bandwagon effect

(sociology) the observation that people often do or believe what they think many other people do.


herding instinct

en-noun

herding instinct (plural herding instincts)

(sociology) A social tendency in humans to identify with and model many behaviors and beliefs after a larger group of individuals with whom they identify.


herd behaviour

herd behaviour (countable and uncountable, plural herd behaviours)

(sociology) the tendency of a group of individuals (a herd) to react coherently without there being any coordination between them. The term may be applied to animals, or to human phenomena such as stock market bubbles and behaviour in political demonstrations.


herd instinct

But as we've seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves.

7 July 2022, Boris Johnson, resignation speech:


digital divide

As schools were closed, the digital divide meant that more affluent families with computers, iPads and good internet connections had a very different home educational (and informational, social and entertainment) situation than families without these amenities.

2020 April 17, Rebecca Solnit, “Coronavirus does discriminate, because that’s what humans do”, in The Guardian:

information technology
information technology

(information technology, sociology, neologism) The gap between those with regular, effective access to digital technologies (and the computer literacy to use them) and those without it.


functionalism

functionalism (countable and uncountable, plural functionalisms)

/ˈfʌŋkʃənəlɪzəm/

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

(social sciences) The idea that social and cultural cohesion are a function of the interdependence and interactions of the institutions of a society.


deviance

deviance (countable and uncountable, plural deviances)

(sociology) Actions or behaviors that violate formal and informal cultural norms such as laws and customs.


testimonio

From Latin American Spanish testimonio (“testimony”).

1988, Sommer D. "Not Just a Personal Story: Women’s Testimonios and the Plural Self". In: Schenck C, Brodzki B Life/Lines: Theoretical Essays on Women’s Autobiography. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press

1989 (Spring), John Beverley "The Margin at the Center: On Testimonio (Testimonial Narrative)" MFS Modern Fiction Studies Volume 35, Number 1, pp. 11-28 doi:10.1353/mfs.0.0923

(sociology) A first-hand account of politically charged experiences; an oral history narrative.


recuperation

recuperation (usually uncountable, plural recuperations)

Borrowed from Latin recuperātiō. By surface analysis, recuperate + -ion.

[Raoul Vaneigem] I have nothing in common with the spectacular recuperation of a project that, in my case, has remained revolutionary throughout.

2009 May, Hans Ulrich Obrist, “In Conversation with Raoul Vaneigem”, in e-flux, archived from the original on 2009-09-07:

(politics, sociology) Process by which radical or subversive ideas are co-opted by mainstream society.


ascription

ascription (usually uncountable, plural ascriptions)

(sociology) The stratification of people according to inborn characteristics (such as race or sex) outside of their control.


queering

queering (countable and uncountable, plural queerings)

(LGBTQ, social sciences) The process by which something is queered.


socius

(sociology) According to Gilles Deleuze, a social body that takes credit for production.


gynecocracy

gynecocracy (countable and uncountable, plural gynecocracies)

gynecocracies (plural)
gynaecocracy (alternative)

Gynaecocracy may not, however, be an idyllic affair.

1999, Jacqueline Rose, “Go girl”, in London Review of Books, section 21.19:

(government, sociology) Government or rule by women, or a society with such leadership.


identitarianism

identitarianism (countable and uncountable, plural identitarianisms)

"The radical feminists always wanted in their frantic identitarianism to eliminate the difference between the sexes" (p. 96)

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Menace of the Herd, or Procrustes at Large, 1943, e.g.

(sociology) Politics based on social identity.

Needless to add, this augurs badly for the future of the GRECE’s identitarianism, for it now tacitly acknowledges the right of non-Europeans to occupy and partition European lands.

2004, Michael O'Meara, New Culture, New Right: Anti-liberalism in Postmodern Europe, page 78:

Identitarianism is probably the most well-known of these ‘new’ ideologies, despite its fairly recent emergence on the political scene. Employing the lambda symbol, identitarianism has gained increasing purchase amongst youth across western Europe, and France in particular, growing out of the (European) New Right (Nouvelle Droite), which dates to the 1970s and GRECE (Research and Study Group on European Civilization).

2020, Tim Nieguth, editor, Nationalism and Popular Culture, Routledge, →ISBN:

While the concept of remigration has long existed in academia, its hijacking by the far right on social media appears to have begun about a decade ago when French adherents to identitarianism, an ethno-nationalist movement, organised what they described as the inaugural meeting in Paris on remigration.

2024 October 3, Ashifa Kassam, “How remigration became a buzzword for global far right”, in The Guardian:

Counter Extremism Project
w:Counter Extremism Project

(sociology, politics, often capitalized) A far-right political movement and philosophy that seeks to preserve European ethnic and cultural identity against the perceived threats of immigration, Islam, and globalization.


technoscience

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

Briefly put, strategies of globalization undertaken by the state, capital and technoscience all attempt to negotiate the production of locality in a non place- based way that induces increasingly delocalizing effects.

2002, Ginette Verstraete, Tim Cresswell, Mobilizing Place, Placing Mobility: The Politics of Representation in a Globalized World, Rodopi, page 20:

Technoscience, when well directed, can produce important means of improving the quality of human life, from useful domestic appliances to great transportation systems, bridges, buildings and public spaces.

2015, Pope Francis I, Laudato Si': Encyclical Letter on care for our common home:

(philosophy, social sciences) The study of the technological and social context of science.


field theory

field theory (countable and uncountable, plural field theories)

(sociology) A theory concerning the relationship between social actors and local social orders.


communitas

communitas (countable and uncountable, plural communitates)

Unadapted borrowing from Latin commūnitās. Doublet of community.

ubor

Monastic life, pilgrimage, bonds of friendship formed among the group of young initiates, contemporary teenage counter-culture movements are all good examples of communitates.

2012, Helena Bassil-Morozow, The Trickster in Contemporary Film, →ISBN, pages 17–18:

(sociology) An unstructured community of common experience.

A sense of harmony with the universe is made evident and the whole planet is felt to be communitas.

1986, Victor W. Turner, The Anthropology of Experience, University of Illinois Press, page 43:

The achievement of communitas is the pilgrim's fundamental motivation.

1986, Victor W. Turner, Contesting the Sacred, Routledge, published 1991:

Their focus is on group bonding, and the euphoric, almost transcendental experience of becoming one with the music and the crowd (which sounds like a version of what the anthropologist Victor Turner called ‘communitas’—an intense, intimate, liberating kind of group bonding, experienced only in ‘liminal’ states).

[2004, Kate Fox, “Rules of Sex”, in Watching the English, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 330:

Liminality, in other words, engenders communitas by levelling social distinctions while at the same time destabilizing normative structures and inspiring criticism.

2013, Isher-Paul Sahni, “More than Horseplay”, in Studies in Popular Culture, volume 35, page 81:

(sociology) The very spirit of community; an intense community spirit, the feeling of great social equality, solidarity, and togetherness.


institutional

/ˌɪnstɪˈtʃuːʃənəl/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Usmaan (Middle river exports)-institutional.wav

If vocational counseling to help the individual find his peculiar niche has elements of the impulse conception of self, the idea that a person can make of himself what he will, that one chooses a task and then works at it, is the view of institutionals.

1981, Gregory Prentice Stone, Harvey A. Farberman, Social Psychology Through Symbolic Interaction, page 206:

For institutionals the self is revealed through adherence to a high standard, especially in spite of adverse conditions.

1988, Michael R. Wood, Louis A. Zurcher Jr., The Development of a Postmodern Self, page 22:

For the institutionals, hypocrisy consists of failing to live up to one's standards.

1999, Roy F. Baumeister, The Self in Social Psychology:

(sociology) A person whose sense of self is based on institutionalized values and standards, as opposed to their tastes and impulses.


Southern hospitality

(sociology) The reputation for people in the U.S. South to be particularly warm and welcoming to visitors.


emic

en-adj

emic (comparative more emic, superlative most emic)

more emic (comparative)
most emic (superlative)

Coined by American linguist Kenneth Pike in 1954 from phonemic.
* Kenneth Lee Pike (1982) Linguistic Concepts: An Introduction to Tagmemics, page 44: “Generalizing from phonemics, I coined the term emic in 1954.”

coin

A useful example of the emic-etic distinction may be made by comparing the concept “waves on the ocean or sea” from the perspective of a European American with that of a Truk Islander […] The proposed etics here might be that both cultures understand the use of waves as vehicles for surfing and as movement reflecting the transfer of energy […] certain differences, or emics exist, for European Americans the waves may be sources of beauty — the Truk Islander has learned to use them […] as a road map.

1996, Advanced Methodological Issues in Culturally Competent Evaluation for Substance Abuse Prevention:

In contemporary Anglophone usage, the term 'dhow' has come to refer generically and exonymically to traditional wooden vessels of the western Indian Ocean, whatever their particular forms or emic classification.

2015, John P. Cooper, Dionisius A. Agius, Tom Collie, Faisal al-Naimi, “Boat and ship engravings at al-Zubārah, Qatar: the dāw exposed?”, in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, volume 45: Papers from the forty-eighth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held at the British Museum, London, 25 to 27 July 2014 (2015), →ISSN, pages 35–47:

(social sciences, anthropology) Of or pertaining to the analysis of a cultural system or its features from the perspective of a participant in that culture.


etic

en-adj

etic (comparative more etic, superlative most etic)

more etic (comparative)
most etic (superlative)

Coined by American linguist Kenneth Pike in 1954 from phonetic.
* Kenneth Lee Pike (1962) With Heart and Mind: A Personal Synthesis of Scholarship and Devotion, page 37: “I have coined the term etic to refer to the detached observer’s view […]”

(social sciences, anthropology) Of or pertaining to analysis of a culture from a perspective situated outside all cultures.


socialization

en-noun

socialization (countable and uncountable, plural socializations)

socializations (plural)
socialisation (alternative)

From socialize + -ation or social + -ization.

Socialization skills are important things to learn in kindergarten.

(sociology, psychology) The process of learning how to live in a way acceptable to one's own society, said especially about children.

общуване

sociology: the process of learning one’s culture


constructionism

constructionism (countable and uncountable, plural constructionisms)

But is it one constructionism in many guises, or a variety of quite different constructionisms, or merely old issues dressed up in new jargon,

1997, Derek Edwards, Discourse and Cognition, page 51:

The futility of dismissing social constructionism in favor of some "real," authentic nature outside the social and linguistic.

2018, Nicole Seymour, Bad Environmentalism, page 134:

(social sciences) The idea that people learn about, or perceive the world by constructing mental models.


Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Wizard of Oz (character)

The name of a character from the 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, or any of its adaptations, about the journey of Dorothy through the magical Land of Oz in search of a way home.

The goal of Neimo is to provide designers with a "Wizard of Oz" environment to observe and evaluate how users interact with multimodal interfaces.

1992, Wayne D. Gray, William E. Hefley, Dianne Murray, “NEIMO, A MULTIMODAL WIZARD OF OZ PLATFORM”, in Proceedings of the 1993 International Workshop on ..., page 204:

Once a preliminary application design is complete, a wizard-of-oz study can help test and refine the interface.

2006, E. K. Brown, Anne Anderson, Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, volume 11, page 769:

A Wizard of Oz prototype is an incomplete system that a designer can simulate "behind a curtain" (usually by taking the place of a recognizer) while observing the reactions of real end users (see Figure 1).

2007, Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software ..., page 119:

(engineering, social sciences, usually attributive) A person simulating the operation of a supposed intelligent device, usually in an experiment.


essentialism

essentialism (countable and uncountable, plural essentialisms)

A closer examination of the components of essentialism is required for a better understanding of the relation between essentialism and prejudice toward the two social categories of interest in this dissertation, African Americans and gay men.

2007, Luisa Fernanda Ramirez, Dual Intergroup Meanings of Essentialism, →ISBN, page 8:

Like most of those who use the term, I continue to think essentialism a bad thing, but what exactly is wrong with it? Is it a matter of degree, a question of context or something that must be avoided at all costs?

2013, Anne Phillips, Gender and Culture, →ISBN:

I think we need to sophisticate our understanding of cultural essentialisms, including gender ones, because it might help us deal better with issues of resistance.

2013, Brackette Williams, Women Out of Place, →ISBN:

Colonial discourse relied heavily on such essentialisms wherein a race or ethnic group was first represented as possessing certain key features and then those very features were 'applied' to all members of the group.

2015, Pramod K. Nayar, The Postcolonial Studies Dictionary, →ISBN, page 68:

Previous literature tracks the trajectory of gender theories from biological essentialism to social construction.

2020, Annie Jones, “Incels and the Manosphere: Tracking Men's Movements Online”, in University of Central Florida, page 5:

The appearance underlines past incidents in which Pinker has encountered criticism for his association with advocates of so-called “human biodiversity”, which other academics have called a “rebranding” of racial genetic essentialism and scientific racism.

2025 June 7, Jason Wilson, “Harvard author Steven Pinker appears on podcast linked to scientific racism”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(sociology) The view that all members of certain groups of people (such as those with the same race, gender, age, or sexual orientation) have common, essential traits inherent to the defining feature of the group; (also) behavior or statement(s) that reflect such a view.


eventing

eventing (usually uncountable, plural eventings)

The corollary of this, as Whorf points out, is that thinkings and feelings to do with 'eventings' in the world are located there, out in the world in which the eventing takes place - as a natural part of the whole into which they are interwoven.

1993, John Shotter, Conversational Realities: Constructing Life Through Language:

(social sciences, rare) The occurrence of an event.


ideal-seeking behavior

(sociology) Behavior that is characterized by both the desire and the ability to progress towards an ideal by choosing a new goal when a previous one has been met or the effort to meet it has failed.


alcohology

(sociology) The study of the effects of alcohol; on living organisms, people or social environments.


foodway

From food + way; in the sense of "alimentary canal", by extension from airway.

(sociology, chiefly in the plural) The food traditions or customs of a group of people, including their culinary and nutritional practices and related social aspects.


polyculture

polyculture (countable and uncountable, plural polycultures)

What we have here is not a 'multiculture' as it is represented in multiculturalism, not a pluralist order of discrete patches of culture, all somehow, 'equally valid' within the polity, but—to form a Greek/Roman Creole—a polyculture, or at any rate a collection of cultural entities that are not (a) discrete and complete in themselves; (b) that are not in any sense 'intrinsically' 'equal'; and (c) are active together and hence bound up with change.

2003 (originally 1992), Roger Hewitt, Language, Youth and the Destabilisation of Ethnicity, R. Harris and B. Rampton (eds.), page 190

Marsdsen, R. (1993) 'Global Monoculture, Multiculture and Polyculture', Social Research 60 (3): 493–523.

2003, Angus Cameron, Ronen Palan, The Imagined Economies of Globalization, SAGE, →ISBN, page 179:

Finally, but equal in importance, this book aims to engage with the ongoing dialogue among scholars of race and ethnicity in America, specifically regarding conversations on the issues of multiculture, polyculture, and the persistence of race.

2007, Jeffrey F. L. Partridge, Beyond Literary Chinatown, American Ethnic and Cultural S:

Europe/the EU's internal collective group identity is polycultural and not yet multicultural as per its “United in Diversity” motto. The concept of polyculture is a borrowed term from the discipline of agriculture. […] This paper adds a third definition to these two definitions by proposing to include the dominant culture within the fold of the polyculture to make it a multicultural society.

2014, Kenan Aksu, Turkey: A Regional Power in the Making, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 128:

(sociology, uncommon) A multiculture; a polycultural society, sometimes especially one in which multiple cultures exist without one dominating.


decolonize

en-verb

decolonize (third-person singular simple present decolonizes, present participle decolonizing, simple past and past participle decolonized)

decolonizes (present singular third-person)
decolonizing (participle present)
decolonized (participle past)
decolonized (past)

Across Ukraine, officials are starting projects to, as they say, “decolonize” their cities. Streets and subway stops whose names evoke the history of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union are under scrutiny by a population eager to rid itself of traces of the nation that invaded in late February.

2022 June 7, Erika Solomon, “Goodbye, Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy: Ukrainians look to ‘decolonize’ their streets.”, in The New York Times:

The arrival of Trump in the White House gave a new urgency to the idea that museums needed to “decolonize” their collections, atone for their past elitism, and become overtly political institutions rather than mere warehouses of valuable objects.

2022 October 3, Helen Lewis, “The Guggenheim’s Scapegoat”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN:

(transitive, social sciences) To reverse the colonization of, i.e. to grant back autonomy to a group.


hyperinnovation

(social sciences, business) A successful introduction and interconnection of novel ideas.


habitus

en-noun

habitus (usually uncountable, plural habiti or habitus or habituses)

habiti (plural)
habitus (plural)
habituses (plural)

From Latin habitus (“habit”), from habeō (“have; maintain”). The plural habiti is a misconstruction, as the Latin plural is in fact habitūs. habiti may have been influenced by Latin habitī, the plural of the participle habitus; however, it is not the etymon of the English term.

A wrestler could gain the rank of ōzeki based on his competitive achievements, but the promotion to yokozuna implied the presence of a certain habitus than embodied the quintessential traditional Japaneseness.

2019, Raúl Sánchez García, “Reformulation, expansion, and hybridisation of Japanese martial arts”, in The Historical Sociology of Japanese Martial Arts (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society), Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, part III (Martial artists):

(sociology) The lifestyle, values, dispositions and expectations of particular social groups that are acquired through the activities and experiences of everyday life.


detournement

detournement (countable and uncountable, plural detournements)

detournements (plural)
détournement (alternative)

(sociology) The reuse of elements of mainstream media to produce a subversive message.


dehabilitation

(sociology) The process of social estrangement and progressive loosening of social bonds between an individual and their family and society as a result of long-term residence in an institution.


intellectualism

intellectualism (countable and uncountable, plural intellectualisms)

(sociology) The use of mental attributes as a criterion or value.


transactional

en-adj

transactional (comparative more transactional, superlative most transactional)

more transactional (comparative)
most transactional (superlative)

Musk’s Israel tour was transparently transactional and frankly insulting. The antisemitic sentiment Musk endorsed had nothing to do with Israel; “replacement theory” is generally an unsupported allegation that Jews and other immigrants in the US and Europe are destroying Western civilization.

2023 November 28, Jill Filipovic, “Opinion: Elon Musk’s Israel tour was transparently transactional and insulting”, in CNN:

(psychology, sociology) Based on value derived from transactions rather than on morals, ethics, or principles; pragmatic or amoral rather than moral.


sheltered workshop

en-noun

sheltered workshop (plural sheltered workshops)

(sociology) A place where persons with limited mental ability can work in a safe environment.


Merton thesis

(sociology) A theory that significant developments in the modern world have a positive correlation with Protestant pietism, similar to Weber's link between success and the Protestant ethic.


iron cage

(sociology) A theory proposed by Max Weber which argues that rationalization and rules trap humans in a figurative "cage" of thought.


gynocracy

gynocracy (countable and uncountable, plural gynocracies)

(government, sociology) Synonym of gynecocracy.


standard language

standard language (plural standard languages)

In modern standard languages, norms of usage often seem to be superimposed by prescriptive norms.

2014, Stephan Elspaß, Prescriptive norms and norms of usage in nineteenth-century German, University of Salzburg [Gijsbert Rutten, Rik Vosters, Wim Vandenbussche, Norms and Usage in Language History, 1600–1900: A sociolinguistic and comparative perspective, John Benjamins Publishing Company] p. 303

(sociolinguistics) A form of a language that is institutionally promoted, regarded as the most correct or neutral variety, and is used by a population for public and formal purposes.

Some remain clusters of dialects like those of the Pamirs; others are at varying levels of stabilisation; some may be young standard languages, having only recently achieved that status; [...]

1978, James E. Alatis, International Dimensions of Bilingual Education, Georgetown University Press, page xii:

Not all standard languages have the backing of institutions such as the Académie française. English is a good example of a standard language without such a regulatory body.

1994, Suzanne Romaine, Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 85:

(sociolinguistics) A language that has a standard form as one of its varieties; a language that has undergone standardization.


mesolect

[...] one characteristic of the mesolect seems to be that it contains, not merely forms from the polar lects, but forms which in function, if not always in phonetic shape, are peculiar to itself.

1973 Sep, Derek Bickerton, “The Nature of a Creole Continuum”, in Language, 49(3), page 642:

(sociolinguistics) A variety of speech that is midway between the acrolect and the basilect.


anomic

en-adj

anomic (comparative more anomic, superlative most anomic)

more anomic (comparative)
most anomic (superlative)

Anglo-Indians (Eurasians) ceased to be counted as a separate category although we know from other evidence that many of that community, beleaguered and anomic as they often felt themselves to be, remained in railroad service (Bear, 2007).

2012 August 3, John Hurd, Ian J. Kerr, India’s Railway History: A Research Handbook (Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section Two: South Asia; 27), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 22:

(sociology) Socially disorganized, disoriented or alienated.

anomický

socially disorganized, disoriented or alienated


underresourced

underresourced (comparative more underresourced, superlative most underresourced)

more underresourced (comparative)
most underresourced (superlative)
under-resourced (alternative)

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

Who was being served when mainstream media coverage focused on President Clinton's personal life rather than on issues in underresourced communities?

2000, Steven R. Goldzwig, Patricia A. Sullivan, “Electronic Democracy, Virtual Politics, and Local Communities”, in Robert E. Denton, editor, Political Communication Ethics: An Oxymoron?, page 68:

(social sciences, public health) Having insufficient resources; poor or underfunded.


gatekeep

en-verb

gatekeep (third-person singular simple present gatekeeps, present participle gatekeeping, simple past and past participle gatekept)

gatekeeps (present singular third-person)
gatekeeping (participle present)
gatekept (participle past)
gatekept (past)
gate-keep (alternative)

From gate + keep, as back-formation from gatekeeper.

(sociology) To limit (sometimes manipulatively, rather than directly) how much of a role another party, often a spouse, has in some task.


audism

From audio + -ism, modelled after racism and sexism. Coined by American academic Tom Humphries in 1975.

coinage

(sociology) Discrimination against deaf people in favor of hearing people.


reinscribe

en-verb

reinscribe (third-person singular simple present reinscribes, present participle reinscribing, simple past and past participle reinscribed)

reinscribes (present singular third-person)
reinscribing (participle present)
reinscribed (participle past)
reinscribed (past)

This ambivalent anality both parodied national and gendered fantasies of “hardness” at the same time that it drew on dynamics of racial and queer mimesis to reinscribe hegemonic (white/ straight) masculinity.

2022, Marisol Cortez, “Ambivalent Anality: Revisiting the Queer Ecology of "the Jackass Moment"”, in Media+Environment:

(sociology) To reproduce an idea in a new context or manifestation, typically in a way that reinforces it or extends its influence.


microanalysis

en-noun

microanalysis (countable and uncountable, plural microanalyses)

(social sciences) the analysis of individual or community social activity e.g. family relationships.

(sociology) the analysis of individual or community social activity e.g. family relationships.


prestation

From Latin praestatio (“a performing, paying”), from praestare: compare French prestation.

der

(sociology, anthropology) A gift in the context of a non-market society; a giving that takes place in a non-economic sphere


just-so story

/ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsəʊ ˌstɔːɹi/

PIE word
 *swé
From just so (“(almost) exactly or precisely like something”, adjective) + story, referring to the series of short stories called Just So Stories (collected in book form in 1902) by the English writer Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) which described how various animals acquired their distinctive characteristics, such as how the leopard got its spots. According to Kipling, the stories were so titled because they were intended to put his daughter Josephine (“Effie”) to sleep, “and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence.”

Sociobiological explanations of human behaviour encounter two special difficulties, suggesting that a Darwinian model may be generally inapplicable in this case. […] Secondly, the standard foundation of Darwinian just-so stories does not apply to humans. That foundation is the implication: if adaptive, then genetic—for the inference of adaptation is usually the only basis of a selective story, and Darwinism is a theory of genetic change and variation in populations.

1978 November 16, Stephen Jay Gould, “Sociobiology: The Art of Storytelling”, in Bernard Dixon, editor, New Scientist, volume 80, number 1129, London: IPC Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 532:

(social sciences, especially anthropology, philosophy, chiefly derogatory) An untestable explanation for something, such as a form of behaviour, a biological trait, or a cultural practice.


structuration

en-noun

structuration (countable and uncountable, plural structurations)

(sociology) A theory proposed by Anthony Giddens in an attempt to reconcile theoretical dichotomies of social systems such as agency/structure, subjective/objective, and micro/macro perspectives.


FSW

(sociology) Initialism of female sex worker.


literary language

Literary languages have been enriched by dialects and have at the same time assisted the levelling out of dialectical differences which in its turn has contributed to ….

1977, Magomet Izmaylovich Isayev, National languages in the USSR: problems and solutions, Прогресс, p. 316

I would note that almost 12% of the population of the SRCroatia are Serbs and that they are obliged to use the "Croatian literary language" for official purposes even though this is not their native language.

1990, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on International Operations, Views on the Serbo-Croatian Language Service at the Voice of America:

Gaj argued that the establishment of a common literary language was essential for the development of an Illyrian national consciousness and he attempted to bring together the three main dialects used by the Southern Slavs...

2003, Alex J. Bellamy, The Formation of Croatian National Identity, page 44:

The Erzya and Moksha population, especially in urban areas, has become increasingly exposed to Russian; within this context, both the literary languages and the dialects have been affected to a considerable extent. In the course of being update the literary languages have experienced radical changes. An abundance of Russian terminology has been introduced in dictionaries; grammars have been prescribing the use of concurrent forms of the native and Russian languages as a norm.

2013, Suomalais-ugrilainen Seura, Mémoires de la Société finno-ougrienne, Volume 268 of Suomalais-ugrilaisen Seuran toimituksia, Nimilehti painettu Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran kirjapainossa, →ISBN, page 14:

As they explain, 'the literary language is first of all a collection of expressive habits and customs, and to preserve the purity of the literary language can mean nothing other than to preserve these habits and customs' (Guberina and Krsic/ 1940: 77).

2014, K. Langston, A. Peti-Stantic, Language Planning and National Identity in Croatia:

(sociolinguistics, Slavistics) A language variety used as an institutional norm in a community, opposed to vernacular dialects; a standard language.

gjuhë letrare

supraregional idiom — see also standard language, standard


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

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)

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)

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.


qualitative research

(social sciences, marketing) A set of research techniques in which data is obtained from a relatively small group of respondents and not analyzed with statistical techniques.

kvalitativní výzkum

techniques not relying on statistical analysis


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.


ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Reportedly coined by zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919).

With reference to seedling stages the statement that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny must be made with great reserve.

1905, J. A. Harris, "The Importance of Investigations of Seedling Stages," Science, New Series, vol. 22, no. 554, p. 186

Haeckel maintained that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, and this idea was incorporated by Lombroso into his parallelism between the criminal and the child.

1961, M. E. Wolfgang, “Pioneers in Criminology: Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)”, in The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, volume 52, number 4, page 367:

For even if we accept that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," those responsible for the drafting of ancient legal documents were not children, and are hardly to be endowed with some form of infantile mentality.

2002, B. S. Jackson, “Models in Legal History: The Case of Biblical Law”, in Journal of Law and Religion, volume 18, number 1, page 11:

(biology, social sciences, art, philosophy) The physical, cultural, moral, or intellectual development of each individual passes through stages similar to the developmental stages of that individual's species, society, or civilization. Not taken literally since the late 19th century.


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.


homophily

In this research we explore whether homophily as an organizing principle affects the performance of immigrant entrepreneurs in Germany.

2007, Leo Paul Dana, Handbook of Research on Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship: A Co-evolutionary View on Resource Management, Edward Elgar Publishing, →ISBN, page 511:

Homophily is the tendency for there to be higher rates of contact between similar people than between dissimilar people. It is the social process reflected in that old bit of folk wisdom: “Birds of a feather flock together.”

2009, John M Levine, Michael A. Hogg, Encyclopedia of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 404:

(social sciences) The tendency of individuals to associate with others of the same kind.


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.


psychographic

Another suggestion was to create psychographic profiles of target readers, then display large photographs of archetypes around the newsroom, to remind reporters of the public for whom they toiled.

1988 August 5, Michael Miner, “End of Page?; Writers in the Sky; Arts Smarts”, in Chicago Reader:

(social sciences) Based on individual psychological characteristics, rather than demographic or other factors,


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


non-rational

In the nature of things there must be causes that explain why an industrial enterprise—mill, factory, foundry, dairy, refinery—is located at just this or that place, and not somewhere else. Some of these causes are non-rational, such as accident and caprice. . . . The remaining causes are rational and economic; that is, the selected locality is deemed to offer certain advantages in production or marketing.

1896, Edward A. Ross, “The Location of Industries”, in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, volume 10, number 3, page 247:

(economics, social sciences, public policy) Not based on one's own interests; inconsistent with utility maximization.


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.


rekeying

en-noun

rekeying (countable and uncountable, plural rekeyings)

(social sciences) The process of changing the key or tenor of something; a reframing.


isophenogamy

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


SED

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.


cyberdiscourse

cyberdiscourse (countable and uncountable, plural cyberdiscourses)

On the other hand, while net communities are virtually interconnected, cyberdiscourse is not exempted from parochialism.

2003, George W Noblit, Beth Hatt-Echeverria, The future of educational studies:

Cyberdiscourse is rich in imperial metaphors figuring the early days of cyberspace as the "frontier" or "Wild West".

2004, Stephen Cairns, Drifting: architecture and migrancy:

Cyberdiscourses also join forces with the latest developments of informatic theories, technoscience hermeneutics, and cyberfeminist agendas...

2006, Kin-yuen Wong, Gary Westfahl, Amy Kit-sze Chan, World weavers: globalization, science fiction, and the cybernetic revolution:

(social sciences) Discourse (institutionalised thinking) in cyberspace.


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)

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

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


microgenesis

The term microgenesis has been proposed for the continuous formative activity which underlies cognition.

1975, American Handbook of Psychiatry: Organic Disorder and Psychosomatic Medicine, page 272:

Goldberg (1985) has proposed that the SMA is part of a medial system which is crucial in the programming and fluent execution of movements on the basis of internal models of reality. He hypothesized that there are two stages in the microgenesis of movement, each stage being a loop consisting of a number of cortical and subcortical structures. The first stage involves the selection of a context-appropriate behavioral strategy, and the second involves the specification of the details required to execute the action.

1990, G. Jason, Geoffrey Hammond, Cerebral Control of Speech and Limb Movements, page 154:

[...] the gesture is highly conventionalized, a formal linguistic sign in and of itself requiring no verbal representation to be understood (for example, when a young child is told to 'wave bye bye'). McNeill (1992) believes that there are different qualities that accompany this continuum in relation to the microgenesis of an utterance, stating that at the beginning there is a 'spontaneous' use of gestures which is connected with the germination of a thought, while the use of conventionalized gestures corresponds to the final stages of the thought process.

1995, Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics: Volumes 13-15, page 104:

Like in action where one should execute the movements or responses one at a time (and it is physically impossible to do it otherwise, circus practices notwithstanding), microgenesis tends to solve one or another subtask at different stages of its unfolding. In high-level activity, particular efferent operations often unfold as more or less arbitrary segments in a continuous flow of actions. [...] Can you tell the exact moment when a ball-toss ends and the strike for the serve begins in tennis? Not so easily. Similarly, in microgensis, stages unfold as somewhat arbitrarily isolable epochs in a continuous flow of percept genesis.

2000, Talis Bachmann, Microgenetic Approach to the Conscious Mind, page 200:

The intention of this paper is to open up a dialogue on the wider implications of microgenesis, particularly as it applies to the process-relational view of intersubjectivity.

2008, Mark Germine, The microgenesis of antisociality: a process-relational perspective, which is chapter 6 of Neuropsychology and Philosophy of Mind in Process: Essays in Honor of Jason Brown, beginning on page 144 of that book

(social sciences technical jargon) The development, in discrete but generally imperceptible (seemingly continuous) increments, by the human body or brain, of thoughts, motions, or actions.


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


social class

(social sciences) A class of people, based on social power, wealth or another criterion.


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

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:


babysitter test

The babysitter, presumably between the ages of ten and 15, is quite explicitly expected to function in a way usually expected of mature individuals.

1993, Gideon Koren et al., “Maturity of Children to Consent to Medical Research: The Babysitter Test,”, in Journal of Medical Ethics, volume 19, number 3, page 146:

To highlight the inadequacy of such evidence, we propose what we call “the babysitter test” for future prosecution witnesses in death penalty cases. We suggest that, to send someone to the gurney or the electric chair on the word of one witness, the prosecutor must agree to hire that witness as a babysitter for her or his kids for one evening.

2001, Michael L. Radelet, Hugo Bedau, “Erroneous Convictions and the Death Penalty,”, in Wrongly Convicted: Perspectives on Failed Justice, Saundra Westervelt and John A. Humphrey eds., →ISBN, page 274:

I use a babysitter test when it comes to Israel, Indyk said. Do I trust this man or woman with my child? Will he or she be in the trenches when it really counts? Obama would.

2008 October 25, Emily Baltz, “U.S. Ambassador Calls On Jewish Voters To Drop Republican Support, Back Obama”, in cbsnews.com, retrieved 2010-08-25:

(idiomatic, social sciences, law, public policy) An informal method for assessing the maturity, reliability, or probity of a person, inviting one to judge whether one would entrust this person with the care of one's own children.


androcracy

(government, sociology) Government or rule by men.


QT

en-noun

QT (countable and uncountable, plural QTs)

In contrast to structuralist frameworks which seek to filter the "essential" characteristics of a phenomenon from the messiness of lived experience, QT sees all identity as perpetually in contest and, consequently, variable […].

2016, Jason P. Murphy, Catherine A. Lugg, “Scavenging as Queer Methodology”, in Nelson M. Rodriguez, Wayne J. Martino, Jennifer C. Ingrey, Edward Brockenbrough, editors, Critical Concepts in Queer Studies and Education (Queer Studies and Education), Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 389:

(LGBTQ, social sciences) Initialism of queer theory.


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


heterophily

In their review of the impact of heterophily on group process outcomes, Milliken and Martins (1996) acknowledge that past research conflicts on whether heterophily inhibits or facilitates positive group outcomes.

2002, Mikayla Hughes, The Role of Competence, Perceived Heterophily, and Satisfaction in the Context of University-community Collaborative Relationships:

(social sciences) Tendency of individuals to collect in diverse groups.


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

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, 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