior.
COLONIALISM. The process whereby nations establish their political and economic rule over less powerful nations.
COMMODITY RIOTS. Riots in which the focus of violence is the destruction of property.
COMMUNAL RIOTS. Riots in which the focus of violence is other groups (usually other race or ethnic groups).
COMMUNICATION. The transmission of information from one individual or group to another.
COMMUNISM. A set of egalitarian political and economic ideas associated with Karl Marx in which the means of production and distribution system would be owned by the community. "Communism" as developed by Lenin and institutionalized throughout Eastern Europe (until 1990) and China bears little resemblance to Marx's vision.
COMMUNITY. A group of people who share a common sense of identity and interact with one another on a sustained basis.
COMPARABLE WORTH. The evaluation of jobs dominated by women and those traditionally dominated by men on the basis of training, skills, and experience in attempts to equalize wages.
CONFLICT. A clash of interest (sometimes escalating to active struggle) between individuals, groups or society.
CONFORMITY. Human behavior which follows the established norms of a group or society. The bulk of human behavior is of a conforming nature as people accept and internalize the values of their culture or subculture
CONGLOMERATES. Large corporations made up of separate companies producing or trading in a variety of different products and services. Conglomerates are usually the result of mergers between companies or take-over of one firm by another.
CONSENSUS. Agreement on basic social values by the members of a group or society.
CONTINGENCY WORK. Temporary, part-time, or "contracted" employment for the duration of the project. Contingency work is one of the fastest growing employment sectors in America as it enables employers to expand and contract their workforce with the vagaries of the market and allows them to avoid costly fringe benefits and other commitments of long-term employment.
CONTRADICTION. Marx's term to refer to mutually antagonistic tendencies within institutions or the broader society such as those between profit and competition within capitalism.
CONTRADICTORY CLASS LOCATIONS. Positions in the class structure which share characteristics of the class positions both above and below them--the classic position would be that of a foreman in a factory or a department chair in academe.
CORE COUNTRIES. The advanced industrial societies of America, Western Europe and Japan are often referred to as core countries because of their central position on the world stage.
CORPORATIONS. A legally recognized organization set up for profit--the powers and liabilities of the organization are legally separate from the owners or the employees.
CORRELATION. The relationship between two variables in which they vary together--say a correlation between the income of parents and reading ability among primary school children. Statistical correlation can vary from -1 to 1 (a 0 indicates no correlation between the variables). A positive correlation between two variables exists where a high score on one is associated with a high score on the other. A negative correlation is where a high score on one variable is associated with a low score on the other.
COUP D'ETAT. An armed takeover of government by a small group of conspirators--often military officers .
CREATED ENVIRONMENT. Human constructions such as buildings, roads, factories, and private homes.
CRIME. Any action that violates criminal laws established by political authority.
CRISIS MEDICINE. Medical treatment that focuses on curing illness (as opposed to preventing the occurrence of disease).
CRUDE BIRTH-RATE. A statistical measure representing the number of births per thousand population within a given year.
CRUDE DEATH-RATE. A statistical measure representing the number of deaths per thousand population that occur annually in a given population.
CULT. A fragmentary religious group which lacks permanent structure.
CULTURAL LAG. A dysfunction in the socio-cultural system caused by change occurring in one part of the system and the failure of another part of that system to adjust to the change. An example would be married women engaged in outside employment and the continuance of the domestic division of labor.
CULTURAL MATERIALISM. A macro-social theory that attempts to account for the similarities and differences between socio-cultural systems by focusing on the environmental constraints to which human action is subject. Your instructor uses a variant of this theory constantly.
CULTURAL PLURALISM. The more or less peaceful coexistence of multiple subcultures within a given society.
CULTURAL SUPERSTRUCTURE. Socio-cultural materialism term used to refer to the shared symbolic universe within socio-cultural systems. It includes such components as the art, music, dance, rituals, sports, hobbies and the accumulated knowledge base of the system .
CULTURAL TRANSMISSION. The socialization process whereby the norms and values of the group are internalized by individuals.
CULTURAL UNIVERSALS. Values or practices shared by all human cultures.
CULTURE. The values, norms and material goods shared by a given group. Your instructor prefers to restrict the term to refer to symbolic aspects (values and norms).
CULTURE OF POVERTY. The view that the poor have a different value system that contributes to their poverty.
CURATIVE MEDICINE. Another term for Crisis Medicine--the focus on curing disease rather than its prevention.
CUSTODIAL CARE. Occurs when the focus of health care is on the needs of the institution (convenience, efficiency) rather than on the needs of the patient.
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The kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs to Allah. He indeed is able to do all things. -Quran, Al-Imran, Surah 3:189
Somayya
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