Praxis Sociology key terms

C. Wright Mills's idea that personal troubles must be understood as connected to larger public issues and historical social forces, letting individuals see how biography intersects with history and social structure.

A theoretical perspective, associated with Durkheim and Parsons, that treats society as an integrated system of interdependent parts, each contributing to stability; social problems are explained by disrupted equilibrium or unmet system needs.

A perspective, rooted in Marx and elaborated by later theorists, holding that society is composed of groups competing for scarce resources and that inequality, coercion, and power, rather than shared consensus, shape social arrangements and change.

A micro-level perspective, from Mead and Blumer, that examines how people create meaning through symbols, language, and interpretation in face-to-face interaction; social reality is negotiated rather than fixed by structure.

Merton's distinction between the intended, recognized consequences of a social practice (manifest) and its unintended or hidden consequences (latent); also paired with dysfunctions, which undermine system stability.

Berger and Luckmann's argument that people collectively produce and maintain what counts as real through repeated interaction, typification, and institutionalization; meanings become treated as objective facts over time.

The process of translating an abstract concept into measurable, observable indicators or procedures, such as defining educational attainment by years of schooling completed, so that a study can be replicated and tested.

Reliability means a measure yields consistent results across repeated applications; validity means it actually captures the concept intended. A scale can be reliable but invalid, for example consistently measuring the wrong thing.

Selecting a subset of a population for study. Probability methods such as random or stratified samples support generalization through statistical inference, while nonprobability methods like convenience or snowball sampling limit representativeness.

Correlation is a statistical association between variables; causation requires that the cause precede the effect, the variables be associated, and alternative explanations be ruled out. Spurious correlation arises from confounding variables.

Quantitative research uses numerical data and statistics, such as surveys and experiments, to test hypotheses; qualitative research uses interviews, ethnography, and document analysis to interpret meaning and generate theory.

Fieldwork in which a researcher observes and interacts with people in their natural setting over an extended period, often combining participant observation with interviews to understand a group's meanings and practices from within.

Any measurable characteristic that can take different values across cases or over time, such as income or age; researchers distinguish independent variables, which are manipulated or treated as causes, from dependent variables, the outcomes studied.

The shared beliefs, values, norms, symbols, language, and material objects transmitted socially within a group; it shapes how members interpret experience and guides behavior without determining it absolutely.

Shared expectations about appropriate behavior in given situations, ranging from folkways and customs enforced loosely to mores and laws enforced strongly; violations typically trigger social sanctions.

Rewards for conformity and punishments for deviance, which may be formal, such as legal penalties or awards, or informal, such as praise, gossip, or ostracism; they are the mechanism through which norms are enforced.

Ethnocentrism judges other cultures by one's own standards and often ranks them as inferior; cultural relativism instead understands beliefs and practices within their own cultural context, a stance central to anthropological method.

A subculture is a group sharing distinct values, styles, or practices within a larger society; a counterculture additionally rejects or opposes central norms and values of the dominant culture, as in some political or religious movements.

Ogburn's concept describing the delay between changes in material culture, such as technology, and the slower adaptation of nonmaterial culture, including norms, laws, and values, which can produce social strain.

The relatively stable pattern of roles, statuses, groups, and institutions that organizes social life and constrains individual action; it provides the framework within which interaction and inequality take shape.

A status is a socially defined position, either ascribed at birth or achieved through effort; a role is the set of behavioral expectations attached to that status, and role conflict occurs when demands of different roles clash.

The lifelong process through which individuals learn the values, norms, skills, and identities of their society, beginning with primary socialization in the family and continuing through secondary agents such as schools, peers, and media.

The people, groups, and institutions that transmit culture and teach social roles, including family, schools, peer groups, religious organizations, workplaces, and mass media, whose influences may reinforce or contradict one another.

Cooley's concept that the self develops through imagining how others perceive us, how they judge us, and how we feel about those judgments, making identity a product of social reflection rather than innate essence.

Mead's process of imaginatively adopting another's perspective, progressing from imitation in early childhood through play and games to understanding the generalized other, which enables cooperative social interaction and self-awareness.

The process of unlearning established norms and identities and adopting new ones, typically within a total institution such as a prison or military boot camp, where daily life is tightly controlled and former roles are stripped away.

A broad category of people sharing similar economic resources, occupations, education, and life chances; class shapes access to power and privilege and is analyzed differently by Marx, Weber, and contemporary stratification researchers.

A composite measure of social position typically combining income, educational attainment, and occupational prestige; researchers use it to predict health, educational, and political outcomes more precisely than income alone.

Movement of individuals or groups between social positions. Vertical mobility involves moving up or down a hierarchy; horizontal mobility involves a change of position at a similar level; intergenerational mobility compares children with parents.

An income threshold used to determine who is officially poor, based on the cost of a minimum food or basic-needs basket; critics note that it may undercount hardship and varies by household size and government methodology.

An established, enduring pattern of norms, roles, and organizations organized around a central social need, such as family, education, religion, economy, government, and health care; institutions constrain and enable individual action.

The unofficial lessons schools transmit through routines and expectations, such as punctuality, obedience, and competition, which socialize students into workplace norms and may reproduce existing class inequalities.

The historical decline in the social authority and influence of religion, reflected in lower attendance, weaker institutional ties, and greater reliance on scientific and rational explanations for natural and social events.

Behavior that violates significant social norms and may provoke sanctions; it is socially defined rather than inherent, and theories of deviance range from strain and labeling to differential association and social control.

A perspective holding that deviance results partly from the labels applied by powerful others; being publicly marked as deviant can produce secondary deviance as individuals internalize the label and reorganize their identity around it.

Transformation of social structures, institutions, and cultural patterns over time, driven by factors such as technology, social movements, demographic shifts, economic development, and conflict, and often occurring unevenly across groups.

Relatively spontaneous, unstructured activity by a group responding to a shared situation, including crowds, panics, fads, rumors, and riots; it differs from institutionalized, norm-governed social action.

An organized, sustained effort by a collectivity to promote or resist social change, often developing shared identities and tactics; movements may be reformist, revolutionary, reactionary, or expressive in their goals.