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Sociology vocabulary · Migration, Race and Ethnicity

Migration

Meaning in sociology, with examples

/maɪˈɡreɪʃən/nounCore term

In sociology, migration means: 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.

In Turkish: göç

How it is used

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.

Example sentences

  1. Internal migration from rural Anatolia transformed Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir after 1950.

  2. The project interviews families about their reasons for migration.

Common collocations

  • internal migration
  • international migration
  • labour migration
  • forced migration
  • rural-urban migration
  • diasporaA population that lives outside its original homeland, often spread across several countries, while keeping cultural, emotional or economic ties with it.
  • assimilationThe 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.
  • urbanisationThe 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.
  • ethnicityA shared cultural identity based on things such as common ancestry, language, religion, traditions or a sense of shared history.
  • multiculturalismThe coexistence of several cultural or ethnic groups in one society, and the policies or ideas that support recognising and respecting their differences.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Migration, Race and Ethnicity

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