Kingdom
A level of political complexity and organisation above tribe and below nation state.
Kitsch
Bland and uncontroversial. Television and other entertainment programming aimed at cutting across social categories such as class or ethnicity. Not demanding much intelligence or effort to understand.
Know-how
Skills and knowledge. The ability to do or achieve something. A recognised job requisite.
Know-who
Knowing persons of influence. Having patrons in an organisation who can help one get a job or a promotion. An unrecognized job requisite.
Labour
A factor of production made up of the time, effort and skills of individuals. Its price is measured by wages.
Organised labour; the unions and their political influence.
Organised labour; the unions and their political influence.
Land
A factor of production made up of space on farms or inside factories. It price is measured by rent.
Language
A system of communication. Composed of symbols.
Law
Rules, usually those that prohibit specific activities, made up and approved officially by the state.
Leadership
A characteristic of being able to lead people.
Learning
A process of learning information. Most learning is learning of culture, and is composed of symbols. It can also include learning characteristics without words, non cultural, such as learning that a metal object is hot.
Logic
A method of knowing based upon argument. It is contrasted with belief, observation and authority.
Love
A strong emotion or feeling of affection and compassion. Once love, marriage, sex and child bearing were necessarily linked together but, with the advent of improved birth control and fertility technology, there is less necessity of socially linking them.
Lumpenproletariat
A class of people located below the working class, in the analysis of Marx. People who today might be called "street people."
Macro-level
Analysis and observations at the widespread community or national level. In sociology, the analysis of whole societies or communities. Contrast with micro-level.
Mainstream
An analogy borrowed from the physics of rivers. The mainstream is the major flow of a river, and the main culture of a society, excluding sub-cultures and ethnic minorities.
Malaria
A disease, potentially fatal, carried by anopheles mosquitoes. The major killer of children, ages 0-5, world wide. An indicator of poverty.
Marriage
A contractual arrangement between two persons, recognised by a community or society or by their members. The arrangement usually includes rights to cohabitation and sexual intercourse. It may also include a purpose or responsibility of having and raising children.
Masculine
A word borrowed from grammar to indicate social characteristics of maleness. Includes costumes and behaviour. What is considered masculine varies from community to community. Contrast with feminine.
Materialism
An ideology or assumption that material elements (technological and economic) are prime, in relation to other dimensions of cultures.
Mean (Arithmetic)
One of several types of mathematical average. Composed of the sum of all values divided by the number of values.
Mean (Personality)
A person who is unkind and not generous. Originally a word indicating someone who holds on tightly to her or his money. (Short arms and deep pockets). Scrooge at the beginning of the story.
Measuring
A way of reckoning size of things that vary continuously. Contrast with counting which requires discrete objects. Measured things can be less (like water) or smaller (in size), but not fewer.
Mechanism
A word borrowed from physics which refers to a social arrangement or institution which achieves some objective.
Median
Another mathematical form of average. Here you list all the items in order of size, and find the one which half way along the list. Its size is the median.
Melting Pot
A process defined as social changes when people migrate to a society, in which both the immigrants and the host society members change to produce some common or compromise set of characteristics which reflects both, and which all share in sameness.
Micro Credit
Various income generating schemes in which the amount of capital loaned is very small, intended to introduce participants to creating and running their own small enterprises.
Micro Enterprise
Coupled with micro-credit and training, various schemes intended to train and support individuals in setting up their own small businesses.
Micro-level
Sociological investigation and analysis in which interaction between two or a few more individuals is the focus. Contrasted with macro level.
Migration
A one way move in which a person or small group changes location from one community to another. Differs from nomadic wandering.
Minority (Visible)
Any ethnic group which can be identified by looking at their members. Usually the identifying features are the biological or physical features of the individuals, but sometimes can be the clothing, accessories or accoutrements.
Mobility (Geographic)
Moving from one location to another, Includes migrations and nomadic herding.
Mobility (Social)
Moving from one social class to another. Rarely: – moving from one ethnic group to another.
Model
A picture that represents a reality that may not be easily seen.
Molestation (Sexual)
Sexual predation, where an adult has sex with a vulnerable individual. Sometimes miscalled "incest."
Money
A system of symbols for the measure, storage and exchange of wealth.
Monitor
To observe. Monitoring a project or activity means to compare its outputs to its objectives (planned and desired outputs).
Monogamy
Marriage to one spouse only. From "gamy" meaning marriage.
Monolithic
A single model or design thought to be the only one applicable. In sociology, the notion of a monolithic family is seen as misleading, ideal and without reference to the observed facts.
Monotheism
Belief in a single God. Attributed to Moses, but practised in Persia long before by the followers of Zarathustra (Zoroaster). When Moses introduced monotheism, changing Jove to Jehovah, the other gods in the pantheon had to be transformed, so they became angels.
Mosaic
A picture or design, often composed of tiny tiles, stones or pieces of glass, which is multi coloured. In sociology, applied sometimes to multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism
An ideology which suggests we should respect our different cultural origins and languages, to make up a tolerant and varied society.
Multinational Corporation
A large commercial organisation which has legitimate branches in many countries. A corporation has only one ethic, to make a profit, so it can engage in activity which may be alien or deviant in some of the countries where it operates.
Nature
The biological universe.
Neanderthal
A human nomadic group in Europe which appeared around 230,000 years ago, co-existed with modern humans from 100,000 years ago then disappeared or changed about 28,000 years ago.
Networking
Making contacts, acquaintances and friends.
Newspeak
A word coined by George Orwell to describe what we now call spin doctoring, where the government takes concepts that are socially unacceptable and gives them new words with opposite meanings that reduce the negativity of the original words.
Norm (Social)
A set of values relating to acceptable behaviour.
Norm (Statistical)
A form of mathematical average which categorizes values into those inside and those outside.
Nuclear
Pertaining to the part of an atom that is at the centre, including protons and neutrons. Used as an adjective to refer to the science and technology of tearing apart or fusing nuclei to produce large amounts of energy.
Nuclear Family
Considered the centre of an extended family, composed of father-husband, wife-mother, and their offspring. Based on publicly recognised monogamous heterosexual relations. A model promoted by social and religious conservatives.
Oral
Verbal. Using the mouth. Communication that is contrasted with written communication. Compare to "aural" (by ear).
Organic
Having life, from the word "organ". A level of complexity above inorganic and below superorganic.
Organisation
A set of social interactions that comprise a recognisable structure. Where there is division of labour, each function is compared to an "organ" in a biological system.
Organisation Formal
A constructed and designed social organisation based on rationalisation, where logic and deliberate design are employed in its construction.
Organised
Arranged in such a way that the different parts have different functions and contribute to a greater effectiveness as a whole. Having organs.
Organism
A living entity that is complex enough to have organs specialising in different functions. If applied to cultural and social arrangements, where it is composed of symbols instead of living cells, sometimes called superorganism.
Pantheism
A belief system that sees all (pan) gods, nature and the universe as one. See polytheism and animism.
Participant Observation
A method of social science research where the observer lives among those being observed, and who records his or her own responses as well as those of those being observed.
Participation
Taking part in the activities. Doing. Not relying only on observing. A recommended way to train and teach people.
Participatory Appraisal
A method of assessment or observation where those being assessed participate centrally in the assessment process.
Participatory Measurement
The application of methods of participatory appraisal to the measurement of strength, or changes in strength, of a community or organisation.
Pedagogy
The study of how we learn, and the various effects of methods of teaching.
People
A collection of persons, so that the word is singular.
The biological organisms, or living entities who make up a society, as distinct from society, being their ideas and actions.
The biological organisms, or living entities who make up a society, as distinct from society, being their ideas and actions.
Persons
Individual human beings.
Perspective
A way of looking at something. When there is more than one perspective, the thing observed does not change, only the observers.
Political Dimension
A dimension of culture and community concerned with the allocation and exercise of power, including influence and authority.
Political Power
More than one spouse. Bigamy is two spouses. Polygyny is more than one wife. Polyandry is more than one husband.
Polytheism
The belief in several gods, each with distinct personalities and characteristics. From "poly" meaning many.
Population
The total number of people in a society or community, plus their demographic characteristics.
The larger group which is being studied, when a sample is taken for observation in research.
The larger group which is being studied, when a sample is taken for observation in research.
Poverty
A social problem that is not merely the lack of cash, but where a community or society is low in spirit, cannot see its own strengths and resources, and does not have any hope of becoming stronger or more wealthy.
Poverty (Factors)
The "big five" factors of poverty are disease, apathy, dependency, dishonesty, and ignorance. To end poverty it is necessary to attack factors rather than symptoms of poverty.
Poverty (War)
The war on poverty is a global movement aimed at eradicating, not alleviating, poverty. It avoids the charity approach, which ultimately increases poverty. It aims at making the poor stronger to fight their own war, and is opposed to those who wage war against the poor.
Power
Strength. The ability to move something. In social organisations, capacity.
Prejudice
A short sighted and intolerant way of thinking that involves making judgements prior to having all the relevant information.
Prescribed Norms
Behaviour that is recommended or required.
Prescriptive
Statements that tell you what to do. As a science, Sociology is seen as "descriptive rather than prescriptive."
Preservation
Preparing or conditioning something so that it will not change. Includes pickling and canning. Usually results in the death or demise of that which is being preserved.
Prestige
A value judgement about the worth or importance of a person. One of the three elements of social class.
Primate
Any animal that belongs to the same biological family which includes monkeys, baboons, chimpanzees, gorillas, mangabeys, colobus, and human beings.
Process
Any series of changes that are linked together.
Production
A process of taking factors (land, labour and capital) and adding or creating value by combining them in a manner that makes something more useful and scarce.
Production Factors
Factors of production are the inputs needed for economic production. Land can mean any space (but once meant farm land when production was agricultural). Capital includes all the tools. Labour means energy, skills and knowledge provided by humans.
Proletariat
Workers.
Proscribed
Behaviour which is forbidden or discouraged. See Norms.
Protestant Reformation
A social and religious movement in Europe which was a response to the corruption, decadence and hypocrisy of the western Christian Church (not including Eastern orthodox churches) of the time. The result was to create several protestant churches, leaving the original western church to be called Catholic.
Punishment
Discomfort, pain or ill at ease administered as retribution to someone who has been found to commit a crime.
Qualitative (Interviews)
A method of social science research in which questions are asked that do not require short answers.
