precarity

precarity (countable and uncountable, plural precarities)

/pɹəˈkɛɹɪti/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-precarity.wav

/pɹəˈkɛəɹɪti/

Borrowed from New Latin precārietās. By surface analysis, precarious + -ity, leading to the syncopation.

A phenomenon that catches a general tendency towards obscurity is what Standing calls "uptitling" - to give a job a high-sounding epithet to conceal its precarity and, I would say, its substance.

2014, Roland Paulsen, Empty Labor: Idleness and Workplace Resistance, →ISBN, page 82:

Does the boy sense, already, the precarity of all this?

2021, Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land, page 622:

(sociology) A condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare.


social status

en-noun

social status (countable and uncountable, plural social statuses)

(sociology) One's position within a social hierarchy, one's social class along with any personal social advantages or disadvantages, one's value relative to society.

սոցիալական կարգավիճակ

honor or prestige attached to one's position in society


ascribed status

ascribed status (plural ascribed statuses)

Coordinate term: achieved status

Older societies built their hierarchies on ascribed status, where individuals received their social ranking based on predetermined criteria, such as age, ethnic group, occupation, and gender.

2022, W. David Marx, chapter 1, in Status and Culture, Viking, →ISBN:

(sociology) The social status that a person is given from birth or assumes involuntarily later in life.


achieved status

achieved status (plural achieved statuses)

Coordinate term: ascribed status

The modern ideal is to organize society as a system of achieved status, where a higher position is based on personal achievements rather than immutable characteristics.

(sociology) A person's social status that is acquired, such as being an Olympic athlete, being a criminal, or being a college professor.


master status

(sociology) The social status that is a person’s primary socially identifying characteristic, such as being the queen.


social mobility

(sociology) The degree to which, in a given society, an individual's, family's, or group's social status can change throughout the course of their life through a system of social hierarchy or stratification.

社會流動 /社会流动

degree to which social status can change


economic mobility

economic mobility (countable and uncountable, plural economic mobilities)

(sociology) The ability of a person or group of people to improve their income and social status, whether in an individual lifetime or between generations.


comparative ethics

(anthropology, sociology, ethics) A type of descriptive ethics, focused on studying the nature and origins of beliefs about morality held by people in diverse social or cultural groups.


normalcy bias

normalcy bias (countable and uncountable, plural normalcy biases)

(sociology) A human tendency to respond to threat warnings with disbelief or minimization, and to similarly underestimate a disaster's deleterious effects.


reappropriate

en-verb

reappropriate (third-person singular simple present reappropriates, present participle reappropriating, simple past and past participle reappropriated)

reappropriates (present singular third-person)
reappropriating (participle present)
reappropriated (participle past)
reappropriated (past)

Once a term of homophobic abuse, the term “queer” has been reappropriated as a marker for some gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT), and other marginalized sexual identities.

The term 'People of the Book' has been reappropriated as a means of self-identification by Jews and by the members of certain Christian denominations.

2023 August 3, Wikipedia contributors, “People of the Book”, in English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation:

(sociology) (of a group) To reclaim a term that was previously used to disparage that group.


assimilationist

Spanish-language education is not favored by assimilationist parents of Latino children in the US.

To the assimilationists, American Jews have not merely acculturated — they have assimilated.

1998, Norman Linzer, David J. Schnall, Jerome A. Chanes, A Portrait of the American Jewish Community, page xii:

The conflict between melting-pot assimilationists and cultural pluralists betrays a fundamental uncertainty about the meaning of American nationhood, and about the role ethnicity plays in it.

1999, Christian Joppke, Immigration and the Nation-State: The United States, Germany, and Great Britain, page 147:

The one area where there was at least some agreement between assimilationists and Zionists was Palestine.

2000, Bruce F. Pauley, From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism, page 224:

(sociology) An advocate of the policy or practice of the assimilation of immigrant or other minority cultures into a mainstream culture.

asymilant

an advocate of the assimilation into a mainstream culture


assimilationist

en-adj

assimilationist (comparative more assimilationist, superlative most assimilationist)

more assimilationist (comparative)
most assimilationist (superlative)

I wonder: if it had not been for GCN, would I now be the one who settles for the semi-closeted, factionalized world that Bay Windows and its ilk define as Shangri-la? Perhaps. What is certain, however, is that you have never jettisoned concern fror anybody for the sake of popularity and (gulp) assimilationist marketability.

1990 December 9, Ed Fendor, “The Promised Land”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 21, page 4:

Shortly after Chiang Kaishek came to power, however, the GMD^([Guomindang]) once again withdrew its support for self-determination and pursued a more assimilationist strategy.

2000, Katherine Palmer Kaup, Creating the Zhuang: Ethnic Politics in China, page 62:

SCP^([Social and Cultural Planning Office of the Netherlands]) was also more explicitly involved in advocating a more assimilationist approach in this period.

2011, Peter Scholten, Framing Immigrant Integration: Dutch Research-Policy Dialogues in Comparative Perspective, page 187:

Although there have been many attempts throughout history by the state to assist Maori, many government policies have been paternalistic and assimilationist in nature.

2012, Robert Consedine, Joana Consedine, Healing Our History, page 22:

To an extent, reformers – such as the Vietnamese and Tunisian constitutionalists or the Antilleans and Malagasies of the LFADCIM^([French League for the Attainment of the Rights of Citizens of the Natives of Madagascar]) – were more assimilationist than radicals in the sense that they demanded an extension of French citizenship rights and of naturalization.

2015, Michael Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism, page 224:

(sociology) Of or pertaining to assimilationism; promoting or advocating assimilationism.


enregister

en-verb

enregister (third-person singular simple present enregisters, present participle enregistering, simple past and past participle enregistered)

enregisters (present singular third-person)
enregistering (participle present)
enregistered (participle past)
enregistered (past)
inregister (alternative obsolete)

Thus, by systematically labelling Singlish as 'broken English', official discourses enregister Singlish as a low-proficiency version of English and a hindrance to the nation's path toward globalisation.

2022 January 13, Tong King Lee, “Spiaking Singlish: The politics of ludic English in Singapore”, in Language in Society, volume 52, number 2, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 249:

(linguistics, sociology) To become a register ("a style of a language used in a particular context").


rememberer

(sociolinguistics) One who remembers several words and phrases from a moribund language, but never became fluent in it.


gylany

en-noun

gylany (countable and uncountable, plural gylanies)

From Ancient Greek γυνή (gunḗ, “woman”) + English l(inking) and Ancient Greek λ(ύειν) (l(úein)), λ(ύω) (l(úō), “to dissolve, sever; to release, set free”) + Ancient Greek ἀνδρός (andrós) (genitive singular of ἀνήρ (anḗr, “man”)) + -y (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a state, condition, or quality); coined by the Austrian-born American cultural historian and author Riane Eisler (born 1931) in writings in the 1980s, including The Chalice and the Blade (1987): see the quotations.

suffix

[T]he two projected androcratic futures—a totalitarian future or no future at all—are not our only alternatives. There is the third alternative, the humanistic future to which the concept of gylany, both the balanced core and the logical requirement of our cultural evolution, provides the key.

1981 December, Riane Tennenhaus Eisler, “Gylany: The Balanced Future”, in Futures: The Journal of Forecasting, Planning and Policy, volume 13, number 6, Oxford: Elsevier Science, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, abstract, page 499:

It seems particularly fitting to use terms of Greek derivation to describe how these two contrasting social models have affected our cultural evolution. For the conflict between gylany and androcracy as two very different ways of living on this earth—and the advancement of our evolution through gylanic influences—is dramatically illustrated if we take a fresh look at ancient Greece from the new perspective offered by cultural transformation theory.

1987, Riane Eisler, “The Other Half of History: Part I”, in The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, San Francisco, Calif.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 106:

Old Europe and Anatolia, as well as Minoan Crete, were a gylany. A balanced, non-patriarchal and non-matriarchal social system is reflected by religion, mythologies, and folklore, by studies of the social structure of Old European and Minoan cultures, and is supported by the continuity of the elements of a matrilinear system in ancient Greece, Etruria, Rome, the Basque, and other countries of Europe.

1989, Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization, San Francisco, Calif.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page xx:

In a gylany, the sexes are "linked" rather than hierarchically "ranked" which is typical of patriarchal societies. The existence of gylanies or societies with a balanced authority among men and women has been evidenced by ethnology and anthropology. Gylany must not be confused with matriarchy which never existed and which has the value of a myth like the one about the Amazons[…]. Civilization in Old Europe is among the examples of an early gylany in mankind's cultural history.

1996, Harald Haarmann, “Iconography, Symbolism and Writing at the Dawn of Civilization – Old Europe from the Seventh to the Fourth Millennia B.C.”, in Thomas A[lbert] Sebeok, Roland Posner, Alain Rey, editors, Early Civilization and Literacy in Europe: An Inquiry into Cultural Continuity in the Mediterranean World (Approaches to Semiotics; 124), Berlin, New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, Walter de Gruyter & Co., →ISBN, pages 13–14:

Once in our sights, gylany seems in abundant evidence as a worldwide societal phenomenon before about 3000 bce, when it, together with the Mother Goddess religion underpinning it, yields universally to the blood-and-thunder sky-gods of warrior societies. Did anything like gylany ever exist in the ancient Cherokee world?

2013, Donald N. Yates, “The Mother Goddess in America”, in Old Souls in a New World: The Secret History of the Cherokee Indians (Cherokee Chapbooks; 7), 2nd edition, Phoenix, Ariz.: Panther’s Lodge Publishers, →ISBN, page 66:

(sociology) A social system based on equality of women and men.


enregistered

en-adj

enregistered (comparative more enregistered, superlative most enregistered)

more enregistered (comparative)
most enregistered (superlative)

The analysis of communicative practice is thus dedicated to socially enregistered spellings in action and shows which local indexicality governs the communicative context of a written utterance.

2022 January 7, Florian Busch, “Enregistered spellings in interaction”, in Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, volume 40, number 3, De Gruyter, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 307:

(linguistics, sociology) That which has been made into a register ("a style of a language used in a particular context").


misrecognize

en-verb

misrecognize (third-person singular simple present misrecognizes, present participle misrecognizing, simple past and past participle misrecognized)

misrecognizes (present singular third-person)
misrecognizing (participle present)
misrecognized (participle past)
misrecognized (past)
misrecognise (alternative)

When people did participate in blat practice, they misrecognized their actions through narratives of friendship (Ledeneva 2003:12).

2007, Carolyn L. Hsu, Creating Market Socialism, →ISBN, page 151:

(sociology) To deliberately fail to recognize, or pretend to do so


antisegregation

The antisegregation movement faced profound challenges.

(sociology) Opposed to segregation, especially racial segregation


metanetwork

metanetworks (plural)
meta-network (alternative)

(communication, management, sociology) A network of networks.


ingroup

You will learn a lot about formal and informal Japanese language throughout this book. In Japanese society a distinction is made between the 'in-group' (myself, my family, my work colleagues, my friends) and the 'out-group' (my seniors, people from other families and workplaces). Politeness is an important traditional aspect of Japanese life and this is reflected strongly in the language used when speaking to those in the out-group. More informal language is generally used within the in-group.

2008, Helen Gilhooly, chapter 1, in Complete Japanese, →ISBN, page 12:

And because people derive personal esteem and meaning from their group memberships, they are naturally inclined to evaluate their ingroups positively in comparison to outgroups. When an ingroup’s dominant social position is secure or not contested by lower-status outgroups, intergroup harmony is expected to prevail. But when perceived as illegitimate and/or challenged by other groups, ingroup members can be expected to defend their group’s social position by engaging in pro-ingroup and/or anti-outgroup behaviors.

2022 May 2, Zachary Goldberg, “Explaining Shifts in White Racial Liberalism: The Role of Collective Moral Emotions and Media Effects”, in Georgia State University, archived from the original on 2025-01-25, page 40:

(sociology) The social group that one belongs to.


outgroup

This dissertation promises to correct for this theoretical deficit by formulating, elaborating, and ultimately testing a group-based moral emotions account in which white Americans’ moral appraisals of and attitudes towards racial/ethnic outgroups are considerably influenced by those of and towards fellow whites. […] On the basis of the insights from intergroup emotions theory, Chapter 3 derives and presents a series of preliminary hypotheses that are designed to test the relative importance of white shame and guilt for white Americans’ support for equity-oriented pro-black policies (e.g. affirmative action, financial reparations) and expressions of outgroup favoritism.

2022 May 2, Zachary Goldberg, “Explaining Shifts in White Racial Liberalism: The Role of Collective Moral Emotions and Media Effects”, in Georgia State University, archived from the original on 2025-01-25, pages 9, 13:

(sociology) The group of people who do not belong to one's own social group.


antiviolence

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-antiviolence.wav

And one-quarter of teenagers in relationships say they have been called names or harassed by their partner through cellphones and text messages, according to a study commissioned by the clothing company Liz Claiborne, which sponsors antiviolence programs.

2009 January 27, Stephanie Clifford, “Teaching Teenagers About Harassment”, in New York Times:

(law enforcement, sociology) Acting against or opposing violence.


self-hatred

en-noun

self-hatred (usually uncountable, plural self-hatreds)

(sociology) Disrespect or disdain for one’s own demographic (but not necessarily oneself).


culture vulture

culture vulture (plural culture vultures)

culture vultures (plural)
culture-vulture (alternative)

/ˈkʌlt͡ʃə ˌvʌlt͡ʃə/

/ˈkʌlt͡ʃəɹ ˌvʌlt͡ʃəɹ/

However, a different indigenous researcher sees the use of restorative justice circles by nonindigenous people as being more of culture vultures and taking culture applicable to them and ignoring a brutal history of abuse, oppression, and genocide.

2020, Thomas Reed, “A Critical Review of the Native American Tradition of Circle Practices”, in Robin Throne, editor, Indigenous Research of Land, Self, and Spirit (Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies Book Series), Hershey, Pa.: Information Science Reference, IGI Global, published 2021, →ISBN, page 135:

Similarly, plug-in culture participates in a long history of cultural appropriation related to the construction of the male neoliberal subject. Think about Diplo, EDM producer-DJ and oft-accused "culture vulture," whose modus operandi involves applying Western, Eurocentric, and Americanized EDM styles to samples from global dance music communities.

2022, Mike D’Errico, “Plug-in Cultures”, in Push: Software Design and the Cultural Politics of Music Production, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, part I (Sonic Architectures), page 43:

cultural appropriation
cultural appropriation

cultural appropriator
cultural appropriator

(slang, derogatory, sociology) Someone who engages in cultural appropriation; a cultural appropriator.


ethnobotany

ethnobotany (usually uncountable, plural ethnobotanies)

(botany, sociology) The scientific study of the relationships between people and plants.


biosocial

Man’s so-called instinctual needs are actually shaped—and this may include inhibiting, fostering, or even creating “needs”—by the social games prevalent in his milieu. The view of a dual, biosocial determination of behavior has become incorporated into psychoanalytic theory through increasing emphasis on ego psychology and object relationships.

1974, Thomas S. Szasz, chapter 12, in The Myth of Mental Illness, →ISBN, page 199:

(biology, sociology) Of or pertaining to both biological and social features.


counterplay

counterplay (countable and uncountable, plural counterplays)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-counterplay.wav

Near-synonym: playing off meta — colloquial

(video games, sociology) A subversive style of gameplay in which a player attempts to overturn the usual rules and conventions of the game.


antitorture

en-adj

antitorture (comparative more antitorture, superlative most antitorture)

more antitorture (comparative)
most antitorture (superlative)

To be sure, Mr. Panetta emphasized that the president could not bypass antitorture statutes, as Bush lawyers claimed.

2009 February 18, Charlie Savage, “Obama’s War on Terror May Resemble Bush’s in Some Areas”, in New York Times:

(sociology) Acting against or opposing torture.


antibourgeois

antibourgeois (comparative more antibourgeois, superlative most antibourgeois)

more antibourgeois (comparative)
most antibourgeois (superlative)


folk devil

It may be true, as Fred Robinson, a senior researcher at Newcastle University said, "Many people view Mrs. Thatcher as a kind of folk devil.

1987 July 9, Steve Lohr, “Newcastle Journal: Half of England where jobs are as rare as Tories”, in New York Times, retrieved 2009-02-27:

"Every time things become problematic we start careering towards social causes and pick on a folk devil to attribute all evil."

1996 December 18, Robert Verkaik, “‘Crash’ tackling”, in The Independent (UK), retrieved 2014-06-08:

There is always a tendency, in the mainstream as much as the fringes, to blame real or imagined social problems on a folk devil.

2013 October 20, Jesse Walker, “Conspiracies: Five things they don’t want you to know”, in Boston Globe, retrieved 2014-06-08:

(idiomatic, sociology) A person or type of person blamed by the public for various ills, as during a moral panic.


antiracism

en-noun

antiracism (usually uncountable, plural antiracisms)

antiracisms (plural)
anti-racism (alternative)

Singleton talked in June about antiracism being pitted against the immense coupled forces of “white dysconsciousness and power” and told me that he hadn’t watched the video of Floyd’s killing, because “I believe once I’ve seen the video it will change the person I am.

2020 July 15, Daniel Bergner, “‘White Fragility’ Is Everywhere. But Does Antiracism Training Work?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

One can divide antiracism into three waves along the lines that feminism has been. First Wave Antiracism battled slavery and legalized segregation. Second Wave Antiracism, in the 1970s and ’80s, battled racist attitudes and taught America that being racist is a moral flaw. Third Wave Antiracism, becoming mainstream in the 2010s, teaches that because racism is baked into the structure of society, whites’ “complicity” in living within it constitutes racism itself, […]

2021, John H. McWhorter, chapter 1, in Woke Racism, New York: Forum, →ISBN:


TAM

TAM (countable and uncountable, plural TAMs)

technology acceptance model
w:technology acceptance model

(computing, sociology) Initialism of technology acceptance model.


sociophysiology

(sociology, physiology) An interdisciplinary field of research encompassing sociology and physiology


stadial

en-adj

stadial (comparative more stadial, superlative most stadial)

more stadial (comparative)
most stadial (superlative)

He drew on the growing ethnographic record contained in travellers' tales about extra-European societies to develop a stadial view of human evolution according to which each society passed through the stages of hunting, pastoral life, farming, and trading – a schema which had no place for scriptural precept.

2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 188:

(archaeology, sociology) Pertaining to or existing in successive stages of a given culture, society etc.


isophenogamy

(sociology) mating between people who have the same phenotype (who bear a somatic resemblance to each other)


SED

en-noun

SED (countable and uncountable, plural SEDs)

SEDs (plural)
S.E.D. (alternative)
S. E. D. (alternative)

(sociology) Initialism of socio-economic development.


liminality

liminality (countable and uncountable, plural liminalities)

The second way Novalis seeks to repotentize his thought is by striving to evoke feelings conducive to liminality.

1998, Joseph Frederick Bailey, Theorizing night vision: Novalis's "Hymnen an die Nacht.", page 209:

(anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology) The state or quality of ambiguity which exists in the middle stage of certain events or rituals (such as a rite of passage or a society-wide revolution), during which the participating individual or group no longer holds its pre-ritual status but has not yet attained the status it will hold when the ritual has been completed.


missocialisation

(sociology) Inadequate or disadvantageous socialisation; especially of a child


postinformation

Whereas the initially perceived risks are the result of a voluntary self-selection process, the postinformation risks are not...

1987, W Kip Viscusi, Wesley A Magat, Joel Huber, Learning about risk:

Participants in the course of performing their postinformation writing task apparently formed a new representation that was generally more abstract...

2007, Tina M Lowrey, Psycholinguistic phenomena in marketing communications:

(psychology, sociology) After the receipt of information.


macroanalysis

macroanalysis (countable and uncountable, plural macroanalyses)

(sociology) the analysis of the highest levels of social activity e.g. social stratification.


nonplace

nonplaces (plural)
non-place (alternative)

Calque of French non-lieu, non- + place.

Marc Auge identifies the nonplace as both a symptom and product of supermodernity. Auge's designation of the nonplace is neither prescriptive nor apocalyptic, realizing that the differential relation between place and nonplace is never absolute. The proliferation of nonplaces, however, is directly related to transnational capital and "supermodernity"; indeed, the nonplace is one of its products and mechanisms. Accordingly, the nonplace "designates two complementary but distinct […]

2000, Erika Suderburg, Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, U of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 205:

Nonplace does not mean no place, nor does it mean a nonexistent place. It just lacks certain conditions that a place should have, such as a name and a referential reality. Commonsense tells us that to have a name but no referential reality, or to have referential reality but no name, does not count as a “place” in the strict sense. Yet, for a cartographer, so long as it is included in the area of a map, even though it does not have a name or a referential reality, no twodimensional space at […]

2012, Kai-cheung Dung, Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City, Columbia University Press, →ISBN:

And so the followers of Seferis, although they inherit a method, practice an unmethod, a methodological void. Or, to put it more precisely: although not forced to travel fleetingly from place to place, they travel anyway—to nonplaces, […]

(sociology) An anthropological space of transience where human beings remain anonymous, such as an airport or shopping mall.


homophilic

(sociology) tending to maintain relationships with people similar to oneself, as characterized by age, race, gender, religion, or profession


nondivorce

(chiefly sociology) Not of, pertaining to, or affected by divorce.


antielitist

en-adj

antielitist (comparative more antielitist, superlative most antielitist)

more antielitist (comparative)
most antielitist (superlative)

Basically, our politics will be populist, antielitist, antibureaucratic.

1993 January 29, Michael Miner, “Voice Transplant at the Sun-Times/Crime of a Genration”, in Chicago Reader:


grounded theory

en-noun

grounded theory (plural grounded theories)

(sociology) Any theory that is based on observation of social phenomena


antinatalist

They've identified a reference to the ancient Syracusian practice of banishment known as petalism, and what may or may not be a reference to efilism, a branch of the antinatalist philosophical position advanced by Schopenhauer, but what any of that has to do with the lyrics' subsequent allusions to Moby-Dick seems pretty open to question.

2014 July 24, Alexis Petridis, “Shabazz Palaces: Lese Majesty review – spectacular, way-out hip-hop”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 2014-07-25:

Nihilists believe that life is meaningless. While promortalists and antinatalists also don’t value human life, Katherine Keneally, director of threat analysis and prevention US for the ISD, says Bartkus’ views were somewhat distinct from nihilism because of his belief he was on a mission.

2025 May 21, Manisha Krishnan, “IVF Clinic Bombing Suspect Was Linked to ‘Anti-Life’ Ideology. Experts Fear Its Growing Influence”, in WIRED, archived from the original on 2025-05-21:

(philosophy, sociology) A supporter of antinatalism.


antiurban

When I ask why so much of the humor on National Public Radio is antiurban, Kessler responds with one of Ian Shoales's most quoted lines: "If the city were a nice place to live, nobody would want to live there.

1988 July 15, Lawrence Rand, “Funny Business: an entire evening with Ian Shoales”, in Chicago Reader:

The District One headquarters of the Illinois Department of Transportation is about as antiurban as a building can get.

1996 September 6, Harold Henderson, “Up Against the Sprawl”, in Chicago Reader:

(sociology) Showing a negative view of cities or city life

antiurbano

showing a negative view of cities or city life


nondating

(chiefly sociology) Not dating (going on romantic outings with a partner).


assimilationism

The model of regenerative assimilationism which the Revolutionaries displayed towards the Jews was evident in regard to other groupings whose commitment to the patriotic cause was for whatever reason in doubt.

2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 558:

(sociology) The policy or practice of the assimilation of immigrant or other minority cultures into a mainstream culture.

Assimilationismus

the policy or practice of the assimilation into a mainstream culture


nonbereaved

(chiefly psychology, sociology) Not bereaved.


sociophysicist

(sociology, physics) A sociologist or physicist whose speciality is sociophysics.


sociophysics

(sociology, physics) The study of social and political behavior using tools and concepts from physics and physical chemistry


sociobehavioural

(sociology) Describing the sociological study of behaviour.


topolect

Combination of topo- (“place”) + -lect (“[language] variety”). Attested since the 1960s, but rare until its introduction by sinologist Victor Mair in 1991 to distinguish Chinese 方言 (fāngyán) from English dialect.

confix

Coordinate term: see sociolect § Coordinate terms

We can then establish and name further categories by means of the word "group" and the prefix "sub-", thus obtaining SUBDIALECT ("Untermundart") between topolect and dialect, DIALECT GROUP ("Mundartengruppe") between dialect and language, SUBFAMILY ("Unterfamilie") between language and family,

1964, University of South Florida Language Quarterly, 2, page iii:

The degree to which Yahudic lects differ from coterritorial non-Jewish lects varies spatially, chronologically, stylistically, and idiolectically (for this reason it is important to study each Yahudic topolect together with its coterritorial Arabic topolect if it has one).

(linguistics, sociolinguistics) The speech form, variety (lect) of a particular place or region.

方言

speech-form or lect of a particular place


social dynamics

(sociology) The study of interactions within and between societies.


heterogamy

en-noun

heterogamy (usually uncountable, plural heterogamies)

(sociology) Marriage or similar union between people of different sexes, or social strata, such as races.


iconization

iconization (countable and uncountable, plural iconizations)

iconizations (plural)
iconisation (alternative)

(linguistics, sociology) The process by which aspects of language come to reflect the identity or culture of a particular group.


antitraditionalist

(sociology) An opponent of traditionalism.


antitraditionalism

(sociology) Opposition to traditionalism.


antitraditional

en-adj

antitraditional (comparative more antitraditional, superlative most antitraditional)

more antitraditional (comparative)
most antitraditional (superlative)

(sociology) Opposed to what is traditional.


interculture

As one is exposed to customs and practices of different cultures throughout one's life, one evolves through new intercultures. The intercultures may be regarded as steps within a continuing nonlinear process of cultural negotiation. This process involves a combination of retaining previous rules and practices, adapting some from the previous interculture and adopting some from the other culture.

2008, Glyn M. Rimmington, Mara Alagic, Third Place Learning:

The practice of humbling oneself in the process of deep listening is a profound experience at the heart of affinity intercultures, the global, political, highly musical networks that happen when musicians of different backgrounds get together to play (Stanyek 2004a, 93).

2013, Simone Krüger, Ruxandra Trandafoiu, The Globalization of Musics in Transit: Music Migration and Tourism:

Murdock's play stages a struggle over the character of America's rising youth, setting its conflicts in an early national Philadelphia profoundly altered by slave revolt and the presence of problematic Creole intercultures.

2016, Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Michael Drexler, The Haitian Revolution and the Early United States:

(sociology) A new culture formed by the merging of aspects of existing cultures.


anticaste

anticaste (comparative more anticaste, superlative most anticaste)

more anticaste (comparative)
most anticaste (superlative)

(sociology) Opposing the social system of caste.


superpredator

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From super- + predator. Sociology sense coined by John DiIulio in 1995.

In 1996 [DiIulio] authored an incendiary warning of a "rising tide of juvenile superpredators" [and in the National Review] "[a]ll that's left of the black community in […] urban America is deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults[.]"

2001 February 9, Vincent Schiraldi, “DiIulio needs more scrutiny”, in Star News:

Superpredators theoretically arise from dysfunctional homes, inadequate schools, and morally bankrupt communities.

2005, Gus Martin, Juvenile justice: process and systems:

(sociology) A youth who repeatedly commits violent crimes, said to be a result of being raised without morals.


white privilege

For quotations using this term, see Citations:white privilege.

(sociology) The collective advantages that white people are granted and enjoy in a society, usually apart from demonstrable merit, as contrasted against the advantages (or lack thereof) of non-whites of the same society.

白人特權 /白人特权

societal conditions that benefit white people


social network

The social network of interest in this volume is the personal social network that is centered on a particular child. Definitions of social network draw attention to the ties or linkages that connect individuals (and sometimes groups or institutions)—linkages that can be conduits for diverse resources.

1989, Deborah Belle, Children's Social Networks and Social Supports, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 1:

Civicizing public spaces is an antidote to marginalization and exclusion, and it requires that we restore linkages between municipalities, social networks, cultural institutions and communities.

2023, Teddy Cruz, Fonna Forman, Socializing Architecture: Top Down / Bottom Up, page 60:

(collective, sociology) A network of personal or business contacts, especially as facilitated by social networking on the Internet.

社会的ネットワーク

しゃかいてきネットワーク


socioecology

(sociology, ecology) The use of techniques of sociology in the field of ecology.


sociogenomics

Since Francis Galton coined the phrase “nature versus nurture” 150 years ago, the debate about what makes us who we are has dominated the human sciences. Do genes determine our destiny, as the hereditarians would say? Or do we enter the world as blank slates, formed only by what we encounter in our homes and beyond? What started as an intellectual debate quickly expanded to whatever anyone wanted it to mean, invoked in arguments about everything from free will to race to inequality to whether public policy can, or should, level the playing field. Today, however, a new realm of science is poised to upend the debate — not by declaring victory for one side or the other, nor even by calling a tie, but rather by revealing they were never in opposition in the first place. Through this new vantage, nature and nurture are not even entirely distinguishable, because genes and environment don’t operate in isolation; they influence each other and to a very real degree even create each other. The new field is called sociogenomics, a fusion of behavioral science and genetics that I have been closely involved with for over a decade. Though the field is still in its infancy, its philosophical implications are staggering. It has the potential to rewrite a great deal of what we think we know about who we are and how we got that way.

2025 March 13, Dalton Conley, “A New Scientific Field Is Recasting Who We Are and How We Got That Way”, in New York Times:

(sociology, genetics) The study of the multivariate feedback loops by which nature and nurture (genetics and environment) interact with and shape each other.


interactionism

Interactionism (philosophy of mind)
interactionism

(sociology) The branch of sociology that studies interaction between individuals or groups


holist

Holism is more eclectic in its methods; for most holists, rigor means reconstructing the meaning of an action in the subject's own terms, and interpreting it in light of a richly detailed cultural, social, and historical context.

1991, Jack Snyder, “5: Science and Sovietology: Bridging the Methods Gap in Soviet Foreign Policy Studies”, in Erik P. Hoffmann, Robbin Frederick Laird, Frederic J. Fleron, editors, Soviet Foreign Policy, published 2009, page 132:

By contrast, the holists, like Emile Durkheim, regard individual action as only a reaction to pressures exerted by society as a whole: they are right in stressing the social embeddedness of individual action.

2006, Mario Bunge, “1: A systemic perspective on crime”, in Per-Olof H. Wikström, Robert J. Sampson, editors, The Explanation of Crime: Context, Mechanisms and Development, page 9:

(sociology) One who advocates studying society as a whole, and who consistently interprets the actions of individuals in that context.


antifamily

antifamily (comparative more antifamily, superlative most antifamily)

more antifamily (comparative)
most antifamily (superlative)

Feminism was often portrayed by the media as an attempt to put women's rights ahead of other people's, as being antiman and antifamily...

2004, Steven P. Schacht, Doris W. Ewing, Feminism with men: bridging the gender gap:

(sociology) Opposed to the traditional social construct of the family.

antifamille

opposed to the traditional social construct of the family


antielitism

Here, we see that climate denialism/skepticism might be informed by a certain version of anti-elitism—ironically enough, a value that many progressives hold dear.

2018, Nicole Seymour, Bad Environmentalism, page 44:


androcracy

(government, sociology) Government or rule by men.


cosleep

en-verb

cosleep (third-person singular simple present cosleeps, present participle cosleeping, simple past and past participle coslept)

cosleeps (present singular third-person)
cosleeping (participle present)
coslept (participle past)
coslept (past)

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Both parents should feel comfortable with the decision to cosleep with their baby and be committed to following appropriate safety precautions.

2005, Lauwers & Swisher, Counceling the Nursing Mother, page 259:

(intransitive, chiefly sociology) To sleep in the same bed (with someone), especially of a family member, parent, child, etc.


anticommercialism

Unstructured gigs at the city’s acid-drenched ballrooms encouraged epic jams of the sort perfected by the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Jefferson Airplane, along with a naïve anticommercialism — hit singles were for the hacks in Laurel Canyon.

2007 June 9, Michael Walker, “(Don’t Go Back to) San Francisco”, in New York Times:

(sociology) An ideology that opposes commercialism.


antielite

en-adj

antielite (comparative more antielite, superlative most antielite)

more antielite (comparative)
most antielite (superlative)
anti-elite (alternative)

Moreover , according to informants , this core of antielite opposition is not only limited but also often split.

1978, Arthur J. Lerman, Taiwan's politics: the provincial assemblyman's world, page 103:

Antielite conspiracism has deep roots in U.S. political culture.

2000, Chip Berlet, Matthew Nemiroff Lyons, Right-wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, →ISBN, page 10:

This chapter argues that the antielite, prosubaltern activities of the OPC under Gani Adams should be seen as the latest in a series of subaltern generated actions aimed at questioning the dynamics of elite politics within Yorubaland and Nigeria in general.

2010, Wale Adebanwi, Ebenezer Obadare, Encountering the Nigerian State, page 140:

Some commentators have suggested that the activity represented by WallStreetBets and Trumpism are part of the same populist, anti-elite phenomenon, but if Trumpism in general is instructive at all here, it’s as a reminder that self-described anti-elite movements can, in fact, turn out to be much more complicated than that.

2021 January 29, John Herrman, “Everything’s a Joke Until It’s Not”, in The New York Times:

(sociology) Opposing an elite or elitism.


role conflict

(sociology) a conflict among the roles corresponding to two or more statuses.


governmentality

en-noun

governmentality (countable and uncountable, plural governmentalities)

From French gouvernementalité, equivalent to governmental + -ity.

(sociology) The organized practices (mentalities, rationalities, and techniques) through which subjects are governed and influenced.


conscientization

Conscientization includes exchanges of ideas, debates, discussions, and working with students and not on them. Freire fashions conscientization as a process that results from confrontation with the world; it also entails constant research as well as invention and reinvention.

1994, John L. Elias, Paulo Freire: Pedagogue of Liberation, Krieger Publishing Company, page 123:

(sociology, education) A social concept, grounded in Marxist critical theory, that focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing for the perception and exposure of social and political contradictions.


wedge issue

"It's sick," he gripes. "Everybody is tired of someone getting a job because of color." Republicans are exploiting such frustration. . . .. Says Kathy Spillar, national coordinator for the Feminist Majority: "The GOP wants to use it as a racial wedge issue."

1996 March 25, Catherine Yang, “Worried white men may be the GOP's ace in the hole”, in businessweek.com, retrieved 2011-05-11:

The speech . . . gave Democrats that rare gift: a wedge issue that split Republicans and united Democrats.

2006 July 30, Nancy Gibbs, “Stem Cells: The Hope And The Hype”, in Time:

(politics, sociology) A discussion point or a difference in points of view which is particularly likely to be controversial and a source of discord between discussants or other involved parties; a difference in viewpoints which causes disharmony within a political or social group.


spatialize

en-verb

spatialize (third-person singular simple present spatializes, present participle spatializing, simple past and past participle spatialized)

spatializes (present singular third-person)
spatializing (participle present)
spatialized (participle past)
spatialized (past)

(transitive, sociology) To place into a physical or geographical context.


antiviolent

en-adj

antiviolent (comparative more antiviolent, superlative most antiviolent)

more antiviolent (comparative)
most antiviolent (superlative)

(law enforcement, sociology) Acting against or opposing violence.


group action

en-noun

group action (countable and uncountable, plural group actions)

(sociology) A situation in which a large number of agents take action simultaneously in order to achieve a common goal; their actions are usually coordinated.


antirural

en-adj

antirural (comparative more antirural, superlative most antirural)

more antirural (comparative)
most antirural (superlative)

In New Jersey’s smallest municipalities, whose state aid has been slashed in an attempt to prod them into consolidating with neighboring communities, some residents called the budget cuts antirural.

2008 February 28, David Kocieniewski, “New Jersey Braces for Cuts Sought by the Governor”, in New York Times:

(sociology) Biased against rural areas or people.


antisecular

antisecular (comparative more antisecular, superlative most antisecular)

more antisecular (comparative)
most antisecular (superlative)

The lawsuit, filed with the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country, seeks to shut down the party because of what it says are antisecular activities.

2008 March 15, Sabrina Tavernise, “Suit Seeks to Bar Party of Premier in Turkey”, in New York Times:

(sociology, religion) Opposing what is secular.


antistigma

antistigma (comparative more antistigma, superlative most antistigma)

more antistigma (comparative)
most antistigma (superlative)

In recent years, groups have started antistigma campaigns, and even the federal government embraces the message, with an ad campaign aimed at young adults to encourage them to support friends with mental illness.

2008 May 11, Gabrielle Glaser, “‘Mad Pride’ Fights a Stigma”, in New York Times:

(sociology) Opposing or countering a social stigma.


hyperindividualism

As quickly as bottled water became a symbol of healthy hyperindividualism — sort of an iPod for your kidneys — a backlash turned it into the devil’s drink.

2008 June 15, Lisa Margonelli, “Tapped Out”, in New York Times:

(sociology) A tendency for people to act in a highly individual way, without regard to society.


facework

en-noun

facework (usually uncountable, plural faceworks)

(sociology, psychology) The communicative strategies involved in upholding face or social prestige.


adultize

en-verb

adultize (third-person singular simple present adultizes, present participle adultizing, simple past and past participle adultized)

adultizes (present singular third-person)
adultizing (participle present)
adultized (participle past)
adultized (past)

Talk with them in an adult manner, but do not "adultize" them. Do not expect them to be miniature adults.

1986, Joanne Rand Whitmore, Intellectual Giftedness in Young Children: Recognition and Development, page 86:

(transitive, sociology, psychology) To raise (a child) in such a way that it adopts adult behaviors earlier than is usual.

成人化

to raise a child such that he adopts adult behaviors earlier


antipluralist

en-adj

antipluralist (comparative more antipluralist, superlative most antipluralist)

more antipluralist (comparative)
most antipluralist (superlative)

He hails women’s suffrage as progressive and damns immigration restriction as antipluralist and reactionary.

2008 June 29, David Frum, “Point of Origin”, in New York Times:

(sociology) Opposing sociological pluralism.


antipluralist

(sociology) One who opposes sociological pluralism.


antipluralistic

antipluralistic (comparative more antipluralistic, superlative most antipluralistic)

more antipluralistic (comparative)
most antipluralistic (superlative)

Lichtman’s thesis is embedded in his title: American conservatism should be seen as an ideology devoted above all to advancing “an antipluralistic ideal of America as a unified, white Protestant nation.”


antinaturalist

antinaturalist (comparative more antinaturalist, superlative most antinaturalist)

more antinaturalist (comparative)
most antinaturalist (superlative)

Ms. Callaghan, 36, is a genre-scoffing playwright whose antinaturalist works (“Dead City,” “Crawl, Fade to White”) have earned a downtown following.

2009 March 1, Erik Piepenburg, “Play as Provocation (Jell-O Included)”, in New York Times:

(philosophy, sociology) Opposing or rejecting naturalism.


antinaturalist

(philosophy, sociology) One who opposes or rejects naturalism.


antisociality

(sociology, psychology) The quality of being antisocial.


antiegalitarian

antiegalitarian (comparative more antiegalitarian, superlative most antiegalitarian)

more antiegalitarian (comparative)
most antiegalitarian (superlative)


antiegalitarian

(sociology) One who opposes egalitarianism.


antiegalitarianism

(sociology) Opposition to egalitarianism.


cognitive relativism

Cognitive relativism, as it is presented in the Fables, is simply a recognition that knowledge is dependent on the conditions and the instruments of knowing, some of which are more reliable than others. La Fontaine's approach to cognitive relativism is descriptive and monitory.

1996, Catherine Grisé, The Optics of Relativism in the Fables of La Fontaine, in Anne Lynn Birberick (editor), Refiguring la Fontaine: Tercentenary Studies, page 127

Our main thesis is that cognitive relativism is a position that no scientist (in either the natural or the social sciences) should wish to embrace, and that methodological relativism makes sense only if one adheres to cognitive relativism.

2001, Jean Bricmont, Alan Sokal, “Chapter 3: Science and Sociology of Science: Beyond War and Peace”, in Jay A. Labinger, Harry M. Collins, editors, One Culture?: A Conversation about Science, page 38:

Whereas moral relativism deals with matters of value, cognitive relativism deals with matters of fact (although sharp distinctions may at times be difficult to make) (Hollis and Lukes 1982, p. 2).

2003, Shelby D. Hunt, Controversy in Marketing Theory: For Reason, Realism, Truth, and Objectivity, page 102:

(philosophy, sociology) The view that the cognitive styles or habits of perception, reasoning, judgment, and knowledge of the world are not absolute, but are relative to historical eras and to various cultures.


anticulture

(sociology) A culture set up in opposition to another culture.

anticultura

a culture set up in opposition to another culture


lineality

en-noun

lineality (usually uncountable, plural linealities)

(anthropology, sociology): A reckoning of descent, or way of determining hereditary derivation within human societies.


heteroglossia

A superficial impression of Asia may be of disorder, whereas this condition is in fact the immediate historicity that speaks for an undertheorised heteroglossia.

2017, Francis Chia-Hui Lin, Architectural Theorisations and Phenomena in Asia, page 194:

(sociology, linguistics) The coexistence of distinct linguistic varieties, styles of discourse, or points of view within a single language, as in a literary work.

heitribhéascna

coexistence of distinct language varieties


countersignal

en-verb

countersignal (third-person singular simple present countersignals, present participle (UK) countersignalling or (US) countersignaling, simple past and past participle (UK) countersignalled or (US) countersignaled)

countersignals (present singular third-person)
countersignalling (UK participle present)
countersignaling (US participle present)
countersignalled (UK participle past)
countersignalled (UK past)
countersignaled (US participle past)
countersignaled (US past)

But of course, Silicon Valley is a mecca of counter-signaling—witness the superstatus Zuckerbergian hoodie—and it's no surprise to discover that in the land of the billionaire dropout, an Internet entrepreneur like Thiel sees evidence that higher education inhibits innovation.

Just as the logic of signaling attracts New Money to luxury, countersignaling directs the Old Money sensibility toward modesty.

2022, W. David Marx, chapter 5, in Status and Culture, Viking, →ISBN:

(sociology) To send a false or misleading signal.


encompassment

en-noun

encompassment (countable and uncountable, plural encompassments)

It sometimes seems as though the anthropological nostalgia for Culture and the academic imperative to defend our space by defending our concept blinds us to the reality that the processes of encompassment neither leave others alone nor make them Western. Rather, encompassment creates a new terrain and terms for the production of sameness and difference, value and meaning.

2001, Edward LiPuma, Encompassing Others: The Magic of Modernity in Melanesia:

This appears then as a moment of encompassment. The work of the technologist is encompassed by the artist, or the contribution of the facilitator is claimed as part of the creative process (genius, fortune) of the artist themselves.

2007, Amiria Henare, Martin Holbraad, Sari Wastell, Thinking Through Things:

On the level involving encompassment, moreover, women are simply invisible, thanks precisely to their encompassment.

2010, Robert Parkin, Anne de Sales, Out of the Study and Into the Field:

Baumann (2004, 25–27) identifies yet another way of othering as “encompassment,” which means that a larger group constitutes a hierarchy of dominance over subgroups that are included under the condition that they acquiesce to the larger group.

2020, Robert L. Brawley, Luke: A Social Identity Commentary:

(anthropology, sociology) A hierarchical structure such that when two elements of a whole are recognized as opposites, one of them is considered hierarchically superior, while the other is subordinated to the whole.


gemeinschaft

gemeinschaft (plural gemeinschafts or gemeinschaften)

gemeinschafts (plural)
gemeinschaften (plural)
Gemeinschaft (alternative)

/ɡəˈmaɪnʃɑːft/

From German Gemeinschaft (“community”), equivalent to gemein (“common”) + -schaft (“-ship”). More at mean, -ship. Compare to English gesellschaft.

(sociology) A society or group characterized by a strong sense of common identity, personal relationships, and attachments to various concerns.


arrivisme

/ˌæ.ɹɪˈvɪzəm/

This was hardly arrivisme on my part: I was “down” with my fellow American radicals, not conspiring with a bunch of aristos and expats.

2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 226:

(sociology) The state or behaviour of an arriviste.


religionize

en-verb

religionize (third-person singular simple present religionizes, present participle religionizing, simple past and past participle religionized)

religionizes (present singular third-person)
religionizing (participle present)
religionized (participle past)
religionized (past)

Dressler refers to a “trend to religionize Alevism” in the context of a discussion of the changing role of the dede, or Alevi spiritual leader […]

2015, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion, →ISBN, page 166, note 103:

(transitive, sociology) To interpret or conceptualize as religion.


sex ratio

(biology, sociology) The ratio of males to females in any given population.


heterophilic

(sociology) Tending to maintain relationships with people who are different from oneself in age, race, gender, etc.


lect

Use of the compound element -lect as an independent noun.

Meronyms: lexicon, grammar, sublect

Coordinate term: register

These, together with (some) Romansh lects, belong to our West Rhaetian; the /ȫ/ also supported by two lects from the Ticino which by our criteria are NWIt, and by the partially umlauting lects of Lombardy which together with (some) Engadine lects belong to our East Rhaetian.

1980, Frederick B. Agard, The Genealogy of the French Language, published in Contributions to historical linguistics, →ISBN, page 222:

(linguistics, sociolinguistics) A specific form of a language or language cluster: a language or a dialect.

語言變體 /语言变体

linguistics, sociolinguistics: a specific form of a language or language cluster: a language or a dialect


e-inclusion

information technology
information technology

(information technology, sociology) The promotion of computer use by all members of society, so as to avoid a reduction in opportunities for those who do not have or cannot understand the technology.


corporealism

en-noun

corporealism (countable and uncountable, plural corporealisms)

(sociology) The use of physical attributes as a criterion or value (royal blood, race, multiracialism, inability, physical abilities).


Weberian

en-adj

Weberian (comparative more Weberian, superlative most Weberian)

more Weberian (comparative)
most Weberian (superlative)

(sociology, economy) Of or relating to Max Weber (1864–1920), influential German sociologist and political economist.

wébérien

of or relating to German sociologist and political economist Max Weber


early childhood

en-noun

early childhood (usually uncountable, plural early childhoods)

(chiefly uncountable, psychiatry, sociology) A stage in human development, generally including toddlerhood and some time afterwards.

兒童早期 /儿童早期

stage including toddlerhood and some time afterwards


edgework

(sociology) Behaviour at the edge of what is normally allowed or accepted; risky or radical behaviour.


neofeudalism

The founding fathers of the American Republic understood this point perfectly well when they built a system of checks and balances into the American Constitution in an attempt to confine neofeudalism to the Old World.

2001, Ken Binmore, “8: The Breakdown of Social Contracts”, in Steven N. Durlauf, H. Peyton Young, editors, Social Dynamics, page 230:

Neofeudalism is rhetorically pitted against a purer, romanticized form of capitalism characterized by small and medium-sized enterprise operating in a “free,” but disciplining market.
Neofeudalism is also used by activists critical of capitalism itself.

2013, Majia Holmer Nadesan, “Chapter 3: Neofeudalism and the Financial Crisis: Implications for Occupy Wall Street”, in Renee Guarriello Heath, Courtney Vail Fletcher, Ricardo Munoz, editors, Understanding Occupy: from Wall Street to Portland, page 39:

Neoliberalism therefore is the default position of capitalism to which it reverts unless restrained by popular struggles against its institutionalized rule in political systems such as neofeudalism, managed democracy and inverted totalitarianism.

2013, Tatah Mentan, Democracy for Breakfast? Unveiling Mirage Democracy in Contemporary Africa, page viii:

(politics, sociology) The contemporary rebirth of policies of governance, economy and public life reminiscent of those present in many feudal societies.

new feudalism

rebirth of policies reminiscent of feudal societies


precariat

precariat (countable and uncountable, plural precariats)

Blend of precarious + proletariat, popularized by economist Guy Standing in his book The Precariat (2011).

The global precariat is not yet a class in the Marxian sense, being internally divided and only united in fears and insecurities. But it is a class in the making, approaching a consciousness of common vulnerability.

2011 June 1, Guy Standing, “Who will be a voice for the emerging precariat?”, in The Guardian:

Professor [Stephanie] Luce characterized the protesters who had problems finding full-time work as part of an emerging demographic that some commentators call the “precariat” — educated people forced into unsteady or insecure jobs because little else is available.

[2013 January 28, Colin Moynihan, “In 'Occupy,' Well-Educated Professionals Far Outnumbered Jobless, Study Finds”, in New York Times City Room:

The American Precariat seems more hunkered down, insecure, risk averse, relying on friends and family but without faith in American possibilities. This fatalism is historically uncharacteristic of America.

2014 February 11, David Brooks, “The American Precariat”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

My first encounter with one group of the new nomads came in 2013, at the Desert Rose RV park in Fernley, Nevada. It was populated by members of the “precariat”: temporary laborers doing short-term jobs in exchange for low wages.

2017 December 2, Jessica Bruder, “Living in cars, working for Amazon: meet America's new nomads”, in The Guardian:

Second, there is the precariat. These are the young and educated voters caught in the gig economy, who see no career security ahead.

2019 December 13, David Brooks, “The Politics of Exhaustion”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(sociology, collective) People suffering from precarity, especially as a social class; people living a precarious existence, without security or predictability, especially job security.


community language

community language (plural community languages)

Commonly spoken community languages in Australia include Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Arabic, Greek, Italian, indigenous languages, and so on.

(sociology, linguistics) An unofficial language spoken by a minority of people.

1985 UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Africa. 1985. African community languages and their use in literacy and education : a regional survey. Dakar : UNESCO.
Such languages, which serve the purposes of general communication over fairly wide areas within countries, are what are referred to as the community languages of Africa.

(sociology, linguistics) An unofficial language spoken as a local lingua franca among people of diverse ethno-linguistic backgrounds.


sexuo-economic

In Gilman's evolutionary theory of gender inequality, sexuo-economic relations occur when sex relations and economic relations overlap fundamentally.

2009, Kenneth Allan, Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World, Pine Forge Press, →ISBN, page 311:

(sociology) Concerning the economics of human sexuality.


egression

Experience and the will of one person were becoming an increasingly more determining moment in the practice of the entire collective: a stable egression was developing.

1980, Aleksandr Bogdanov, Essays in Tektology, page 169:

The most obvious example of egression was the relationship of the brain to the sensory organs and other nerve centres of the body.

2018, James White, Red Hamlet, page 305:

In machine production a new link of egression –a mechanism –is introduced between the hand of man and the working tool. Thus, a new broadening of egression is also achieved, and quite a significant one at that: the mechanism is free from the biological limitation of organs of the body and can control at the same time an indefinitely large number of instruments.

2022, Boris Groys, Philosophy of Care, page 93:

(sociology, systems theory) A centralized or top-down organization.


Arnoldian

en-adj

Arnoldian (comparative more Arnoldian, superlative most Arnoldian)

more Arnoldian (comparative)
most Arnoldian (superlative)

In the end, as Seabrook sees it, the law of Nobrow is simple: the Arnoldian criterion of ‘the best that is known and thought’ is long gone, and what rules is the Buzz principle of whatever is hot.

2000 September 21, Hal Foster, “Slumming with Rappers at the Roxy”, in London Review of Books, volume 22, number 18, →ISSN:

(sociology) Of or relating to Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), British poet and cultural critic.


antiethnic

antiethnic (comparative more antiethnic, superlative most antiethnic)

more antiethnic (comparative)
most antiethnic (superlative)

antiethnic crimes

(sociology) Opposing those of a particular ethnicity.

antiétnico

opposing those of a particular ethnicity


microaggression

en-noun

microaggression (countable and uncountable, plural microaggressions)

From micro- + aggression, coined by American psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce in 1970.

coin

At McGill, someone has established a McGill Microaggressions website inviting students and staff to report instances of “sexism, heteropatriarchy, transphobia, classism, racism [and] ableism.”

2014 February 18, Graeme Hamilton, “McGill student forced to apologize for racial ‘microaggression’ after emailing joke Obama clip”, in National Post, retrieved 2014-02-19:

Two terms have risen quickly from obscurity into common campus parlance. Microaggressions are small actions or word choices that seem on their face to have no malicious intent but that are thought of as a kind of violence nonetheless.

2015 September, Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt, “The Coddling of the American Mind”, in The Atlantic:

For many of us, microaggressions are so commonplace that it seems impossible to tackle them one at a time. Psychologists often compare them to death by a thousand cuts.

2020 March 3, Hahna Yoon, “How to Respond to Microaggressions”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Ask whether microaggressions merit the same response as physical assault and the Elect do not receive this as a challenging query.

2021, John H. McWhorter, chapter 6, in Woke Racism, New York: Forum, →ISBN:

(sociology, chiefly US) Any small-scale verbal or physical interaction between those of different races, cultures, beliefs, or genders that may have no malicious intent, but that can be interpreted as an aggression.

microagressió

everyday interaction interpreted as aggression


microassault

(sociology) A form or instance of microaggression involving purposeful discriminatory action, such as a verbal attack or avoidant behaviour.


microinsult

In contrast to microassaults, microinsults and microinvalidations function as unconscious expressions of sexist ideals, making them more difficult to detect. Microinsults are characterized by covert expressions of ethnocentrism and patriarchy. Gender-based microinsults convey hidden offensive messages, while the perpetrators may remain unaware of the negative connotations reflected by their words and actions.

2017, Kevin L. Nadal, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 1182:

(sociology) A form or instance of microaggression that demeans a person's racial heritage or identity.


microinvalidation

(sociology) A form of microaggression that excludes or negates a person's experience, thoughts or feelings.


positionality

en-noun

positionality (countable and uncountable, plural positionalities)

In the post-civil rights era, some white men have adopted a marginalized positionality in an effort to reclaim the tacit social privileges of being white, heterosexual and male.

2007, Sean Brayton, “MTV's Jackass: Transgression, Abjection and the Economy of White Masculinity”, in Journal of Gender Studies, volume 16, page 58:

Many of my liberal friends and acquaintances now seem to believe that being a good person means constantly reminding Black people that you are aware of their Blackness. Difference, no longer to be politely ignored, is insisted upon at all times under the guise of acknowledging “positionality.”

2023 August 14, Tyler Austin Harper, “I’m a Black Professor. You Don’t Need to Bring That Up.”, in The Atlantic:

(sociology) The social context one inhabits that shapes and defines a person's identity and perspective.


alloparent

And Hrdy further suggests that the immersion of human babies in a pool of alloparents would have honed the mind-reading skills and empathy that are so important to our species, faster than anything else.

2011, Chris Stringer, The Origin of Our Species, Penguin, published 2012, page 142:

In non-humans, alloparents include relatives who have kin-based incentives to help and nonrelatives who are under coercive threat or have no better option for survival.

2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 16, in The Secret of Our Success […] , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN:

Maybe my kids should spend more time with my sister and her kids. Maybe my colleague who has kids around the same age as mine, we should do more sleepovers. So there are all sorts of ways in which could imagine just bringing other alloparents into a relationship.

2023 June 9, Ezra Klein, quoting Kristen Ghodsee, “The Ezra Klein Show: What Communes and Other Radical Experiments in Living Together Reveal”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(biology, sociology) An adult animal or person involved in parent-like behaviour towards an individual that is not his or her offspring.


sociofunctional

(sociology) relating to social (or structural) functionalism


sociopolitics

(sociology) The sociological aspects of politics


sociosexuality

(sociology) The sociological aspects of sexuality.


persistor

(sociology) A person who persists in unsocial behaviour


T-V distinction

T-V distinction (plural T-V distinctions)

From Latin tū (“thou, singular you”) and vōs (“ye, plural you”).

(sociolinguistics) The distinction between a formal and an informal second-person pronoun in some languages.


situatedness

situatedness (countable and uncountable, plural situatednesses)


ideologeme

So we will show in what follows that Frye's entire discussion of romance turns on a presupposition—the ethical axis of good and evil—which needs to be historically problematized in its turn, and which will prove to be an ideologeme that articulates a social and historical contradiction.

1981, Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act:

It is not sufficient, however, only to identify ideologemes as a special category of language units. We must also analyze and systematize relationships between ideologemes in order to discover a model that gives rise to varied ideological uses of language.

1995, Mikhail Epstein, After the Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture:

(sociology) A fundamental unit of ideology.


anticlass

en-adj

anticlass (comparative more anticlass, superlative most anticlass)

more anticlass (comparative)
most anticlass (superlative)

He called for an anticlass posture in intrahuman affairs[…]

2003, Frederic L. Bender, The culture of extinction: toward a philosophy of deep ecology:

(sociology) Opposed to a class system in society.


responsibilization

en-noun

responsibilization (usually uncountable, plural responsibilizations)

responsibilizations (plural)
responsibilisation (alternative)

Responsibilization strategies involve a series of new techniques and methods "whereby the state seeks to bring about action on the part of private agencies and individuals - either by stimulating new forms of behaviour or by stopping established habits" (emphasis in the original).

2001, Kelly Hannah-Moffat, Punishment in Disguise, →ISBN:

While responsibilization has become closely associated with neo-liberalism, with its inducement that individuals become entrepreneurs, it should be noted that responsibilization played a significant role in other historical periods.

2003, Richard Victor Ericson, Aaron Doyle, Risk and Morality, →ISBN, page 189:

Responsibilization is not an inherent entailment of devolution; there are decidedly more empowering and more democratic potentials for devolved decision making.

2015, Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution, →ISBN, page 134:

(sociology) The transfer of responsibility from higher authorities to communities or individuals who are then called on to take an active role in resolving their own problems.


parentification

(sociology, psychology) A process of role reversal whereby a child is obliged to act as a parent to its own parent or sibling.

親職化 /亲职化

a process of role reversal whereby a child is obliged to act as parent to its own parent


chronolect

From chrono- (“time”) + -lect (“[language] variety”).

confix

Koine and Byzantine are chronolects of Greek.

Taking lect in the sense of ‘variety’ (and not ‘social variety’), I have coined spatiolect ‘spatial variety’, chronolect ‘chronological variety’, communolect ‘variety of a community (however defined)’, ecolect ‘variety of an economic class’, ethnolect ‘variety of an ethnic group’, religiolect ‘variety of a religious group’, sexlect ‘variety of one of the sexes or of people with a certain sexual orientation’, urbolect ‘urban variety’, and rurolect ‘rural variety’.

1981, Leuvense Bĳdragen, volume LXX, Martinus Nĳhoff Publishers, page 52:

(linguistics, sociolinguistics) A specific variety of a language at a given time in its history of development.


antistructuralism

(sociology) Opposition to structuralism.


antistructuralist

(sociology) One who opposes structuralism.


antistructural

en-adj

antistructural (comparative more antistructural, superlative most antistructural)

more antistructural (comparative)
most antistructural (superlative)

(sociology) Of or relating to antistructure.

(sociology) Of or relating to antistructuralism.


antitradition

antitradition (comparative more antitradition, superlative most antitradition)

more antitradition (comparative)
most antitradition (superlative)


antiprison

antiprison (comparative more antiprison, superlative most antiprison)

more antiprison (comparative)
most antiprison (superlative)

During my own career as an antiprison activist I have seen the population of U.S. prisons increase with such rapidity that many people in black, Latino, and Native American communities now have a far greater chance of going to prison than of getting a decent education. When many young people decide to join the military service in order to avoid the inevitability of a stint in prison, it should cause us to wonder whether we should not try to introduce better alternatives.

2003, Angela Y. Davis, chapter 1, in Are Prisons Obsolete?, archived from the original on 2023-05-19, page 10:


antipatriarchy

antipatriarchy (comparative more antipatriarchy, superlative most antipatriarchy)

more antipatriarchy (comparative)
most antipatriarchy (superlative)


antipatriarchal

antipatriarchal (comparative more antipatriarchal, superlative most antipatriarchal)

more antipatriarchal (comparative)
most antipatriarchal (superlative)

[…] a new mode of masculine dominance in which men can demonstrate their confidence and power by suggesting that they are “man enough” to ridicule dominant norms of manhood. It is through these contradictions that Dickhouse Productions carries on skateboarding culture’s process of criticizing masculinity without being antipatriarchal.

2009, Emily Chivers Yochim, Skate Life, page 115:


sociospatial

(sociology) Relating to sociological aspects of (mostly urban) spaces.


desublimate

en-verb

desublimate (third-person singular simple present desublimates, present participle desublimating, simple past and past participle desublimated)

desublimates (present singular third-person)
desublimating (participle present)
desublimated (participle past)
desublimated (past)

However, the question remains as to why the text does not desublimate the hard-boiled genre's investments around gender, sexuality, race, and nation with the same sort of scrupulous rigor that it demystifies the economic and social ideology of the form.

2005, Christopher Breu, Hard-boiled Masculinities, →ISBN, page 81:

The practice of pornography teaches its subjects to desublimate the sensuous apprehension.

2000, Allison Pease, Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity, →ISBN, page 85:

When we desublimate the things we have repressed, we create a space in which we feel liberated to be as monstrous as we wish.

2012, Luke Howie, Witnesses to Terror, →ISBN, page 121:

(transitive, sociology) Make explicit that which has been sublimated or obscured because it is not socially acceptable.


afterburn

en-noun

afterburn (countable and uncountable, plural afterburns)

(sociology) The practice of criticizing a person after they have left, or stopped contributing to the conversation.


postmaterialism

Someone's placing higher importance on nonmaterialist values such as autonomy and self-expression, as opposed to materialist values such as economic and physical wellbeing.

(sociology) The theory that a positive correlation exists between one's level of affluence during childhood and such values, and that these persist throughout adulthood irrespective of any changes to one's personal economic circumstances.


adultoid

Greenberger and Steinberg coined the term “adultoid” to describe adolescents who engage in activities, often “risky” activities, that symbolize adult status (e.g., smoking, drinking, staying out late, having sex).

2005, Francis J. Turner, Social Work Diagnosis in Contemporary Practice, page 29:

This link between an older subjective age and engagement in problem behaviors supports the existence of adultoid or pseudomature adolescents who have been described in theoretical literature, but until recently, remained unidentified empirically.

2011, Margaret Kerr, Understanding Girls' Problem Behavior:

Personal conversations I had with teachers/counsellors in different high schools responsible for overseeing RAP certainly indicated that, at least initially, students' confidence about their newly discovered sense of maturity was closer to pseudomaturity or adultoid behaviour.

2014, Wolfgana Lehmann, Choosing to Labour?: School-Work Transitions and Social Class:

(sociology) An adolescent who engages in activities that symbolize adult status.


antisociety

(sociology) A usually underground or marginalized social group formed in opposition to mainstream society.


invisiblize

en-verb

invisiblize (third-person singular simple present invisiblizes, present participle invisiblizing, simple past and past participle invisiblized)

invisiblizes (present singular third-person)
invisiblizing (participle present)
invisiblized (participle past)
invisiblized (past)
invisibilize (alternative)
invisiblise (alternative)

[…] there is also the danger […] that such a critique recuperates gender in terms that quite literally invisiblize the very issues of race and ethnicity which, as Rolling Stone demonstrates, are crucial to an understanding […] of rock as a musical/cultural practice.

2002, Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture:

Furthermore, I claim this subordinate place to traditional medical systems tends to create a perception that holistic health practices are only now emerging, which can invisiblize their long history of development and utilization[…]

2008, Donna A. Dragon, Toward Embodied Education, 1850s-2007, page 338:

(transitive, chiefly sociology) To make invisible; to marginalize so as to erase the presence or contributions of.


antiassimilationist

en-adj

antiassimilationist (comparative more antiassimilationist, superlative most antiassimilationist)

more antiassimilationist (comparative)
most antiassimilationist (superlative)


antistructure

en-noun

antistructure (countable and uncountable, plural antistructures)

From anti- + structure, introduced by Victor Turner.

(sociology) A sociocultural structure that intentionally counteracts the mainstream.

antiestrutura

a sociocultural structure that intentionally counteracts the mainstream


antipastoral

en-adj

antipastoral (comparative more antipastoral, superlative most antipastoral)

more antipastoral (comparative)
most antipastoral (superlative)

(literature, sociology) Eschewing pastoral literary themes and conventions.


male gaze

(sociology) The implicit assumption or presentation of the viewpoint of a heterosexual man in films and other visual media, often manifesting in lingering, eroticized shots of women's bodies.


demosophy

Elaboration of demosophy as a special doctrine assumes a new sociology of knowledge.

1931, Social Science Abstracts, volume 3, part 2, page 1332:

The central concept of Kohn is “demosophy,” a sort of sociology, which is not only observing, but creative and rejuvenating.

1937, Antonín Obrdlík, Bruno Zwicker, Survey of Recent Sociological Production in Czechoslovakia in American Sociological Review, volume 2, number 3, American Sociological Association, page 426

As democracy is a system to manage power, balancing individual interests through collective rule, so demosophy would be a system to manage knowledge, balancing individual experiences through collective wisdom.

2006, Peter Broks, Understanding Popular Science, Open University Press, page 154:

(folkloristics, sociology, rare) the wisdom of the people; collective wisdom


overaccommodation

(sociolinguistics) excessive convergence; the situation where a speaker is overaccommodative


overaccommodative

overaccommodative (comparative more overaccommodative, superlative most overaccommodative)

more overaccommodative (comparative)
most overaccommodative (superlative)


intentional community

en-noun

intentional community (plural intentional communities)

(sociology, urban studies) A voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork.


cool pose

cool pose (countable and uncountable, plural cool poses)

Coined in the 1990s by Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson in Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America.

(sociology) A tough, fearless, aloof attitude said to be adopted by black men as a coping mechanism to deal with racial oppression.


action research

Coined by Kurt Lewin, then a professor at MIT, in 1944.

(sociology) Research where the researcher themselves is an agent of social action.


heterosociality

Gagnon (1990; Gagnon & Simon, 1973) proposed important and relevant differences in sexual scripts stemming from women's socialisation into heterosociality before heterosexuality, in contrast to men's socialisation into masturbation and heterosexuality before heterosociality.

2002, Barrie Gunter, Media Sex: What are the Issues?, →ISBN, page 67:

Potkay is noticing much the same thing, I suspect, when he opposes the polite heterosociality of eighteenth-century conversation, […]

2013, Chris Mounsey, Developments in the Histories of Sexualities, →ISBN, page 245:

(sociology, psychology) Social interaction between men and women.

hétérosocialité

sociality with members of the opposite sex


underaccommodation

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Friendships with members of a younger cohort may also be marked by underaccomodation, a linguistic phenomenon in which older adults engage in egocentric topic selection during conversation.

2003, Charles M Dorn, John O. Greene, Brant Raney Burleson, Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills, →ISBN, page 665:

(sociolinguistics) Insufficient convergence; the situation where a speaker is underaccommodative.


underaccommodative

en-adj

underaccommodative (comparative more underaccommodative, superlative most underaccommodative)

more underaccommodative (comparative)
most underaccommodative (superlative)

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allosexual

From allo- (“other”) + sexual. "Directed at or involving another rather than one's self" and "involving the other sex; heterosexual" are the most etymologically literal senses (regarding the latter sense, compare the structure of heterosexual), structural and semantic opposites of autosexual and isosexual. The sense "non-heterosexual" was influenced by (and had influence on) Canadian French allosexuel.

Dr. Conigliaro contended that the sharing of the same bedroom by a single parent and child of the opposite sex "could contribute to, or cause, an excessive degree of ‘allosexual identifications’, [where a child identifies with the parent of the opposite sex] […]"

1980, Federal supplement, series 1, volume 476, page 1330:

[…] We performed 45 experimental confrontations with heterospecific pairs. Confrontations (C. talarum vs C. australis) included allosexual and isosexual encounters.

1992 February, Aldo I Vassallo, Christina Busch, “Interspecific agonism between two sympatric species of Ctenomys (Rodentia: Octodontidae) in captivity”, in Behaviour, volume 120, number 1/2, pages 40-50:

(chiefly biology, sociology, psychology) Involving or directed at the other biological sex; heterosexual; not isosexual.


aracial

(sociology, philosophy) Without race or race distinctions.


Matthew effect

Coined by sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1968, in reference to Matthew 25:29.

coin

When we click on the top search results or watch the FrontPage videos on YouTube or read established blogs, we are jumping on invisible bandwagons, causing the Matthew effect to kick in.

2014, Astra Taylor, chapter 4, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN:

(sociology) The phenomenon by which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, either in terms of literal wealth or in terms of fame, status, etc.


positive eugenics

(biology, sociology) A social philosophy which advocates for human enhancement by selecting for positive or desirable traits in a species.


aunting

I found that aunting, or the care and nurture of children by aunts and great-aunts, is gendered and invisible work that, at the most basic level, salvages children’s lives.

2006, Regina Louise Davis-Sowers, “Salvaging Children's Lives: Understanding the Experiences of Black Aunts Who Serve as Kinship Care Providers within Black Families.”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

Many of the strong connections with aunts exist because this role is more negotiable, flexible, and adaptable than parenting, Sotirin says. And aunts don’t necessarily have to be related, either, hence the new verb, aunting, a set of practices that supports personal, familial and community bonds through material, emotional, and symbolic means.

2010, Laura Ellingson, Patty Sotirin, Aunting: Cultural Practices that Sustain Family and Community Life:

Aunting speaks to the ways in which women can influence the children in their lives – and I don’t believe it is limited to biological aunties.

2015, Lavonne Kroeker, “The Importance of Aunts”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

(sociology) The interactions arising from an aunt or aunt-like relationship


macroaggression

en-noun

macroaggression (countable and uncountable, plural macroaggressions)

People of color, particularly African-American men, have been caught up in a twister of macroaggressions and micro ones. No amount of ignoring can alleviate it; no amount of achieving can ameliorate it.

2015 January 5, Charles M. Blow, “Privilege of ‘Arrest Without Incident’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

They meet microaggression with macroaggression, bullying kids and adults who, say, refer to the transgender reality star Caitlyn Jenner as anything less than “stunning and brave.”

2015 December 8, James Poniewozik, “How ‘South Park’ Perfectly Captures Our Era of Outrage”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

These are juxtaposed with brutal news footage and Isis YouTube propaganda. Here are the alienations and macroaggressions of the contemporary world.

2018 May 11, Peter Bradshaw, “The Image Book review – Godard's eyeball-frazzling video essay bewilders and delights”, in The Guardian:

(sociology) Large-scale or overt aggression toward those of a certain race, culture, gender, etc.; contrasted with microaggression.


collective memory

collective memory (plural collective memories)

Coordinate term: institutional memory

Is it important, or even possible, for people to remember the events of Sept. 11 as they happened? Or is it more important for a society to concentrate on collective memory?

2001 October 27, Sarah Boxer, “A Memorial Is Itself A Shaper Of Memory”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

At the same time it vividly evokes the almost preposterous horror of war itself, which Mr. [Walid] Raad experiences both first hand and from a distance, and has evoked as semifictional collective memory.

2006 March 5, Holland Cotter, “The Collective Conscious”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

The shift in the collective memory is also taking place in local schools, where some teachers still refuse to teach lessons on 1921.

2020 February 11, Russell Cobb, “Shifting Collective Memory in Tulsa”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(sociology) A shared pool of information held in the memories of multiple members of a group.


metroethnicity

metroethnicity (countable and uncountable, plural metroethnicities)

From metro- + ethnicity, coined by John C. Maher.

(sociology) A hybrid ethnicity associated with a modern multicultural urban lifestyle.


sociography

sociography (countable and uncountable, plural sociographies)

(sociology) The branch of sociology that concentrates on the descriptive analysis of social phenomena.

sociographie

the branch of sociology that concentrates on the descriptive analysis of social phenomena


Appaduraian

en-adj

Appaduraian (comparative more Appaduraian, superlative most Appaduraian)

more Appaduraian (comparative)
most Appaduraian (superlative)

(sociology) Of or relating to Arjun Appadurai (born 1949), social-cultural anthropologist known for his work on globalization.


divortiality

Comparing the southern and the nordic countries he found that Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece were low in fertility, divortiality, cohabitation and births out of marriage, while in Denmark and Sweden fertility was relatively high, divortiality and cohabitation were high and births out of marriage strong or medium.

1998, Koen Matthijs, The Family: Contemporary Perspectives and Challenges, →ISBN, page 52:

(sociology) The likelihood, in a specific population, that marriages end in divorce.


antinaturalism

Nature's waters are subverted to turn against its guests, complementing a xenofeminist commitment to an anti-naturalism that also entails dismantling nuclear domestic spaces.

2020, Jennifer Cooke, “Feminist Manuals and Manifestos in the Twenty-first Century”, in Jennifer Cooke, editor, The New Feminist Literary Studies, page 196:

(sociology) The view that the natural world and the social world are different, related to antipositivism.

antynaturalizm

the view that the natural world and the social world are different


antimyth

On a deeper level, Stivers believes, there is "an underlying commonality" to myth and ritual of traditional societies and the antimyth of modern, technological society.

1996, John R. Maier, Desert Songs, page 86:

Indeed, one way of reading this is not as a myth, but as an antimyth, intended to limit further mythic development.

2004, Howard Schwartz, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism:

(sociology) A belief or system that opposes a myth or myths.

antimito

a belief or system that opposes a myth or myths


antinaturalistic

antinaturalistic (comparative more antinaturalistic, superlative most antinaturalistic)

more antinaturalistic (comparative)
most antinaturalistic (superlative)

(philosophy, sociology) Of or relating to antinaturalism; opposing naturalism.


transformationalism

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"That's why you need Transformationalism," he said. "Your mind has to evolve to match this permanent situation of permanent change. You've got to get rid of that instantaneous personality that was frozen in a previous cultural matrix that no longer exists...."

1980, Norman Spinrad, The Mind Game, page 64:

According to Mezirow (2000), transformationalism helps adults make sense of their environment so they can act upon it. This is a complex process in which the personalities of the teachers and learners interact with the educational setting and the political environment. Learners examine themselves and the beliefs they bring to the learning experience.

2007, Edith Valladares McElroy, The Effects of the College Student Success Course on the Retention and Academic Performance of English as a Second Language Students Enrolled in Developmental Reading and English at Central Piedmont Community College, →ISBN, page 5:

For me, this is part of transformationalism. A transformationalist does not just favour change: they foment it.

2010, Anne Boran, Poverty: Malaise of Development, →ISBN, page 57:

At the next level, we must practice transformationalism, which goes hand in hand with unlearning.

2012, Kurt April, Nick D Milton, Performance Through Learning, →ISBN, page v:

(sociology, education) A sociological and educational theory that focuses on the process of learned concepts and skills to reframe and transform unthinking culturally-generated assumptions and cognitive categories.


minority language

en-noun

minority language (plural minority languages)

(sociolinguistics) A language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory.


factual relativism

factual relativism ... attempts to argue that the world itself, or the “facts,” are different for different individuals (groups, cultures). Hence truth, too, is relative.

2013, Henrik Rydenfelt, Constructivist Problems, Realist Solutions, in J. Kegley and K. Skowronski, eds. Persuasion and Compulsion in Democracy. Lanham: Lexington Books, p. 164

Factual relativism, according to which the facts ... may differ across perspectives — that is, different facts obtain relative to different perspectives.

2005, Iris Einheuser, “Varieties of Relativism: Indexical, Propositional and Factual”, in Varieties of Relativism: Indexical, Propositional and Factual:

Whereas moral relativism deals with matters of value, cognitive relativism deals with matters of fact (although sharp distinctions may at times be difficult to make) (Hollis and Lukes 1982, p. 2).

2001, Jean Bricmont, Alan Sokal, “Chapter 3: Science and Sociology of Science: Beyond War and Peace”, in Jay A. Labinger, Harry M. Collins, editors, One Culture?: A Conversation about Science, page 38:

(philosophy, sociology) The claim that the world itself, or the facts about the world, are different for different individuals, or groups, or cultures.


digital native

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Coined by education consultant Marc Prensky in 2001.

coin

This may potentially have a negative impact on the ultimate utility of this feedback method with present-day students who perceive themselves as ‘digital natives’.

2017, Di Zou, James Lambert, “Feedback methods for student voice in the digital age”, in British Journal of Educational Technology, volume 48, number 5, page 1085:

(technology, sociology) A person who has grown up in an environment replete with digital interactions and ways of communicating, thought to increase difficulty with traditional nondigital teaching methods, work practices, etc.


sociometer

(psychology, sociology) A theoretical gauge of interpersonal relationships, typically realised as self-esteem.


walkalong

The method of walkalongs, first described by Margarethe Kusenbach (2003), combines interview and observation.

2014, Garth Lean, Russell Staff, editors, Stories of Cosmopolitan Belonging: Emotion and Location, →ISBN:

This chapter draws on our ethnographic analysis of the diaries, walkalongs and followup conversations with Janet, who had recently resigned from a managerial position to look after her first child.

2016, Garth Lean, Emma Watson, “Travel and Imagination: An Invitation”, in Garth Lean, Russell Staff, editors, Travel and Imagination, →ISBN:

(sociology) A type of interview in which the interviewer and subject walk together while talking.


ruling class

From ruling + class. First use appears c. 1653.

One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed... What is to be expected of them is not treachery or physical cowardice, but stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing. They are not wicked, or not altogether wicked; they are merely unteachable... Few if any of these people are consciously treacherous, some of them are not even fools, but as a class they are quite incapable of leading us to victory... Inevitably, because of their position and upbringing, the ruling class are fighting for their own privileges, which cannot possibly be reconciled with the public interest.

1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I & II:

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

1947, Anonymous translation of Karl Marx & al. as "Feuerbach" in The German Ideology, International Publishers Co., §I.B

...until our own time America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another... All that has changed. Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits... whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats.

2010 July 16, Angelo Codevilla, "America's Ruling Class", The Spectator

For our ruling class, identity always trumps. Much less does membership... depend on high academic achievement. To see something closer to an academic meritocracy consider France, where elected officials have little power, a vast bureaucracy explicitly controls details from how babies are raised to how to make cheese, and people get into and advance in that bureaucracy strictly by competitive exams... for good or ill, France's ruling class are bright people—certifiably. Not ours... while getting into the Ecole Nationale d'Administration or the Ecole Polytechnique... requires outperfoming others in blindly graded exams, and graduating from such places requires passing exams that many fail, getting into America's "top schools" is less a matter of passing exams than of showing up with acceptable grades and an attractive social profile.

We once had a coherent ruling class, the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), who more or less owned and ran the United States from its founding through the 1970s.

2021 Apr., Doug Henwood, "Take Me to Your Leader: The Rot of the American Ruling Class", Jacobin

The C.C.P. is colossal, highly hierarchical and regimented. From its inception in 1921 with only 12 members, it has expanded to over 90 million, averaging almost 20 percent growth a year for 100 years... The C.C.P., like any of the more effective ancient Chinese ruling classes, diligently reads historical events for lessons. That has helped it navigate crises and, often, emerge stronger.

2021 July 1, Lian Yizheng, "The Chinese Communist Party Is 100. It's Not Going Anywhere.", New York Times

(sociology, politics) The social class of a given society that controls that society's political agenda, whether as a formal aristocracy or a party leadership or as an informal unit within democracies.


racenicity

Blend of race + ethnicity, coined by Pepi Leistyna in a paper published in 1999.

(sociology, rare, neologism) A social construct combining race and ethnicity.


poststratification

en-noun

poststratification (countable and uncountable, plural poststratifications)

(sociology) Stratification performed after another process.


antimulticultural

en-adj

antimulticultural (comparative more antimulticultural, superlative most antimulticultural)

more antimulticultural (comparative)
most antimulticultural (superlative)