“agitprop Agitation propaganda, a theatrical device employed by the left-wing in Europe and the USA during the 1950s; in the 1960s it developed into what is now termed ‘street theater.’ Its purpose was to convey a political message, or political education, by seeking to interest and entertain.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
“Teleology: A teleological explanation either explains a process by the end-state towards which it is directed; or explains the existence of something by the function it fulfills. In sociology, the former tends to be confined to theories of purposive human action, whereas the latter is a feature of functionalism. It is widely argued that teleological explanations are admissible only with reference to individuals and groups since they alone have explicitly formulated purposes or goals. Societies, by contrast, set themselves no such objectives. Evolutionary and systems theories, as well as theories which imply a historical logic or inevitability (such as historical materialism), are often criticized as being unacceptably teleological—although there have been controversial attempts to argue that even these explanations can be translated into conventional causal accounts.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“Distributive: Indicating reference to a particular thing of to every member of a group, e.g., the pronouns ‘each’ and ‘none.’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“ailing giants Declining industries in the 1920s and 30s—coal, textiles, shipbuilding, iron and steel—which had formed the basis of Britain’s 19-century supremacy. Weakened by outdated techniques and management, falling demand and foreign competition, they accounted for the bulk of long-term unemployment.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged term of art, united states history
“Disjunctive: Indicating contrast, difference, alternatives, etc., between words, phrases or clauses, e.g. the conjunctions ‘but,’ ‘or,’ ‘though.’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“Synthesis: The combination of two (or more) contradictory phenomena to produce something qualitatively new. The term is usually associated with the dialectical logic employed by some Marxists: for example, the economic contradictions of capitalism and the class conflict they generate, together produce socialism.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“Determinative: Indicating the pointing forward to a subsequent phrase or clause that explains or completes, e.g., ‘such words as…,’ ‘the one that….’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Society: Generally, a group of people who share a common culture, occupy a particular territorial area, and feel themselves to constitute a unified and distinct entity—but there are many different sociological conceptions (see D. Frisby and D. Sayer, Society, 1986).
In everyday life the term society is used as if it referred in an unproblematic way to something that exists ‘out there’ and beyond the individual subject: we speak of ‘French society,’ and ‘capitalist society,’ and of ‘society’ being responsible for some observed social phenomenon. On reflection, however, such a usage clearly has its problems: for example, is British society a clear unity, or can we talk also of Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish societies? And, even within England, are there not wide cultural differences between (say) north and south? Is there one capitalist society—or many? Nor is a society the same thing as a nation-state. The former Yugoslavia clearly contained several societies: Croat, Slovenian, Serbian, and so on.
While many sociologists use the term in a commonsense way others question this use. Some symbolic interactionists, for example, argue that there is no such thing as society: it is simply a useful covering term for things we don’t know about or understand properly (see P. Rock, The Making of Symbolic Interactionism, 1979). Others, such as Emile Durkheim, treat society as a reality in its own right (see The Rules of Sociological Method, 1895).”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“Taxonomy: A taxonomy (or typology) is a classification. To classify social phenomena is not to explain them. For example, sociologists of religion commonly use a taxonomy of religious organizations which embraces the categories of church, denomination, sect, and cult. This classifies religious groupings according to their organizational structure (for example, bureaucratic or informal), adjustment to the prevailing order (world-rejecting, world accommodating, and so forth), and principal mode of recruitment (ascribed membership by birth or achieved membership by voluntary attachment). This particular classification does not explain why certain individuals practice religion, while others do not, nor does it offer a theory of how religious organizations arise or develop. In practice, however, many sociological taxonomies are implicitly etiological (causal). A well-known example is Durkheim’s classification of the types of suicide—egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic—a taxonomy which also embodies a theory about why people kill themselves intentionally.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“Demonstrative: Indicating something pointed out or singled out, e.g. the pronouns ‘this’ and ‘those.’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
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