are pressured, forced, and often physically threatened to con-
form to certain rules.
social controls As Walter Reckless theorized, people don’t
commit crimes even if they could probably get away with them
due to social controls. There are outer controls, family, friends,
teachers, social institutions, and authority figures (like the
police) who influence (cajole, threaten, browbeat) us into obey-
ing social rules; and inner controls, internalized socialization,
conscious, religious principles, ideas of right and wrong, and
my self-conception as a “good person.”
social Darwinism A model of social change that saw each
succeeding society as improving on the one before it.
social epidemiology The focus on these social and behavioral
factors that influence the causes and distribution of disease and
disability.
social interaction The foundation for societal groups and
relationships and the process of how people behave and inter-
act with each other.
social mobility The movement from one class to another, it
can occur in two forms: intergenerational– that is, your par-
ents are working class, but you became lower, or your parents
are middle class, but you became upperclass; and
intragenerational– that is, you move from working to lower,
or from middle to upper, all within your lifetime.
social movements Collective attempts to further a common
interest or secure a common goal through action outside the
sphere of established institutions.
social revolution Revolution that changes the social groups
or classes that political power rests on.
Social Security The U.S. government program wherein citi-
zens contribute a small portion of their earnings while work-
ing, then collect a cash supplement after retirement. The
program has been credited with preventing tens of millions of
elderly from living in poverty and hunger.
social stratification Taken from the geological term for
layers of rock or “strata,” the ranking of people into defined
layers. Social stratification exists in all societies and is based
on things like wealth, race, and gender.
social structure A complex framework composed of both pat-
terned social interactions and institutions that together both
organize social life and provide the context for individual action.
socialism Economic system in which people are mean to
cooperate rather than compete, share goods and services, own
property collectively, and make decisions as a collective body.
socialization The process by which we become aware of our-
selves as part of a group, learn to communicate with others,
and learn how to behave as expected.
society An organized collection of individuals and institu-
tions, bounded by space in a coherent territory, subject to the
same political authority, and organized through a shared set
of cultural expectations and values.
socioeconomic status (SES) Your social connections, your
taste in art, your ascribed and attained statuses, and more.
Because there are so many components, sociologists today tend
to prefer the concept of socioeconomic statusto that of social
class, to emphasize that people are ranked through the inter-
mingling of many factors, economic, social, political, cultural,
and community.
sociological imagination The ability to see the connection
between our individual identities and the social contexts (fam-
ily, friends, and institutions) in we which we find ourselves.
sociology The study of human behavior in society.
solidarity Term for one’s awareness of membership in a
definable category of people, so that there is a clearly defined
“us” and “them.”
status One’s socially defined position in a group; it is often
characterized by certain expectations and rights.
stereotypes Generalizations about a group that are oversim-
plified and exaggerated and that fail to acknowledge individ-
ual differences in the group.
stigma An attribute that changes you “from a whole and
usual person to a tainted and discounted one,” as sociologist
Erving Goffman (1963) defined it. A stigma discredits a per-
son’s claim to be normal.
stigmatized identity An identity where the individual loses his
or her claim to be normal. This leads to a perception that a
person or group is somehow responsible for their illness and
that it is their fault.
strain theory Robert K. Merton’s concept that excessive
deviance is a by-product of inequality within societies that pro-
mote certain norms and versions of social reality yet provide
unequal means of meeting or attaining them. Individuals
respond to this strain either by conforming or by changing the
goals or means of obtaining goals accepted by society.
stratified sample Sample in which research subjects are
divided into proportions equal to the proportions found in the
population at large.
structural functionalism A sociological paradigm that con-
tends that all social life consists of several distinct, integrated
levels that enable the world—and individuals who are within
in—to find stability, order, and meaning.
subculture Group within a society that creates its own norms
and values distinct from the mainstream and usually its own
separate social institutions as well.
subjectivity The complex of individual perceptions, motiva-
tions, ideas, and emotions that give each of us a point of view.
subordinate Individual or group that possesses little or com-
paratively less social power.
subtle racism Systematic prejudice applied to members of a
group in quiet or even unconscious ways; a simple a set of men-
tal categories that one may possess about a group based on
stereotypes.
suburb A residential community outside of a city but always
existing in relationship to the city.
suffrage The right to vote.662 GLOSSARY