Sociology Key Terms

Absolute monarchy - A political system under which a king or queen has complete control of a country. Achieved status - A status that we either earn or choose and that is not subject to where or to whom we were born. Agents of socialization - People, groups, and experiences that influence our behavior and self-image. Aggregate - A collection of people who happen to be at the same place at the same time but have no other connection to one another. Agricultural or agrarian society - A society that raises crops by using animal-drawn plows. Alienation - The feeling of workers in a bureaucracy that they are being treated as objects rather than people. American Dream - The belief that all Americans, regardless of the conditions of their birth, have an equal chance to achieve success. Anomie - According to strain theory, the feeling of being disconnected from society that can occur when people aren’t provided with the institutionalized means to achieve their goals. The term was coined by Émile Durkheim. Anticipatory socialization - The learning of new norms and values in anticipation of a future role. Apartheid - A social system in which there is total separation of the races. Appearance - The way we look physically to other people. Ascribed status - A trait or characteristic people possess as a result of the circumstances of birth. Assimilation - The process whereby members of a group give up parts of their own culture in order to blend in to a new culture. Authoritarianism - A political system that does not allow citizens to participate in government. Belief - A specific idea that people feel to be true. Blue-collar - Another term for the working class. Body language - The ways in which we use our bodies consciously and unconsciously to communicate. Bourgeoisie - Karl Marx’s term for the owners of the means of production—factories, businesses, and equipment needed to produce wealth. Bureaucracy - According to Weber, a type of formal organization in which a rational approach is used for the handling of large tasks. Capitalism - The economic system in which the means of production are owned privately and individuals are free to keep the profits they make. Capitalist class - In industrialized societies, the rich and powerful and the owners of the means of production. It is also called the elite. Caste system - A system of stratification based on ascribed statuses. Category - A collection of people who share a particular characteristic but have nothing else in common. Charismatic authority - Authority that depends on the personal magnetism of one person, according to Weber’s power theory. Church - A religious group integrated with society. Class system - A system of stratification based on achieved statuses. Clergy - The middle stratum of the estate system of stratification, composed of Roman Catholic priests. Clique - An internal cluster or faction within a group. Colonialism - The tendency for a powerful country to invade a weaker country in order to exploit its resources by making it a colony. Commoners - The lowest stratum of the estate system of stratification, composed of the masses of people who spent their lives engaged in hard physical labor. Communism - An economic system similar to socialism in which all the means of production would be owned by everyone and all profits would be shared equally by everyone…