CSET Social Science - independent foundations flashcards

25 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Periodization

Dividing historical time into analytical periods for a stated purpose while recognizing regional differences and continuities across imposed boundaries.

Cultural diffusion

The movement and adaptation of practices, goods or ideas across communities through processes including exchange, migration and conquest.

Industrialization

The expansion of mechanized production and associated changes in labor, energy use, settlement and social organization over time.

Decolonization

Processes through which colonial rule ended or transformed, with different regional struggles, institutions and post-independence constraints.

Columbian Exchange

Transfers of organisms, people and goods between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia after contact, involving unequal and often devastating consequences.

Reconstruction

The post-Civil-War struggle over restoring political order, defining citizenship and enforcing rights, involving federal action and organized resistance.

Federal reconstruction amendments

The constitutional amendments addressing slavery, citizenship and equal protection, and voting discrimination after the Civil War, requiring separate enforcement analysis.

Sectionalism

Political and economic conflict organized around regional interests, especially conflicts over slavery and its expansion in nineteenth-century United States history.

Federalism

The allocation of governmental powers between national and state governments under a constitutional arrangement, distinct from separating branches at one level.

Checks and balances

Constitutional arrangements allowing institutions to constrain one another while exercising their own distinct powers and participating in shared procedures.

Judicial review

The examination of governmental action against constitutional requirements by courts within their jurisdiction, distinct from making ordinary legislative policy.

Incorporation

The application of most federal Bill of Rights protections to state action through Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, rather than an unchanged original arrangement.

Reapportionment

The redistribution of representative seats among areas according to the applicable population-based rules, distinct from drawing district boundaries within an area.

Opportunity cost

The value of the next-best alternative forgone when choosing an action, not the sum of every rejected possibility.

Formal region

An area defined by a shared characteristic, such as a specified crop pattern or climate, rather than necessarily by functional flows.

Map projection

A transformation from a curved surface to a flat representation that necessarily changes some combinations of area, shape, distance or direction.

Population density

A population divided by a defined area, requiring consistent boundaries and units before comparing different places or periods.

Functional region

An area organized by flows or interactions around a node, such as commuting to a central workplace district.

Corroboration

Comparing evidence from independently situated sources to evaluate agreement, contradictions and limits rather than simply collecting repeated versions of one claim.

Sourcing

Identifying a document’s creator, context, audience and purpose to assess what it can support and where corroboration is necessary.

Counterargument

A serious alternative claim or objection addressed through evidence and reasoning, rather than dismissed without examining its strongest relevant form.

Formative assessment

Evidence gathered during learning to identify misconceptions and guide next instructional steps, rather than solely ranking final performance.

Scaffolding

Temporary instructional support adjusted to learner needs and reduced as competence develops, preserving the substantive learning goal rather than replacing it.

Disciplinary reasoning

Using the evidentiary practices of a field, such as contextualizing historical documents or interpreting spatial patterns, rather than applying generic recall alone.

Secularization

The transfer of institutions or property from church control to civil arrangements, whose local beneficiaries and effects must be investigated historically.