MTEL History/Social Science (73) flashcards

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

Primary source

A document or artifact created during the period under study by a participant or witness, such as a letter, diary, law, photograph, or contemporary newspaper report.

Secondary source

An account created after the period that interprets or synthesizes primary evidence, such as a textbook, scholarly monograph, encyclopedia entry, or documentary film.

Corroboration

The historical practice of comparing independent sources that describe the same event to check agreement, identify discrepancies, and judge which claims are reliable.

Periodization

The deliberate division of the past into named periods or eras; valid period labels mark durable changes in politics, economy, society, or culture rather than a single event.

Historical context

The political, social, economic, and cultural circumstances surrounding a source or event; interpreting it requires understanding those conditions rather than applying present-day assumptions.

Neolithic Revolution

The transition around 10,000 BCE from hunting and gathering to domesticated agriculture and settled villages, producing food surpluses, specialization, and new social hierarchies.

Silk Roads

Overland trade networks linking China, Central Asia, India, Persia, and the Mediterranean; they moved silk, spices, horses, religions, technologies, and diseases.

Columbian Exchange

The post-1492 transfer of crops, livestock, people, and pathogens between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia; Old World diseases caused catastrophic Indigenous population decline.

Renaissance humanism

A 14th–17th century intellectual movement that studied classical Greek and Roman texts to emphasize human potential, civic life, and secular learning alongside religion.

Industrial Revolution

The late-18th-century shift to machine production, coal, steam power, and factories that began in Britain and transformed work, cities, and global inequality.

Decolonization

The post-1945 dismantling of European overseas empires as Asian and African nations gained independence, often through nationalist movements, negotiations, or armed struggle.

Articles of Confederation

The 1781–1789 U.S. framework of government that created a weak confederation Congress without power to tax or regulate interstate commerce directly.

Judicial review

The power of courts to invalidate legislative or executive acts that violate the Constitution, established in the U.S. by Marbury v. Madison in 1803.

Reconstruction

The 1865–1877 period after the Civil War when federal policy addressed slavery, citizenship, and readmission of Southern states; it ended with the Compromise of 1877.

New Deal

President Franklin Roosevelt's 1933–1939 programs that expanded federal regulation and social welfare, including Social Security, the SEC, FDIC, and labor protections.

Civil Rights Act 1964

U.S. law banning discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations, employment, and federally funded programs.

Gilded Age

The late-19th-century U.S. era of rapid industrialization, railroad expansion, immigration, and sharp inequality, marked by political corruption and labor conflict.

Latitude

Angular distance north or south of the equator, measured from 0° at the equator to 90° at the poles; lines of latitude run east-west.

Map scale

The ratio between distance on a map and distance on the ground; a 1:50,000 scale means one map unit equals 50,000 of the same units.

Rain shadow

A dry region on the leeward side of a mountain range, created when moist air rises, cools, and drops precipitation on the windward side.

Demographic transition

A model of population change from high birth and death rates to low ones; stage two shows rapid growth as death rates fall before birth rates decline.

Population density

The average number of people per unit area, calculated as total population divided by land area, often expressed as people per square kilometer or mile.

Federalism

A system dividing power between a national government and regional governments, each with constitutionally protected authority, as in the U.S. states and federal government.

Checks and balances

Constitutional arrangements allowing each branch to limit the others, such as vetoes, impeachment, judicial review, and Senate confirmation of appointments and treaties.

Electoral College

The U.S. body of 538 electors that formally chooses the president; a candidate needs 270 electoral votes, with state votes based on congressional representation.

Due process

The constitutional guarantee that government must follow fair legal procedures and protect life, liberty, and property, found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Incorporation doctrine

The legal principle applying most Bill of Rights protections to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.

Opportunity cost

The value of the best alternative given up when making a choice; it includes both explicit monetary costs and forgone benefits.

Market equilibrium

The price and quantity at which quantity demanded equals quantity supplied; above it a surplus pushes price down, below it a shortage pushes price up.

GDP

Gross domestic product, the total market value of final goods and services produced within a country in a period; calculated as consumption plus investment plus government spending plus net exports.

Inflation

A sustained increase in the general price level, often measured by the consumer price index; it reduces purchasing power and can be caused by demand, supply, or money growth.

Comparative advantage

The ability to produce a good at a lower opportunity cost than another producer; specialization and trade can raise total output even without absolute advantage.