Most sociology journals, classic theory texts and international conferences work in English, so students who want to follow current debates need its vocabulary early. This glossary gathers the words sociology students meet first, from society, culture and social structure to class, gender, migration, urban life, research methods and the ideas of thinkers such as Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Bourdieu, each with Turkish equivalents and examples from lectures, seminars and fieldwork. It also flags the words whose everyday meaning differs from their sociological one, such as class, power, deviance and community.
100 terms
10 topics
57 core terms
200 example sentences
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Society and Culture
society
noun
Meaning
A large group of people who live in a shared territory, interact with one another and share institutions, rules and, to some degree, a common culture.
Where you use it
The basic object of study in sociology. It is uncountable when it means society in general ('the role of religion in society') and countable for a particular one ('modern Western societies', 'agrarian societies').
Examples
Durkheim argued that society is more than the sum of the individuals who make it up.
In industrial societies, most people work for wages rather than on the land.
Usage note
Say 'in society', not 'in the society', when you mean society in general.
Common phrases
modern society · civil society · industrial society · in society · member of society
The shared beliefs, values, norms, language, practices and material objects that a group of people learn and pass on from one generation to the next.
Where you use it
In sociology, culture means a whole way of life, not only art, music or literature. You will often see material and non-material culture, popular culture, consumer culture and youth culture. It is countable when you compare groups: 'different cultures'.
Examples
Language is one of the main ways culture is passed on to children.
The seminar compared consumer culture in Istanbul and Berlin.
Usage note
In everyday English 'cultured' means educated in the arts; the sociological 'culture' also covers everyday habits such as food, greetings and clothing.
Common phrases
popular culture · material culture · consumer culture · dominant culture · transmit culture
The lifelong process through which people learn the norms, values, language and roles of their society and become members of it.
Where you use it
Common in textbooks and essays on family, education and gender. Sociologists distinguish primary socialisation (in the family, in early childhood) from secondary socialisation (school, peers, work, media). The people and institutions involved are called agents of socialisation.
Examples
The family is usually seen as the main agent of primary socialisation.
Gender socialisation begins long before children start school.
Usage note
American English spells it socialization. In everyday English 'socialise' means spending time with friends, which is different from the sociological process.
Common phrases
primary socialisation · secondary socialisation · agents of socialisation · gender socialisation · political socialisation
A written or unwritten rule about how people are expected to behave in a particular situation, supported by approval when it is followed and by sanctions when it is broken.
Where you use it
Usually plural: social norms, cultural norms, gender norms. Norms are followed, broken, violated, challenged or internalised. Formal norms are written down as laws; informal norms include table manners or how close to stand to a stranger.
Examples
Queueing is a strong social norm in Britain.
Garfinkel's students deliberately broke everyday norms to see how people would react.
Common phrases
social norms · break a norm · challenge norms · internalise norms · gender norms
Widely shared beliefs about what is good, right, important or desirable in a society, which guide people's choices and the norms they follow.
Where you use it
Mostly used in the plural: shared values, core values, traditional values, family values. In essays, values are described as general ideals, such as equality or freedom, while norms are the specific rules that put them into practice.
Examples
Projects such as the World Values Survey track how values change across generations.
Individualism is a core value in many Western societies.
Common phrases
shared values · core values · traditional values · value system · hold values
A person's sense of who they are, shaped both by how they see themselves and by the social groups, such as nation, class, gender or religion, they belong to or are placed in.
Where you use it
Sociologists distinguish personal identity from social or collective identity. Identities are formed, constructed, negotiated, expressed and sometimes contested. Identity politics refers to political action organised around shared group identities.
Examples
Second-generation migrants often build a hybrid identity that draws on two cultures.
Supporting a football club can be an important source of identity for young people.
Common phrases
social identity · national identity · collective identity · identity formation · construct an identity
A group within a larger society whose members share some distinctive values, norms, styles or activities while still taking part in the wider culture.
Where you use it
Common in studies of youth, music, crime and online life. In the 1970s the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies studied youth subcultures such as mods, skinheads and punks. A counterculture goes further and openly rejects mainstream values.
Examples
Hebdige analysed punk as a subculture that used style to express resistance.
Gaming communities have developed their own subculture, with shared slang and unwritten rules.
Common phrases
youth subculture · deviant subculture · subcultural theory · member of a subculture
Judging other cultures by the standards of your own and treating your own group's way of life as normal or superior.
Where you use it
Used in anthropology, sociology and methods courses, often as a warning to researchers. The term was popularised by William Graham Sumner in 1906 and is usually contrasted with cultural relativism. The adjective is ethnocentric.
Examples
Early travel writers often described other societies with obvious ethnocentrism.
Calling another group's food habits 'strange' can be a sign of ethnocentrism.
Common phrases
avoid ethnocentrism · ethnocentric bias · Western ethnocentrism
The principle that a culture's beliefs and practices should be understood in their own context rather than judged by the standards of another culture.
Where you use it
Associated with the anthropologist Franz Boas and his students. In methods courses it is a research attitude; in ethics and human rights debates, people discuss whether it has limits. It is not the same as saying that everything is morally acceptable.
Examples
Cultural relativism helped the fieldworker understand why gift-giving rules mattered so much in the village.
The seminar debated whether cultural relativism is compatible with universal human rights.
Common phrases
practise cultural relativism · cultural relativism and human rights · moral relativism
The relatively stable pattern of social relationships, institutions and positions in a society, which shapes and limits what individuals can do.
Where you use it
A central idea in theory lectures and essays. It is often contrasted with agency in the structure and agency debate. Sociologists say that social structures constrain, shape or reproduce behaviour, and that individuals act within them.
Examples
Functionalists see social structure as a system of parts that work together.
Her thesis looks at how social structure limits young people's job choices.
Common phrases
social structure and agency · class structure · underlying social structure · constrained by social structure
An established and lasting set of rules, roles and practices that organises an important area of social life, such as family, education, religion, the economy or politics.
Where you use it
Often shortened to institution. Textbooks list the main social institutions and ask what functions each one performs and how they are connected. Marriage is called an institution even though it has no building or address.
Examples
Education is a social institution that both teaches skills and sorts people into future jobs.
Durkheim treated religion as a social institution that binds people together.
Usage note
In everyday English an institution can be a large organisation, such as a university or a hospital; in sociology it usually means a pattern of social life, such as marriage or education.
Common phrases
key social institutions · the institution of marriage · religious institutions · institutional change
A social position that a person occupies, such as student, mother or doctor, which comes with expected behaviour and a certain level of respect.
Where you use it
Has two linked meanings: a position in the social structure (each person holds many statuses) and the prestige attached to it, as in Weber's idea of status groups. Often paired with role: the status is the position, the role is the behaviour expected in it.
Examples
Being a grandmother is a status that brings respect in many families.
Weber argued that status and class do not always go together.
Usage note
British speakers usually say /ˈsteɪtəs/; many American speakers also say /ˈstætəs/.
Common phrases
social status · high status · status group · master status · status symbol
The set of behaviours, duties and expectations attached to a particular status, such as what people expect of a teacher, a parent or a patient.
Where you use it
Often shortened to role. Sociologists talk about playing, performing or taking on a role, role conflict (when two roles clash) and role strain (when one role makes competing demands). Goffman compared social life to a theatre in which people perform roles.
Examples
Parsons described the sick role as a social role that excuses patients from normal duties if they try to get well.
Working mothers often describe a conflict between their social roles at home and at work.
Common phrases
play a role · role conflict · role strain · role model · sick role
The ability of a person or group to achieve their goals or influence the behaviour of others, even when others resist.
Where you use it
Many courses start from Weber, who defined power as the chance to carry out one's will even against resistance and separated it from authority, which is power seen as legitimate. Later thinkers such as Lukes, Gramsci and Foucault widened the idea to include agenda-setting, ideas and everyday practices.
Examples
For Weber, power becomes authority when people accept it as legitimate.
Foucault was interested in how power works through everyday institutions such as schools and prisons.
Usage note
Turkish sociologists usually translate power as iktidar in theory texts and as güç in more everyday contexts; choose according to the author and the context.
Common phrases
power relations · exercise power · balance of power · power and authority · structures of power
A social position given to a person at birth or later in life without any effort or choice on their part, such as sex, age, ethnicity or family background.
Where you use it
Usually taught together with achieved status, a pair introduced by the anthropologist Ralph Linton in 1936. Traditional societies are often described as giving more weight to ascribed status, and modern societies to achieved status.
Examples
In a feudal society, being born a noble was an ascribed status.
Age is an ascribed status that changes over the life course.
Common phrases
ascribed and achieved status · based on ascribed status · ascribed characteristics
A social position that a person gains through their own effort, skills or choices, such as a university degree, a profession or a political office.
Where you use it
The opposite of ascribed status. Societies that call themselves meritocratic claim to allocate positions mainly by achievement, and sociologists test this claim by measuring how much family background still matters.
Examples
Becoming a surgeon is an achieved status that takes many years of training.
In modern labour markets, achieved status is supposed to matter more than family origin.
Common phrases
ascribed versus achieved status · status achievement · based on achieved status
A large organisation run through a hierarchy of offices, written rules, specialised tasks and impersonal procedures, as described by Max Weber.
Where you use it
In sociology the word is descriptive: Weber saw bureaucracy as the most efficient form of rational organisation but warned that it could become an 'iron cage'. In everyday English it usually sounds negative and means slow paperwork, also called red tape.
Examples
Weber listed hierarchy, written rules and specialised roles as key features of bureaucracy.
Hospitals and universities are modern bureaucracies with many layers of management.
Common phrases
Weber's model of bureaucracy · state bureaucracy · bureaucratic organisation · iron cage of bureaucracy
The way work in a society or organisation is split into separate, specialised tasks carried out by different people or groups.
Where you use it
A classic theme: Durkheim's The Division of Labour in Society (1893) linked it to the shift from mechanical to organic solidarity. Feminist researchers speak of the domestic or gendered division of labour when they study who does housework and childcare.
Examples
Durkheim argued that a complex division of labour makes people depend on one another.
Surveys show that the domestic division of labour remains unequal in many dual-earner couples.
Usage note
American English writes division of labor.
Common phrases
domestic division of labour · gendered division of labour · international division of labour · complex division of labour
An economic system in which the means of production are mostly privately owned and goods and labour are bought and sold in markets for profit.
Where you use it
Central to the work of Marx, who analysed the conflict between capital and labour, and of Weber, who linked its rise to the Protestant ethic. Sociologists speak of industrial, global, late and platform capitalism.
Examples
Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism first appeared as two essays in 1904 and 1905.
Platform capitalism describes companies that make money by connecting users through digital apps.
Common phrases
industrial capitalism · global capitalism · late capitalism · rise of capitalism · capitalist society
A set of relationships linking people, groups or organisations, through which information, support and resources can flow.
Where you use it
In sociology the term existed long before social media. Social network analysis maps ties between actors and measures their strength and density. Granovetter's 'strength of weak ties' showed that acquaintances are often more useful than close friends when looking for a job.
Examples
Migrants often rely on their social network to find their first job.
We used social network analysis to map friendships in two school classes.
Usage note
In everyday English a social network often means a social media platform; in sociology it means any pattern of relationships.
Common phrases
social network analysis · weak ties · personal network · dense network
A large group of people who share a similar economic position, such as income, wealth, occupation and education, and often similar life chances.
Where you use it
A key concept in the study of inequality. Marx defined class by ownership of the means of production; Weber added market position and skills. Everyday speech uses working, middle and upper class; researchers measure class through occupation, income or education.
Examples
Social class is still one of the best predictors of who goes to university.
The study compares health outcomes across social classes.
Usage note
In everyday English 'class' also means a lesson or a group of students; in essays, write 'social class' the first time to avoid confusion.
Common phrases
social class background · working class · middle class · class consciousness · class divide
The way a society ranks groups of people in layers, or strata, so that some have more wealth, power and prestige than others.
Where you use it
Used in textbooks and exam questions as the umbrella term for ranking systems such as class, caste, estate and slavery. The image comes from geology, where strata are layers of rock. Researchers study how stratification is created, justified and reproduced.
Examples
The traditional caste system in India is a classic example of closed social stratification.
Davis and Moore argued that social stratification motivates people to fill important jobs.
Usage note
Stratum is singular and strata is plural; 'stratas' is wrong.
Common phrases
system of stratification · gender stratification · open and closed stratification · global stratification
Unequal access to resources, opportunities, rights and rewards, such as income, education, health or power, between individuals or groups.
Where you use it
One of the most frequent words in sociology. Common types are income inequality, wealth inequality, gender inequality and health inequalities. Inequality is said to be reproduced, widened, reduced or measured; the Gini coefficient is a common measure of income inequality.
Examples
Income inequality widened in many industrialised countries during the 1980s and 1990s.
Her research shows how schools can reproduce inequality between children from different backgrounds.
Common phrases
social inequality · income inequality · reproduce inequality · reduce inequality · health inequalities
Movement of individuals or groups between positions in a social hierarchy, for example when someone from a working-class family gets a professional job.
Where you use it
Researchers distinguish upward and downward mobility, intergenerational mobility (between parents and children) and intragenerational mobility (within one person's career). The term comes up often in debates about education and equal opportunity.
Examples
The expansion of universities was expected to increase social mobility.
Intergenerational social mobility compares a person's class position with that of their parents.
Common phrases
upward social mobility · downward mobility · intergenerational mobility · barriers to social mobility
In Marxist theory, the capitalist class that owns the means of production, such as factories, land and capital, and lives on the profit made from other people's labour.
Where you use it
Comes from French and is used mainly in Marxist analysis, paired with the proletariat. Marx also wrote about the petty bourgeoisie: small shopkeepers and self-employed people. In everyday speech the adjective bourgeois can also mean conventional or materialistic.
Examples
Marx predicted growing conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
The rise of the bourgeoisie in eighteenth-century Europe changed both politics and culture.
Usage note
The class is the bourgeoisie; a member of it is a bourgeois. Both are pronounced the French way, with a soft 'zh' sound.
Common phrases
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat · petty bourgeoisie · rise of the bourgeoisie · bourgeois society
In Marxist theory, the working class that owns no means of production and must sell its labour for wages in order to live.
Where you use it
Used mainly in theory courses and Marxist writing; empirical studies usually say working class instead. Related words are proletarian, proletarianisation and precariat, a newer term for people in insecure, short-term work.
Examples
According to Marx, the proletariat would eventually become conscious of its shared interests.
Some sociologists argue that platform workers form a new digital proletariat.
Common phrases
the industrial proletariat · class consciousness of the proletariat · proletarian revolution
The social class made up of people who mainly do manual, routine or service jobs for wages and usually have less income, job security and control over their work.
Where you use it
Used as a noun (the working class) and, with a hyphen, as an adjective before a noun (working-class families, working-class culture). In British English it is far more common than proletariat in both everyday and research writing.
Examples
Willis studied how working-class boys came to accept working-class jobs.
The decline of mining changed working-class communities in the north of England.
Usage note
Use a hyphen only before a noun: 'she is working class' but 'a working-class family'.
Common phrases
working-class background · working-class communities · the industrial working class · working-class culture
The social class between the working class and the upper class, usually associated with professional, managerial and office jobs, higher education and moderate wealth.
Where you use it
Often used in the plural (the middle classes) because the group is very varied. Researchers distinguish the old middle class of small business owners from the new middle class of salaried professionals. It is hyphenated before a noun: middle-class parents.
Examples
Middle-class parents often use their contacts to help their children find internships.
Rising living costs have put pressure on the middle class in many countries.
Common phrases
the new middle class · middle-class parents · squeezed middle class · the middle classes
A situation in which people lack the money or resources to meet their basic needs or to take part in the normal life of their society.
Where you use it
Sociologists distinguish absolute poverty, a lack of what is needed to survive, from relative poverty, which is measured against the usual living standards of a society. Other common phrases are poverty line, child poverty, in-work poverty and the cycle of poverty.
Examples
Relative poverty is often defined as living on less than 60 per cent of median household income.
Townsend argued that poverty means being unable to take part in activities most people take for granted.
Common phrases
absolute poverty · relative poverty · poverty line · child poverty · live in poverty
Non-financial resources such as knowledge, tastes, ways of speaking and educational qualifications that give people an advantage in society, especially at school.
Where you use it
A concept from Pierre Bourdieu, who argued that middle-class children inherit cultural capital that schools reward, so education can reproduce class inequality. He described embodied, objectified (books, art) and institutionalised (degrees) forms of it.
Examples
Children who visit museums and read at home often bring more cultural capital to school.
Bourdieu showed how cultural capital can be turned into educational success.
Common phrases
accumulate cultural capital · lack cultural capital · economic, social and cultural capital · embodied cultural capital
The resources people can access through their social networks and relationships, such as information, support, trust and useful contacts.
Where you use it
Developed by Bourdieu, James Coleman and Robert Putnam, whose book Bowling Alone (2000) argued that social capital was declining in the United States. Putnam separated bonding social capital (within a group) from bridging social capital (between groups).
Examples
Graduates with more social capital often hear about jobs before they are advertised.
Neighbourhood associations can build social capital and trust between residents.
Common phrases
build social capital · bonding social capital · bridging social capital · decline of social capital
A person's or family's position in society measured by a combination of income, education and occupation.
Where you use it
Very common in quantitative research, education studies and public health, and usually shortened to SES. Researchers compare low-SES and high-SES groups or use SES as a control variable. It is a measurement term rather than a theory of class.
Examples
Students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds were less likely to apply to top universities.
We controlled for socioeconomic status, age and gender in the regression model.
Usage note
British English also writes socio-economic status, with a hyphen.
Common phrases
low socioeconomic status · high socioeconomic status · measure of socioeconomic status · control for SES
The idea that social categories such as gender, race, class and disability overlap, so that people experience combined and distinct forms of advantage or disadvantage.
Where you use it
Introduced by the legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe the position of Black women in US anti-discrimination law. Today it is widely used in sociology, social policy and research design. The adjective is intersectional.
Examples
An intersectionality approach shows that older migrant women face problems that neither age nor gender alone can explain.
The report used intersectionality to analyse pay gaps by gender and ethnicity together.
A situation in which individuals or groups are shut out from full participation in society, such as work, education, housing, services or political life.
Where you use it
Broader than poverty: it also covers lack of access to networks, services and decision-making. The term became common in European Union and UK policy from the 1990s. Researchers often stress that social exclusion is multidimensional.
Examples
Poor public transport can lead to social exclusion for older people in rural areas.
The programme aims to reduce social exclusion among young people who are not in education or work.
Common phrases
risk of social exclusion · tackle social exclusion · poverty and social exclusion · experience social exclusion
A group of people related by blood, marriage, partnership or adoption who usually share a home, resources and responsibility for raising children.
Where you use it
Sociologists often say 'families' in the plural to show that family forms vary: nuclear, extended, single-parent and reconstituted (step) families. The sociology of the family covers marriage, divorce, domestic labour and changing household types.
Examples
Functionalists saw the family as essential for socialisation and emotional support.
In many European countries, single-parent families have become more common since the 1970s.
Usage note
A household is everyone who lives at the same address; a family is defined by relationships. A shared student flat is a household but not a family.
Common phrases
nuclear family · extended family · single-parent family · family structure · sociology of the family
The roles, behaviour and identities that a society attaches to being a woman or a man, as distinct from the biological differences described by the word sex.
Where you use it
A core concept in modern sociology. Common phrases include gender roles, gender inequality, the gender gap and gender relations. Many sociologists say gender is socially constructed, meaning that it is learned and varies between cultures and periods.
Examples
The gender pay gap measures the difference between the average earnings of women and men.
Her dissertation explores how gender shapes career choices among engineering students.
Usage note
In academic Turkish, gender is toplumsal cinsiyet, while sex is cinsiyet or biyolojik cinsiyet; do not treat them as synonyms in an essay.
A family made up of two parents and their dependent children living together in one household.
Where you use it
Parsons argued that the nuclear family suited industrial society because it was small and geographically mobile. Today sociologists ask whether it is still the 'typical' family, given the growth of single-parent and reconstituted families and of people living alone.
Examples
Murdock claimed that the nuclear family exists in some form in every society.
In Turkey, the nuclear family is now the most common family type.
Common phrases
traditional nuclear family · nuclear family household · decline of the nuclear family · isolated nuclear family
A family that includes relatives beyond parents and children, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins, who live together or keep close daily contact.
Where you use it
Often contrasted with the nuclear family. Sociologists distinguish vertical extension (three generations under one roof) from horizontal extension (siblings and their families). A modified extended family keeps strong ties without sharing one home.
Examples
Grandparents in the extended family often look after the children while both parents work.
Migration to the cities weakened the extended family as a household, but family ties remained strong.
Usage note
English has only aunt and uncle where Turkish distinguishes hala and teyze, amca and dayı. Add 'on my father's side' or 'on my mother's side' when the difference matters.
Common phrases
extended family network · modified extended family · three-generation household · live with the extended family
The set of behaviours, tasks and attitudes that a society considers suitable for women or for men, usually learned through socialisation.
Where you use it
Usually plural: traditional gender roles, changing gender roles. Researchers study how gender roles are learned in families, schools and the media and how they shape paid work, housework and care. Some sociologists prefer 'gender relations' to stress power.
Examples
Children's books can reinforce traditional gender roles.
The study looks at how gender roles change when women become the main earners in a household.
Common phrases
traditional gender roles · changing gender roles · challenge gender roles · gender role socialisation
A social system in which men hold most of the power and authority in the family, the economy, politics and other institutions.
Where you use it
A key concept in feminist sociology. Sylvia Walby identified six structures of patriarchy: paid work, the household, the state, male violence, sexuality and culture. The word originally meant rule by the father of a household. The adjective is patriarchal.
Examples
Walby argued that patriarchy has shifted from private forms in the household to public forms in work and the state.
The researchers asked how patriarchy shapes inheritance practices in rural areas.
Common phrases
patriarchal society · structures of patriarchy · challenge patriarchy · private and public patriarchy
The network of relationships between people based on descent, marriage or adoption, together with the rules and obligations that come with them.
Where you use it
A classic topic in anthropology and the sociology of the family. Researchers talk about kinship ties, kinship networks and kinship systems such as patrilineal descent (through the father's line) and matrilineal descent (through the mother's line).
Examples
Kinship networks helped new migrants find housing and jobs in the city.
Anthropologists have recorded very different kinship systems around the world.
Common phrases
kinship ties · kinship network · kinship system · fictive kinship
The sequence of stages and transitions people go through over a lifetime, such as education, work, partnership, parenthood and retirement, seen as shaped by society and history.
Where you use it
The life course approach, associated with Glen Elder, studies how historical events and social position shape when and how people make major transitions. Sociologists prefer it to the older idea of a fixed life cycle because the order of stages varies.
Examples
The study follows the life course of people who were teenagers during the 2001 economic crisis in Turkey.
Across the life course, women are more likely than men to take career breaks to care for others.
Common phrases
life course approach · life course transitions · across the life course · life course perspective
A shared cultural identity based on things such as common ancestry, language, religion, traditions or a sense of shared history.
Where you use it
Used in census forms, surveys and research on migration and identity. Sociologists usually treat ethnicity as cultural and self-defined, and distinguish it from race, which is based on perceived physical differences. The adjective is ethnic: ethnic group, ethnic minority.
Examples
The questionnaire asked respondents to describe their ethnicity in their own words.
Ethnicity can become more important to people after they migrate.
Common phrases
ethnic group · ethnic minority · ethnicity and identity · ethnic diversity
The movement of people from one place to another to live, either within a country or across national borders, for reasons such as work, family, education or safety.
Where you use it
Sociologists distinguish internal migration (for example from village to city) from international migration, and voluntary from forced migration. Push factors drive people away from a place and pull factors attract them to a new one.
Examples
Internal migration from rural Anatolia transformed Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir after 1950.
The project interviews families about their reasons for migration.
Usage note
Emigrate means leaving a country, immigrate means arriving in a new one to live, and migrate is the neutral verb that covers both.
Common phrases
internal migration · international migration · labour migration · forced migration · rural-urban migration
A way of classifying people into groups on the basis of perceived physical differences such as skin colour, which sociologists treat as a social rather than a biological category.
Where you use it
Sociologists stress that racial categories have changed over time and between countries, and that their effects, such as discrimination, are real even though the categories are not biologically fixed. Related terms are racism, racialisation and race relations.
Examples
The categories for race in the United States census have changed many times.
The course examines how race, class and gender shape access to housing.
Usage note
English-language research often pairs race with ethnicity ('race and ethnicity'). Turkish academic writing uses ırk more cautiously and prefers etnisite in most contexts.
Common phrases
race and ethnicity · race relations · racial inequality · social construction of race
A group that has less power, status or access to resources than the dominant group in a society, often because of its ethnicity, religion, language or another shared characteristic.
Where you use it
In sociology, minority refers to a position in a power relationship, not only to numbers: a large group can still be a minority group. In law, the word may have specific legal definitions that differ from country to country.
Examples
Louis Wirth defined a minority group by its experience of unequal treatment, not by its size.
Researchers interviewed members of several minority groups about their experiences at work.
Common phrases
ethnic minority group · religious minority · minority rights · dominant and minority groups
Treating people unfairly or differently because they belong to a particular group, for example on the basis of gender, ethnicity, age, religion or disability.
Where you use it
Sociologists distinguish prejudice (an attitude) from discrimination (an action), and individual discrimination from institutional or structural discrimination built into rules and organisations. Field experiments with matched CVs are a common way to measure it.
Examples
In the experiment, identical CVs with different names received different numbers of interview invitations, a clear sign of discrimination.
Institutional discrimination can continue even when no individual intends to discriminate.
Usage note
Say 'discrimination against' a group; 'discrimination to' is wrong.
Common phrases
face discrimination · institutional discrimination · age discrimination · discrimination against · prejudice and discrimination
A simplified and fixed belief about the characteristics of all members of a group, which ignores individual differences and is often negative.
Where you use it
Used as a noun and as a verb (to stereotype someone). Media studies often analyse how groups are stereotyped in films, news and advertising. Stereotypes can feed prejudice and discrimination, and even positive stereotypes can be limiting.
Examples
The advertisement relied on the stereotype of the forgetful old man.
Teachers' gender stereotypes can affect which subjects pupils choose.
The process by which a minority or migrant group gradually adopts the culture, language and customs of the majority society and becomes less distinct from it.
Where you use it
One of several models of how migrants and receiving societies adjust to each other, alongside integration and multiculturalism. Researchers study cultural, structural and linguistic assimilation across generations, and forced assimilation policies are a recurring topic in the history of nation-states.
Examples
The Chicago School saw assimilation as the final stage of a race relations cycle.
Language use is often taken as a measure of assimilation among the grandchildren of migrants.
Usage note
In Turkish, asimilasyon often suggests a forced policy; in English-language research, assimilation can also describe a gradual, voluntary process.
Common phrases
cultural assimilation · assimilation and integration · forced assimilation · segmented assimilation
The coexistence of several cultural or ethnic groups in one society, and the policies or ideas that support recognising and respecting their differences.
Where you use it
Used in two senses: descriptively, for a culturally diverse society, and normatively, for policies such as those Canada adopted from 1971. It has both supporters and critics in political debate, so present the different positions neutrally in academic writing.
Examples
In 1971, Canada became the first country to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy.
The essay compares multiculturalism and assimilation as responses to migration.
Common phrases
policy of multiculturalism · multicultural society · debates on multiculturalism · critics of multiculturalism
A population that lives outside its original homeland, often spread across several countries, while keeping cultural, emotional or economic ties with it.
Where you use it
The word first described the dispersal of Jewish communities and is now used for many groups, such as the Turkish diaspora in Germany or the Indian diaspora. Researchers study diaspora networks, remittances, return migration and transnational identities.
Examples
The Turkish diaspora in Germany grew after the labour recruitment agreement of 1961.
Social media helps diaspora communities follow events in their home countries.
Common phrases
diaspora community · the Turkish diaspora · diaspora networks · diasporic identity
The process by which a growing share of a country's population comes to live in towns and cities, together with the social changes this brings.
Where you use it
Used in urban sociology, development studies and demography. The level of urbanisation is measured as the percentage of people living in urban areas. It is often discussed together with industrialisation, rural-urban migration, informal housing and changes in family life.
Examples
Rapid urbanisation in Turkey led to the growth of gecekondu neighbourhoods around big cities.
As a result of global urbanisation, more than half of the world's population now lives in cities.
Usage note
American English spells it urbanization.
Common phrases
rapid urbanisation · rate of urbanisation · urbanisation and industrialisation · unplanned urbanisation
A group of people who share a place, an identity or common interests and feel a sense of belonging and connection to one another.
Where you use it
Used both for local places (a village or neighbourhood community) and for groups without a shared place (an online community, the scientific community). In theory courses it recalls Tönnies's contrast between Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society).
Examples
Older residents felt that the sense of community had weakened after the new housing estate was built.
Tönnies argued that modern society replaces close-knit community with impersonal relationships.
Usage note
In everyday Turkish, cemaat often suggests a religious congregation. It can translate Gemeinschaft in theory texts, but topluluk is the safer general translation of community.
Common phrases
sense of community · local community · online community · close-knit community · community cohesion
The process by which wealthier residents and businesses move into a lower-income urban area, raising property prices and often displacing the original residents.
Where you use it
The term was coined by the sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe changes in parts of London. Common phrases are gentrified neighbourhood, displacement and rising rents. In Turkey, studies often discuss Istanbul neighbourhoods such as Cihangir and Galata.
Examples
Gentrification has pushed many long-term tenants out of the city centre.
Cafés and galleries are often the first visible signs of gentrification.
The movement of people, housing and businesses from city centres to the outer areas around a city, creating large residential suburbs.
Where you use it
Strongly linked with car ownership and post-war housing in the United States and Europe. Sociologists study its effects on commuting, community life, segregation and the environment. In Turkey, the growth of gated housing estates on city edges is a related trend.
Examples
Suburbanisation after 1945 changed family life in many American cities.
Suburbanisation increased commuting times for workers who could not afford housing in the centre.
The degree to which people in a society or community feel connected, trust one another and share a sense of belonging and common purpose.
Where you use it
Common in policy reports, urban studies and research on diversity. It is usually measured through trust, participation and sense of belonging. Durkheim's idea of social solidarity is an earlier version of the same concern.
Examples
The council funded street festivals to strengthen social cohesion in the district.
Some studies find that social cohesion is lower in neighbourhoods where residents move in and out often.
Common phrases
strengthen social cohesion · community cohesion · threat to social cohesion · social cohesion and trust
The separation of social groups, by law or in practice, so that they live, study or work in different places, such as separate neighbourhoods or schools.
Where you use it
Sociologists distinguish legal (de jure) segregation from segregation that results from income, housing markets and personal choices (de facto). Urban researchers measure residential segregation with tools such as the index of dissimilarity.
Examples
Residential segregation by income has increased in many large cities.
School segregation often follows the boundaries between rich and poor neighbourhoods.
Behaviour, beliefs or characteristics that break the norms of a group or society and lead to disapproval or punishment, whether or not they are against the law.
Where you use it
Wider than crime: dyeing your hair green or talking to yourself on a bus may be seen as deviant without being illegal. Sociologists stress that deviance is relative, because what counts as deviant changes between societies and over time. The adjective is deviant.
Examples
Becker argued that deviance is not a quality of the act but a result of how others respond to it.
The module covers crime and deviance from functionalist and interactionist perspectives.
Usage note
In sociology, deviant is a neutral technical word, but in everyday English it can sound insulting, so avoid calling a person 'a deviant' outside academic writing.
Common phrases
crime and deviance · primary deviance · secondary deviance · deviant behaviour · sociology of deviance
The formal and informal ways a society encourages people to follow its norms and discourages deviance, from laws and the police to gossip and disapproval.
Where you use it
Formal social control is carried out by official agencies such as courts, the police and schools; informal social control comes from family, friends and neighbours. Foucault's work on surveillance and Hirschi's control theory are common reference points.
Examples
In small villages, gossip is a powerful form of informal social control.
CCTV cameras are an example of formal social control in public spaces.
Common phrases
formal social control · informal social control · agents of social control · mechanisms of social control
A mark of disgrace attached to a characteristic, condition or identity, which leads other people to see a person as less acceptable or less normal.
Where you use it
Developed by Erving Goffman in Stigma (1963), which discusses how people manage a 'spoiled identity'. Used in research on mental illness, disability, unemployment and poverty. People face, carry, reduce or challenge stigma; the verb is stigmatise.
Examples
Many people avoid seeking help because of the stigma attached to mental illness.
Goffman described how people with a stigma try to hide or manage it in everyday encounters.
Usage note
The usual plural is stigmas; stigmata is mainly used in religious contexts.
Common phrases
social stigma · the stigma attached to · reduce stigma · face stigma · stigmatised groups
The theory that deviance is created when people with power successfully label certain acts or individuals as deviant, which can lead the labelled person to accept that identity.
Where you use it
Associated with Howard Becker's Outsiders (1963) and Edwin Lemert's distinction between primary and secondary deviance. It belongs to the interactionist tradition. Key ideas include the self-fulfilling prophecy and the deviant career.
Examples
Labelling theory suggests that a pupil who is called a troublemaker may start to act like one.
Critics say labelling theory explains reactions to crime better than its original causes.
Usage note
American English spells it labeling theory, with one l.
Common phrases
labelling theory of deviance · apply a label · self-fulfilling prophecy · secondary deviance
An intense and often exaggerated public reaction to a group or behaviour that is presented, usually by the media, as a serious threat to society's values.
Where you use it
From Stanley Cohen's Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), a study of reactions to the mods and rockers in 1960s Britain. The groups that are blamed are called folk devils. The term is used in media, youth and crime studies.
Examples
Cohen showed how newspaper coverage turned a few seaside fights into a moral panic.
Some researchers describe fears about video games and violence as a moral panic.
Common phrases
create a moral panic · folk devils · media-driven moral panic · moral panic theory
The growing interconnection of the world's economies, cultures and populations through trade, investment, migration, travel, media and digital communication.
Where you use it
A major theme in contemporary sociology. Debates ask whether globalisation makes cultures more alike (homogenisation) or mixes them in new ways (glocalisation, hybridity), and who gains and who loses from it. It is often used with economic, cultural and political.
Examples
Cultural globalisation has spread the same films and brands to almost every country.
Giddens described globalisation as the intensification of worldwide social relations.
Usage note
American English spells it globalization.
Common phrases
economic globalisation · cultural globalisation · effects of globalisation · anti-globalisation movement
The historical process, described by Weber, in which tradition, emotion and magic give way to calculation, efficiency, rules and scientific reasoning in more and more areas of life.
Where you use it
Linked to Weber's ideas of disenchantment and the iron cage, and updated by George Ritzer's McDonaldization thesis. In psychology, rationalisation means inventing acceptable reasons for one's behaviour, which is a different meaning.
Examples
Ritzer saw fast-food restaurants as an extreme case of rationalisation.
Weber feared that rationalisation would trap people in an iron cage of rules.
Usage note
American English spells it rationalization.
Common phrases
process of rationalisation · Weber's theory of rationalisation · rationalisation of work · McDonaldization
An organised and lasting collective effort by a large group of people to bring about, or to resist, social or political change.
Where you use it
Sociologists study why movements emerge, how they mobilise resources and frame their message, and what they achieve. Textbook examples include the labour, civil rights, women's and environmental movements. 'New social movements' refers to identity- and lifestyle-based movements since the 1960s.
Examples
The environmental movement is often described as a new social movement.
Her thesis examines how a social movement used social media to recruit supporters.
Common phrases
new social movements · labour movement · mobilise support · social movement theory
The type of society that emerged in Europe from around the eighteenth century, marked by industrialisation, urbanisation, the nation-state, science and a belief in progress.
Where you use it
The classical sociologists Marx, Durkheim and Weber were all trying to explain modernity. Later debates use terms such as late modernity (Giddens), liquid modernity (Bauman), reflexive modernity and postmodernity. Do not confuse it with modernism, an artistic movement.
Examples
Bauman used the term liquid modernity to describe a world of constant change and insecurity.
The course asks how sociology itself was a product of modernity.
Common phrases
late modernity · liquid modernity · modernity and tradition · transition to modernity
The process by which religion loses social influence, so that religious institutions, beliefs and practices play a smaller role in public life and in individual lives.
Where you use it
The secularisation thesis, linked to Weber and later writers, predicted that religion would decline as societies modernised. It is now widely debated, since religion remains strong in many parts of the world. Sociologists separate secularisation, a social process, from secularism, a political principle.
Examples
Falling church attendance is often used as evidence of secularisation in Western Europe.
Peter Berger, once a supporter of the secularisation thesis, later changed his view.
Usage note
Do not translate secularisation automatically as laiklik. Laiklik is usually rendered in English as laicism or secularism, the principle of separating state and religion.
Common phrases
secularisation thesis · process of secularisation · religion and secularisation · measure secularisation
The shift from an economy based mainly on farming and handcraft to one based on factories, machines and mass production, with deep effects on work, family and where people live.
Where you use it
The Industrial Revolution in Britain, from the late eighteenth century, is the classic case. Sociology itself grew out of attempts to understand industrialisation. Researchers also discuss deindustrialisation, the decline of manufacturing in older industrial regions.
Examples
Industrialisation drew millions of people from the countryside into factory towns.
Durkheim and Marx offered very different explanations of the social effects of industrialisation.
Usage note
American English spells it industrialization.
Common phrases
rapid industrialisation · process of industrialisation · deindustrialisation · industrialisation and urbanisation
The ability to see the link between personal experiences and wider social forces, so that private troubles can be understood as public issues.
Where you use it
The term comes from C. Wright Mills's 1959 book The Sociological Imagination. Lecturers often introduce it in the first week of an introductory course, and students are asked to apply it to examples such as unemployment, divorce or debt.
Examples
Using the sociological imagination, we can see one person's unemployment as part of a wider economic crisis.
The essay asks you to apply the sociological imagination to your own education.
Common phrases
develop a sociological imagination · apply the sociological imagination · private troubles and public issues
A theoretical approach that sees society as a system of connected parts, each of which performs a function that helps keep the whole stable.
Where you use it
Linked with Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton, who added manifest functions, latent functions and dysfunctions. Society is often compared to a living organism. Critics say the approach pays too little attention to conflict, power and change. Also called structural functionalism.
Examples
Functionalism suggests that punishing crime reinforces the values a society shares.
Functionalism dominated American sociology in the 1950s.
Common phrases
structural functionalism · functionalist perspective · functionalist theory · critique of functionalism
A group of theories that see society as shaped by struggles between groups with unequal power and resources, such as classes, genders or ethnic groups.
Where you use it
An umbrella term rather than one single theory. It usually covers Marxist approaches and also writers such as Weber, C. Wright Mills and Dahrendorf. In exam answers it is typically contrasted with functionalism, which stresses consensus and stability.
Examples
Conflict theory asks who benefits from the way schools are organised.
The textbook compares functionalism and conflict theory on the role of the family.
Common phrases
conflict perspective · Marxist conflict theory · conflict and consensus
A theoretical approach that studies how people create and share meanings in everyday interaction, using symbols such as language and gestures.
Where you use it
Built on the ideas of George Herbert Mead; Herbert Blumer coined the name in 1937. Goffman and Becker are often grouped with it. It is a micro-level approach that focuses on small-scale interaction rather than whole social systems. Often shortened to interactionism.
Examples
Symbolic interactionism explains how a classroom label like 'troublemaker' can shape a pupil's self-image.
Unlike functionalism, symbolic interactionism starts from individuals and their interpretations.
Common phrases
interactionist perspective · micro-level approach · the self and interaction
The capacity of individuals to act independently, make their own choices and change their circumstances, despite the limits set by social structure.
Where you use it
Almost always discussed together with structure, in the structure and agency debate. Giddens's structuration theory and Bourdieu's work both try to connect the two. The person who acts is sometimes called an agent or an actor.
Examples
The interviews show that the women used their agency to negotiate better working hours.
Critics argue that the theory leaves too little room for human agency.
Usage note
Agency in sociology has nothing to do with an agency as a company, such as a travel or advertising agency, so do not translate it as ajans.
Common phrases
structure and agency · human agency · individual agency · exercise agency
In Durkheim's sociology, a way of acting, thinking or feeling that exists outside individuals and puts pressure on them, such as laws, customs or suicide rates.
Where you use it
Introduced in Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), where he said that social facts should be treated as things and explained by other social facts. It appears in theory exams and in debates about positivism.
Examples
Durkheim treated the suicide rate as a social fact rather than a set of individual decisions.
Language is a social fact: it exists before we are born and we have to follow its rules.
Common phrases
treat social facts as things · Durkheim's social facts · external and constraining
A condition in which the norms that guide behaviour become weak, unclear or contradictory, often during rapid social change, leaving people without direction.
Where you use it
Durkheim used it in The Division of Labour in Society and in Suicide, where anomic suicide is one of his four types. Robert Merton later adapted the idea in his strain theory of deviance. The adjective is anomic.
Examples
Durkheim argued that sudden economic booms and crises can both produce anomie.
Some researchers use the idea of anomie to explain feelings of rootlessness among young migrants.
Usage note
Older English texts sometimes spell it anomy.
Common phrases
state of anomie · anomic suicide · anomie theory · Merton's strain theory
In Marx's theory, the separation of workers under capitalism from the products of their labour, from the work process, from other people and from their own human potential.
Where you use it
Comes from Marx's early writings, especially the 1844 manuscripts. Later sociologists use it more broadly for feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness and isolation at work or in society, for example in studies of assembly lines and call centres.
Examples
Marx argued that factory work led to alienation because workers had no control over what they produced.
The study measured alienation among call centre staff who had to follow strict scripts.
Common phrases
alienation of labour · sense of alienation · political alienation · alienated workers
A set of ideas and beliefs that explains how society works and how it should work, and that often supports the interests of a particular group.
Where you use it
In Marxist sociology, the dominant ideology is said to make existing inequalities look natural or fair. More generally, sociologists study political, religious and gender ideologies. In sociology the word is analytical, not simply a label for ideas you disagree with.
Examples
The article examines how advertising spreads an ideology of consumption.
In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels argued that the ruling class also controls the dominant ideas of its time.
Common phrases
dominant ideology · political ideology · gender ideology · ideological state apparatus
In Bourdieu's theory, the deeply rooted habits, tastes, dispositions and ways of seeing the world that people acquire from their social background and usually take for granted.
Where you use it
Used with field and capital as part of Bourdieu's theory of practice. Habitus helps explain why people from the same class often make similar choices about food, music, education and careers without consciously planning them.
Examples
Students whose habitus matches the university culture often feel at home there from the first day.
Bourdieu used the idea of habitus to bridge the gap between structure and agency.
Usage note
Do not translate habitus simply as habit; it means a whole system of dispositions shaped by social position.
Common phrases
class habitus · habitus and field · embodied habitus
Leadership or domination by one group that rests mainly on consent, achieved when its values and ideas come to be accepted by others as common sense.
Where you use it
Associated with the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, who developed it in his Prison Notebooks. Used in studies of media, education, culture and gender, as in Connell's idea of hegemonic masculinity. In international relations it can simply mean the dominance of one state.
Examples
Gramsci argued that the ruling class maintains hegemony through schools, churches and the press as well as through force.
The study analyses how television dramas reproduce cultural hegemony.
Usage note
Both /hɪˈɡeməni/ and /hɪˈdʒeməni/ are heard; the stress is on the second syllable.
Common phrases
cultural hegemony · hegemonic masculinity · maintain hegemony · counter-hegemony
A simplified model that brings together the typical features of a social phenomenon, used by researchers as a yardstick for comparing real cases.
Where you use it
A methodological tool introduced by Max Weber. 'Ideal' here means 'existing as an idea', not 'perfect' or 'desirable'. Weber's ideal types of bureaucracy and of authority (traditional, charismatic, legal-rational) are standard exam topics.
Examples
No real organisation matches Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy exactly.
We built an ideal type of the 'traditional village' to compare our three cases.
Common phrases
Weber's ideal type · construct an ideal type · ideal types of authority
A range of social theories and movements that study and challenge inequality between women and men and the ways gender shapes social life.
Where you use it
In sociology courses feminism is taught as a theoretical perspective with several strands, such as liberal, Marxist, radical and black feminism. Historians often speak of first-, second- and third-wave feminism. Feminist researchers also raised new questions about methods and the researcher's position.
Examples
Second-wave feminism drew attention to unpaid housework and childcare.
The module compares how functionalism and feminism explain the family.
The idea that many things we take as natural or obvious, such as gender roles, childhood or race, are created and maintained by people through shared meanings and practices.
Where you use it
Associated with Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality (1966). Students often write that something is 'socially constructed'. This does not mean it is unreal or unimportant: socially constructed categories can have very real consequences.
Examples
Historians of childhood argue that the modern idea of childhood is a social construction.
Seeing adolescence as a social construction helps explain why it looks different across cultures.
Common phrases
socially constructed · social construction of reality · social construction of gender · social constructionism
Research that collects non-numerical data, such as interviews, observations and texts, to understand people's experiences, meanings and points of view in depth.
Where you use it
Common in methods courses, theses and journal articles. Typical methods are in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnography and document analysis. Researchers describe qualitative data as rich, detailed and sensitive to context, but harder to generalise from.
Examples
We chose qualitative research because we wanted to understand how young people talk about their future.
Qualitative research often uses small, purposive samples.
Common phrases
qualitative research methods · qualitative data · conduct qualitative research · qualitative interview
Research that collects numerical data, usually from large samples, and uses statistics to measure patterns and test relationships between variables.
Where you use it
Associated with surveys, official statistics, experiments and large datasets. Researchers talk about representative samples, variables, correlation and statistical significance. In sociology it is often linked to the positivist tradition.
Examples
The quantitative research was based on a national survey of 4,000 households.
Quantitative research can show how common a pattern is, but not always why it happens.
Common phrases
quantitative research methods · quantitative data · quantitative analysis · large-scale quantitative study
A research method that asks a group of people the same set of questions, through a questionnaire or a structured interview, to collect comparable data.
Where you use it
The most widely used tool in quantitative sociology. You design, conduct, carry out or administer a survey, and people respond to or take part in it. The survey is the whole study; the questionnaire is the list of questions.
Examples
We conducted an online survey of 1,200 university students.
The survey found that trust in neighbours was higher in smaller towns.
Usage note
Watch the stress: the noun is SURvey /ˈsɜːveɪ/, while the verb is usually surVEY /səˈveɪ/.
Common phrases
conduct a survey · online survey · national survey · survey data · survey respondents
A research approach in which the researcher spends a long time with a group, observing and taking part in its daily life, in order to describe its culture from the inside.
Where you use it
Originally from anthropology and now common in sociology. The word means both the method and the book or report that results from it. Ethnographers keep field notes and often combine observation with informal interviews.
Examples
Her ethnography of a night market in Ankara was based on eighteen months of fieldwork.
Ethnography lets researchers see what people actually do, not only what they say they do.
Common phrases
conduct an ethnography · urban ethnography · ethnographic fieldwork · ethnographic study
A research method in which the researcher joins in the activities of the group being studied while observing and recording what happens.
Where you use it
The main method of ethnography. It can be overt, when the group knows about the research, or covert, when it does not. Key issues are gaining access, building trust, 'going native' (losing a critical distance) and the ethics of covert research.
Examples
Through participant observation, Whyte spent years with young men in a Boston neighbourhood.
Covert participant observation raises serious questions about informed consent.
Common phrases
covert participant observation · overt participant observation · carry out participant observation · gain access to a group
An interview based on a prepared list of topics or questions that the researcher can reorder, rephrase or follow up, so that participants can answer in their own words.
Where you use it
The most common interview type in qualitative sociology. Researchers use an interview guide, record and transcribe the conversation, and then code it. Compare structured interviews (fixed questions in a fixed order) and unstructured interviews (open conversation).
Examples
We carried out 30 semi-structured interviews with care workers in Izmir.
Semi-structured interviews gave participants space to raise issues we had not expected.
The process of selecting a smaller group of people or cases from a larger population so that the researcher can study them and draw conclusions.
Where you use it
Core methods vocabulary. Probability sampling (random, stratified, cluster) aims at a representative sample; non-probability sampling (purposive, snowball, convenience) is common in qualitative studies. The list you sample from is the sampling frame.
Examples
We used snowball sampling because night-shift workers were hard to reach through official lists.
Stratified sampling ensured that every region was represented in the survey.
Usage note
The sample (örneklem) is the group you study, sampling (örnekleme) is how you choose it, and the population (evren) is the whole group you want to know about.
A characteristic that can take different values from case to case, such as age, income, education level or attitude, and that researchers measure and compare.
Where you use it
Researchers distinguish the independent variable (the presumed cause) from the dependent variable (the outcome), and control for other variables that might affect the result. Variables can be categorical, such as religion, or continuous, such as income.
Examples
In this study, education is the independent variable and voting behaviour is the dependent variable.
Even after controlling for income, the neighbourhood variable still had a strong effect.
Common phrases
independent variable · dependent variable · control variable · control for a variable · key variables
A testable statement that predicts a relationship between two or more variables, written before the data are collected and then supported or rejected by the evidence.
Where you use it
Common in quantitative research and in the methods sections of articles and theses. You formulate, test, support or reject a hypothesis; avoid saying that it was 'proven'. Qualitative studies more often use research questions instead.
Examples
Our hypothesis was that people who move house often have weaker ties with their neighbours.
The data supported the first hypothesis but not the second.
Usage note
The plural is hypotheses /haɪˈpɒθəsiːz/, with a long 'eez' sound at the end.
Common phrases
test a hypothesis · formulate a hypothesis · support a hypothesis · reject a hypothesis · null hypothesis
To turn an abstract concept, such as social class or trust, into something that can be observed and measured, for example through specific survey questions.
Where you use it
A key verb in research design; the noun is operationalisation. In a methods section you might write that a concept 'was operationalised as' or 'was operationalised using' a particular measure. Weak operationalisation is a threat to validity.
Examples
We operationalised social trust using three questions about neighbours, strangers and institutions.
It is difficult to operationalise a concept like alienation.
Usage note
American English spells it operationalize. Do not translate it as işlevselleştirmek, which means making something functional.
Common phrases
operationalise a concept · operationalise a variable · operationalisation of class
The extent to which a research method or measure actually captures what it claims to measure and gives a true picture of the social reality being studied.
Where you use it
Paired with reliability in almost every methods course. Qualitative methods are often said to have high validity because they capture meaning in depth. Researchers also speak of internal validity and external validity, which is how far results apply beyond the study.
Examples
Official crime statistics have limited validity because many crimes are never reported.
To improve validity, we discussed our findings with the participants.
Common phrases
high validity · internal validity · external validity · threat to validity · improve validity
The extent to which a research method gives consistent results when it is repeated by another researcher or at another time under the same conditions.
Where you use it
Paired with validity. Structured methods such as questionnaires are usually seen as more reliable than unstructured interviews or participant observation. Researchers check reliability with tools such as test-retest and agreement between coders.
Examples
A questionnaire with fixed answers usually has high reliability.
Two researchers coded the interviews separately to check reliability.
Usage note
A study can be reliable without being valid: it may give the same wrong answer every time.
Common phrases
high reliability · test-retest reliability · inter-coder reliability · reliability and validity
Agreement to take part in research, given freely by a participant who has been told clearly about the study's aims, methods, risks and the right to withdraw.
Where you use it
A basic principle of research ethics that ethics committees require for most projects with human participants. Researchers obtain or seek informed consent, often with a signed consent form. Extra care is needed with children and vulnerable groups.
Examples
All participants gave informed consent before the interviews began.
The ethics committee asked us to simplify the informed consent form.
Common phrases
obtain informed consent · informed consent form · give informed consent · research ethics
A group discussion, usually with six to ten people, led by a researcher to explore their views and experiences and how they talk about a topic together.
Where you use it
Used in sociology, market research and policy studies. The researcher who leads it is called the moderator or facilitator. Focus groups show how opinions form in interaction, but dominant voices can steer the discussion.
Examples
We ran four focus groups with parents to discuss school choice.
In the focus group, younger participants were reluctant to disagree with older ones.
Common phrases
run a focus group · focus group discussion · focus group participants · moderate a focus group
A detailed study of one particular case, such as a person, organisation, community or event, often using several methods to understand it in depth.
Where you use it
Common in theses and journal articles. Researchers justify their case selection and discuss whether the findings can be generalised. A multiple or comparative case study looks at two or more cases side by side.
Examples
The thesis is a case study of one textile town in western Turkey.
A single case study cannot show how common a pattern is, but it can explain how it works.
Common phrases
in-depth case study · comparative case study · case selection · conduct a case study
Data collected by someone else, such as official statistics, earlier surveys, archives or media texts, that a researcher reuses for a new purpose.
Where you use it
Contrasted with primary data, which researchers collect themselves. Secondary analysis is cheap and can cover large populations and long periods, but the data may not fit the new research question exactly.
Examples
The project relies on secondary data from national household surveys.
Using secondary data saved time, but some variables we needed were missing.
Usage note
In academic writing data is often treated as plural ('the data show'), although singular use ('the data shows') is also common.
Common phrases
secondary data analysis · primary and secondary data · official statistics · existing datasets
Research carried out in the real settings where people live and work, rather than in a library or office, by observing, interviewing and collecting material on site.
Where you use it
An uncountable noun: do fieldwork, carry out fieldwork, a period of fieldwork. The place is called the field or the field site, and the researcher's written records are field notes. Researchers who are collecting data on site say they are 'in the field'.
Examples
She did her fieldwork in a fishing village on the Black Sea coast.
After six months of fieldwork, he had more than 200 pages of field notes.
Usage note
Fieldwork is uncountable: say 'a period of fieldwork' or 'some fieldwork', not 'a fieldwork'.
Common phrases
do fieldwork · carry out fieldwork · field notes · field site · in the field
A person who answers the questions in a survey, questionnaire or interview.
Where you use it
Used mainly in survey research; qualitative researchers often prefer participant or interviewee. The response rate is the percentage of people contacted who actually take part. Respondents are usually promised anonymity or confidentiality.
Examples
Nearly 40 per cent of respondents said they had never contacted a local official.
Respondents were assured that their answers would remain anonymous.
Common phrases
survey respondents · response rate · the majority of respondents · anonymous respondents
Ten questions from this glossary. Pick the right meaning for each term and see your score.
How to learn sociology vocabulary
Learn each concept together with the thinker and the theory it comes from: anomie with Durkheim, ideal type with Weber, alienation with Marx, habitus with Bourdieu. Exam questions and essays almost always link them.
Read real texts from the field every week, such as journal abstracts, short chapters from classic works in English and published ethnographies, and collect phrases like 'drawing on Bourdieu', 'the data suggest' or 'semi-structured interviews were conducted'.
Watch for words that have an everyday meaning and a narrower sociological one: class, power, culture, norm, deviance and community. In an essay, use the sociological meaning and define it the first time you use it.
Learn word families together: socialise, socialisation, social, sociable; urban, urbanise, urbanisation. Notice that British texts write -isation and American texts write -ization.
Practise out loud: explain one theory in two minutes, or present the research question, method and main finding of a study as if you were in a seminar.
Frequently asked questions
How can I learn sociology vocabulary in English effectively?
Study by topic rather than alphabetically, and learn each concept with the verbs and adjectives that go with it ('reproduce inequality', 'challenge a norm', 'upward social mobility'). Read real texts regularly, such as journal abstracts, textbook chapters in English and short extracts from classic works, and reuse the new words when you write essays or summarise readings for a seminar. A little every day works better than a long session before the exam.
What is the difference between sex and gender in sociology?
In sociology, sex usually refers to biological characteristics, while gender refers to the roles, expectations and identities that a society attaches to being a woman or a man. Sociologists use gender when they study how these expectations are learned, how they differ between cultures and how they change over time. In Turkish, sex is usually translated as cinsiyet or biyolojik cinsiyet, and gender as toplumsal cinsiyet.
Should I translate social as toplumsal or sosyal?
Both are correct and widely used in Turkish sociology. Toplumsal is often preferred in academic writing (toplumsal yapı, toplumsal cinsiyet, toplumsal hareket), while sosyal is common in fixed expressions (sosyal sermaye, sosyal politika, sosyal medya). Follow the usage of the textbook or course you are studying with and stay consistent within one text.
What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?
Quantitative research collects numerical data, usually from large samples through surveys or official statistics, and looks for patterns and relationships between variables. Qualitative research collects words, observations and images, for example through interviews, focus groups or ethnography, and aims to understand meanings and experiences in depth. Many studies combine the two; this is called mixed methods.
How do you pronounce the names of classic sociologists in English?
English speakers usually keep close to the original language. Durkheim sounds roughly like 'DUR-kime', Weber like 'VAY-ber' (some say 'WEB-er'), Bourdieu like 'boor-DYUH' and Goffman like 'GOFF-man'. Marx is simply 'marks'. Hearing these names in recorded lectures is the quickest way to get them right.
