Sociological Terms 3
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Deviant Behavior and Social Control
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Informal Sanctions | Acts of approval and disapproval applied spontaneously by group members. |
| Diversion | Sending offenders, especially juveniles, to agencies outside the system. |
| Status Offenses | Offenses that are punishable if committed by juveniles but not by an adult. |
| Victimless Crime | Crimes such as drug use and gambling that are not predatory but nevertheless violate the moral code |
| Property Crime | Predatory crimes such as theft, where the criminal does not directly confront the victim. |
| Formal Sanctions | Acts of approval and disapproval applied in a public ritual, usually under the direct or indirect control of authorities. |
| Anomie | A state of normlessness, in which values and norms have little effect and the culture no longer provides adequate guidelines for behavior. |
| Labeling theory | An approach to deviance that emphasizes how some people are defined as deviant and the consequences of being so defined. |
| Innovators | In anomie theory, people who take illegal routes to socially approved goals. |
| Funnel Effect | The process by which a large number of crimes results in only a small number of offenders being sent to prison. |
| Techniques of Neutralization | Thought processes that make it possible to justify illegal or deviant behavior. |
| Rehabilitation | The resocialization of criminals to conform to society's values and norms and the teachings of usable work habits and skills. |
| Secondary Deviance | Deviant or criminal behavior that people develop as a result of having been labeled as deviant. |
| Recidivism | Crimes committed even after punishment has occured. |
| White-Collar crime | Acts by individuals who, while occupying positions of social responsibility or high prestige, break the law in the course of their work. |
| Social Control | Ways of directing or influencing members to conform to the group's values and norms. |
| Retreatists | In anomie theory, people who pull back from society altogether and cease to pursue culturally legitimate goals. |
Marriage and Alternative Family Arrangements
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Incest Taboo | A norm that forbids sexual intercourse among closely related individuals. |
| Exogamy | Marriage outside of one's own culturally defined group. |
| Matriarchal family | Families where the female is the dominant figure in decision making. |
| Family of Procreation | The family created by marriage. |
| Nuclear Family | Two spouses and their children |
| Matrilineal Descent | Kinship traced through the mother's family (for example, if your last name were your mother's maiden name). |
| Extended family | Family consisting of relatives in addition to the spouses and their children. |
| Endogamy | Marriage within one's own social group. |
| Homogamy | Marrying someone with similar social characteristics. |
| No-fault divorce | Divorce granted without one partner having to prove adultery, desertion, abuse, or other faults on the part of the other. |
| Polygamous family | A set of nuclear families linked by multiple marriage bonds, with one central individual married to several spouses. |
| Patrilocal residence | A requirement that a new couple settle down near or within the husband's father's household. |
| Neolocal Residence | A situation in which a newly married couple may choose to live virtually anywhere. |
| Family of Orientation | The family in which a person was born and raised. |
| Polyandry | A family in which the central individual is a female and the multiple spouses are males. |
| Companionate marriage | A marriage based on romantic love. |
Education
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| De Facto Segregation | A form of racial separateness resulting from residential housing patterns |
| White Flight | The migration of large numbers of white Americans from the central cities to the suburbs. |
| "Nation at Risk" | A 1983 report detailing a "rising tide of mediocrity" in U.S. education. |
| Hidden Curriculum | the social attitudes and values taught in school that prepare children to accept the requirements of adult life and to "fit into" the social, economic, and political statuses the society provieds. |
| Cultural Transmission | The procces in which major portions of a society's knowledge are passed from one generation to the next. |
| The Credentialized Society | The increasing trend in the United States for more and more jobs to require a degree regardless of whether possession of a degree increases job performance. |
| De Jure Segregation | A form of racial separateness based on laws prohibiting interracial contact. |
| No Child Left Behind | President George W. Bush's education plan requiring extensive standardized testing. |
| Tracking | The stratification of students by ability, social class, and various other categories. |
| Brown v. Board Education/Topeka | Supreme Court decision that ended de jure segregation in public schools. |
Collective Behavior and Social Change
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Expressive social movement | A movement that stresses personal feelings, especially those of satisfaction or well-being. |
| Craze | A fad that is especially short-lived. |
| Reactionary Social Movement | A movement that embraces the aims of the past and seeks to return the general society to yesterday's values. |
| Crowd | Any collection of people who just happen, in the course of their private activies, to be in one place at the same time and focus their attention on a common object or event. |
| Revolutionary Social Movement | A movement that seeks to overthrow all or nearly all of the existing social order and replce it with an order its members consider more suitable. |
| Acting Crowd | A group of people passionately aroused by some focal event, who often erupt into unplanned violence. |
| Fad | A social change with a very short life span marked by a rapid spread and an abrupt drop in popularity |
| Incipiency | The first stage of a social movement, when many people feel frustrated by the lack of currently avialable solutions to a problem |
| Social Movement | A sustained, organized effort by large numbers of people to support and bring about, or to resist, social change. |
| Resource mobilization theory | The explanation of social movements that emphasizes the actions and abilities of leaders. |
| Revisionary social movement | A movement that seeks small changes but does not challenge the legitimacy of existing social arrangements. |
| Institutionalized inequality | Differences between groups caused by arrangements in the social system rather than by individual acts of discrimination. |
| Cultural diffusion | The spread of an idea or technology from one society to another. |
| Public Opinion | Beliefs held by a dispersed collectivity of individuals about a common problem, interest, focus, or activity. |
| Mass | A large group of people who, although not physically gathered in one place, shared participation in some event or share a common interest. |
| Relative deprivation theory | The theory that says social movements arise when people are dissatisifed with their position in society compared with others. |
| Opinion Leaders | Recognized experts who influence what the public thinks. |
| Coalescence | The stage of a social movement when groups form around leaders and begin to devise proposals and strategies. |
| Mcdonalization | The transformation of traditional institutions by organizing them with an emphasis on efficiency, calculability, and predictability |
| Globalization | The increasing interdependence of people, businesses, and institutions in different countries. |
| Expressive Crowd | Crowd drawn together by the promise of personal gratification through active participation in activities and events. |
| Mass Hysteria | Large number of people who become overwhelmed with emotion and frenzied activity or become convinced that they have experience something for which investigators can find no discernible evidence. |
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