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Terms of Sociology


Status inconsistencies
In multi dimensional systems of stratification individuals may occupy inconsistent statuses-individuals with high level of educational attainment which provides a high social status along one stratification dimension may be employed in occupations that are poorly paid and carry low prestige indicating low statuses along other dimensions. This concept was coined by G Lenski.He also coined another term status crystallization which denotes consistencies between an individual's various statuses. He cites four important statuses: income, occupational prestige, education and ethnicity. Inconsistencies believed to promote resentment among individuals who may therefore either favor radical social change designed to alter the design of the system of stratification or attempt to crystallize their own statuses by changing their own personal situation.

Sex Ratio
The number of males per 100 females in a given population.

Sex Role
The cultural role assigned to men or women as members of their sex.

G.H Mead in mind, self and society 1934 regards self as social. Individuals with the phenomenon of role taking form a conception of self which is based on others responses to himself.

Social closure
According to Max Weber who used this concept to describe the kind of social groups which maximized their own advantage by restricting access of rewards to their own members. Thus closing access to outsiders Frank Parkin treats closure as an aspect of the distribution of power between classes.Parkin identified strategies of exclusion by which collectivities with privileged access to rewards attempt to exclude outsiders and pass on privileges to their own kind.

Social Sanctions
Means by which conformity to socially approved standards is enforced. It can be positive inform of reward and negative in form of punishment. It can be formal (legal restraints) and can also be informal.

A social unit made up persons who are or who believe themselves to be united by family or hereditary descent. The sib always has a name as well as certain symbols towards which the sib members have feelings or reverence and respect. In addition the sib holds various forms or property such as the ceremonies and ceremonial equipment.

Sick role
The concept was first outlined by Henderson and then elaborated by Parsons. From a sociological perspective illness can be regarded as a form of social deviance in which an individual adopts a specific role. This sick role has four major characteristics-
The incumbent is exempted from normal social responsibilities.
The sick person is not blamed for being sick
The person is expected to seek out competent professional help.
The incumbent of a sick role is expected to comply with the regimen prescribed by a competent doctor.

Six fundamental interests
Albion W Small's statement that the six basic main springs of human behavior are health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty and righteousness.

Social Action
Conduct that is oriented toward other people.Any cooperative effort on the part of a group of people to achieve some goal.

Social Behaviour
Human activity which occurs in response to the meanings of the conduct of others or that which is intended to stimulate meaningful responses in others.
Social cause
Any action or situation which would elicit conduct in people.

Social change
The term social change usually refers to any change in the ideas, norms, values, social roles and social habits of the people or in the composition or organization of their society. The precise definition depends on exactly how the word social is defined if social and cultural are identical then social change would be cultural change.

Social Control
The deliberate institutional means of making individuals and groups in a society observe and conform to the avowed social norms. The informal pressure exerted by a group over an individual by means of certain techniques such as gossip, ridicule and praise. The group interaction itself which functions to channel behavior into certain paths is also a kind of social control, quite apart of any deliberate methods.

Social Darwinism
The point of view that cultural groups and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as plants and animals in nature. Thus the weak groups are numerically diminished and their cultures delimited while the strong groups grow in numbers as well as in their cultural influence over the weak.

Social Differentiation
The development of status differences in a society. The development of social and cultural distinctions in a society.

Social Disintegration A drastic breakdown in the social control of social relations and sense of in group solidarity in a society. The process by which people participate in over fewer social activities so that the amount of interaction among them decreases and group controls over them diminish in effectiveness

Social Distance The degree to which groups of people treat each other with reserve because of cultural,racial,religious,economic or other differences.

Social Hygiene
Social work dealing with the problem of prostitution and control of venereal disease.

The process of developing a personality; it refers to the way that people learn the habits,attitudes,social roles of self-conceptions, group norms and universe of discourse that enable them to interact with other people in their society. The transfer of the ownership of property from private individuals to government ownership.

Social Organization
A social group or society. The organization of society into an interrelated hierarchy of groups and status levels. The process whereby all the groups and persons in a society co-operate in their willingness to give allegiance to their value system. The condition in which there is a high degree of order and integration in the social practices, values and ideologies in a society with a minimum of ambiguity and conflict among them. The customary and regular relationships among people; the regular ways that people usually behave towards each other.

Social Ossification
The process by which status levels become more distinct. The process of standardization in social practices.

Social Parasite
A kind of person who makes a living at the expense of others without even trying to return anything to his supporters.

Social Problem
Any social condition or practice which deviates from a given set of ideals. Social practices or conditions which deviate from the values of society and which seriously thwart the achievement or maintenance of these values by serving to disorganize individual personalities or by reducing the degree of social integration and respect for order.

Social Process
Social interaction among persons. Any sequence of acts by a group of people. Any way in which groups of people act toward each other as they seek to achieve certain goals.Any development or evolution of society.

Social Psychology
The systematic study of the development of the human personality in a group context also the study of collective movement of crowds, masses and public and the ways in which their behavior influenced, directed and controlled.

Social Revolution
A sudden and drastic change in the social practices or in the status structure in a society.

Social Stratification
The process whereby clean and definite status levels are formed. The organization of society into status levels.

Social Sciences
Any of the several related sciences that objectively study and analyze the significant aspects of human social behavior. They would essentially include sociology, political science, economics, cultural anthropology, social geography, population studies and social psychology. Many social scientists would also include physical anthropology and psychology as well as historiography and archaeology.

Social Structure
The orderly organization of the social roles and statutes in a society.Any degree of regularity in the way that people act toward each other in a given group.

Social System
The whole range of habits and symbols that people use in communicating with each other. The regular relationships among the people of a society.

Social theories of population growth
Theories which explain population change in terms of the social and economic conditions which are peculiar to a particular people including such factors as their cultural level, their cultural level, their religious ideas and their occupational structure.

Social Work
The professional attempt to help people meet their personal and family problems more effectively.

The largest social grouping having permanence through generations of people who adhere to a common culture, tradition and value system who have a status system and a division of social functions who have modes of control over their social conduct and who are conscious of being a unique society distinct from all others.

Socio-Economic Status
The status or amount of prestige in society which is associated with the amount of income, wealth or type of occupation.

Sociological Fact
A verifiable statement or observation about a social phenomenon which has relevance to a sociological hypothesis or generalization.

Sociology of Family life
The study of the types of families in terms of the relations among the family members; it also usually includes the study of dating and courtship behavior; the factors associated with marital happiness ,the influence of urban and rural living on family and the effects of such crises as migration,divorce,desertion,death and war on family life.

Sociology of religion
The study of the social, economic and political factors which are associated with the establishment, maintenance and change in a religious institution or its ideology; it is also the study of the significance of religion in human conduct.

Spencer's stages of society
Herbert Spencer's statement that society developed from a society organized primarily for war. A society organized primarily for industry.

The privileges, rights and duties which are associated with the higher or lower social rank in a group or society.

Status symbol
Any object, skill, experience or action on which members of a group or society place a value and which they use as a criterion for determining status.

Stationary population
A population in which the birth and death rates are constant and approximate each other so that the size of the age and sex categories remains relatively constant.

Any unsystematised body of irrational and fearful beliefs in various unreasonable phenomena having a supernatural character.

Term coined by J.L Moreno. A technique to measure the likeness or dislikeness or identifying a group to which one wants to be associated.

Sacred and Profane
According to Durkheim sacred things are those which the religious interdictions protect and isolate profane things, those to which these interdictions are applied and which must remain at a distance from the first.

Suburban way of life
Those live in the suburbs have a distinctive way of life described as quasi primary involving close almost family like relationships with neighbours and friends.