Expulsion of a fetus or embryo from the uterus, either spontaneously or via a medical procedure.
Behavior aimed primarily at hurting another person, either verbally or physically.
Feeling or emotion; the degree of positive and negative affect in marital interaction is associated with relationship quality and stability.
Elderly people remaining in their communities after retirement.
Discrimination against the elderly.
A research technique that analyzes quantitative data at different times (e.g., births, deaths, work histories) in order to understand trends.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; an incurable disease that attacks the immune system.
An individual’s feeling of separation from the surrounding society.
Income paid to support a divorced spouse.
Process by which individuals or groups voluntarily or involuntarily adopt the culture of another group, losing their original identity.
Addresses the question of who marries whom; in general, people marry individuals much like themselves (homogamy).
A 15-year period in U.S. history following World War II when an extraordinary number of babies were born.
Erving Goffman’s term denoting that people act differently in private because they have fewer constraints.
A vertical, four-generation family structure (e.g., elderly parents living with adult children, as do their children and children’s children).
The assumption that there is an equal degree of agency to the parent and child.
Family of mixed legal status, such as an undocumented immigrant and a U.S. citizen or legal resident.
See stepfamily.
Any method used to avoid pregnancy.
Sibling position based on age.
The belief that some individuals are poor, criminals, school dropouts, or otherwise deviant because they have a flaw within them.
See stepfamily.
The present generation of youth, which is more prone than previous ones to move back in with their parents.
Investment choices that involve the movement of corporate monies from one investment to another.
Economic system based on private ownership of property, guided by the seeking of maximum profits.
Condition of capitalism in which male supremacy keeps women in subordinate roles at work and in the home.
When migrating family members arrive at different times.
“The distinctive acts of violence and nonviolence and acts of omission and commission that place children at risk” (Gelles, 1976:136).
One step removed from marriage but allows same-sex partners to have the same legal protections under state law as married couples.
Advantages, prerogatives, and options available to those in an affluent economic situation.
Practice of living together as a couple without being married.
Practice of sharing a household by an unmarried male and female in an emotional and physical relationship.
Practice of sharing a household by two persons of the same sex in an emotional and physical relationship.
Persons who are born at approximately the same time and thus experience the same societal forces throughout their life spans.
A marriage in which spouses live apart because their jobs require that they live in different locations.
The beliefs and practices that define and enforce heterosexual (other-sex attraction) behavior as the only natural and permissible form of sexual expression.
View of society that posits conflict as a normal feature of social life, influencing the distribution of power and the direction and magnitude of social change.
Part-time or temporary jobs by independent contractors.
A form of invisible work for women as they select goods and make purchases for the family.
The process by which individuals manage a set of demands that is perceived as excessive or experienced as stressful.
Process of selection and attachment between potential mates that leads to the formation of strong emotional and sexual ties and possibly marriage.
Ideology by which women are judged by their piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.
View that assumes that families in society are the products of the culture in which they are embedded. Families, for example, differ by social class because of the distinctive values found in each class.
Socialization process that forces narrow behavioral and attitudinal traits on persons.
Knowledge that the members of a social organization share.
View that the poor are qualitatively different in values and lifestyles from the rest of society and that these cultural differences explain continued poverty.
Widespread systematic diversion of capital (finance, plant, and equipment) from productive investment in the nation’s basic industries into unproductive speculation, mergers, acquisitions, and foreign investment.
The study of population.
A consequence of job specialization and technological advances in which jobs require narrower and more repetitive tasks, resulting in lower pay, less prestige, and less autonomy.
Behavior that violates the expectations of society.
Variation in childbearing rates by social class or some other social characteristic.
Process of acting toward a person or group with partiality, typically because the individual or group belongs to a minority.
One response by the elderly in which they retreat from relationships, organizations, and society.
Corporate decision to remove capital from an operation (e.g., shutting down a manufacturing plant).
Legal termination of a marriage.
The belief that married women should spend their lives within the home, while married men should devote their time outside the home to earn a living for the family.
The effort to allow homosexuals to register as married; official recognition of gay partners provides them with the legal and economic benefits of marriage.
Two individuals who are in a long-term committed relationship and are responsible for each other’s financial and emotional well-being.
Marriage in which the husband and wife are both employed outside the home.
Relationship in which the partners share equally practical responsibilities and decision making.
Arlie Hochschild’s term for the work that women do to keep right feelings in relationships.
State of psychological depression or search for new roles that occurs among many full-time housewives whose children have grown up and left home.
Social group with a common culture distinct from the culture of the majority because of race, religion, or national origin.
System of inequality in which race, religion, or national origin is the major criterion for rank and rewards.
The condition of being culturally distinct on the basis of race, religion, or national origin.
The practice of marrying outside one’s group.
Several generations of kin that constitute a single family unit, in both living arrangements and obligations.
In Marxian theory, the idea that the oppressed may hold beliefs damaging to their interests.
Incorrect generalization that people experience the family in uniform ways.
The attachment to one’s nuclear and extended family.
Particular societal construct whereby persons are related by ancestry, marriage, adoption, or choice.
Federal law providing workers in establishments with more than 50 workers the right to unpaid job-protected leave to meet family health needs.
Mode of production common in the colonial period wherein the household was the basic economic unit.
Changes that take place in the family unit as it moves from stage to stage as its members age.
The belief that families survive or sink by their own resources and fitness, not for structural reasons.
Persons who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption and share a residence.
An idealized picture of the family attained by distorting reality.
Objectives concerning family well-being and the specific measures taken by governmental bodies to achieve them.
A research tool that uses every available fragment of information to reconstruct family and household patterns.
Conscious and unconscious solutions to the constraints imposed on families by economic and social structures.
The conservative term supporting the two-parent family, with the husband as the breadwinner and the wife as mother and homemaker. The implication is that all other family arrangements are the source of social problems.
Income that men derive from work outside the home that is sufficient to allow women to stay home, raise children, and maintain a family.
Family members making a living by earning wages working outside the home, producing goods and services for employers.
Ability to have children.
Rapid rise in the numbers of female-headed households living in poverty.
Frequency of actual births in a population.
People treated like family even though they are not related by blood or marriage.
Employer–employee arrangement that permits the employee to choose his or her work schedule within specific limits.
Government term referring to households that have difficulty getting enough food.
The formal playing of roles.
The dominant sociological paradigm of the 1950s and 1960s. It posited that the nuclear family was the basis of social organization and cohesion in society and essential for the socialization of children and for the division of labor that enabled women and men to perform their social roles in an orderly manner.
Male whose sexual preference is for someone of the same sex.
Cultural and social definition of feminine and masculine. It differs from sex, which is the biological fact of femaleness or maleness.
Males and females differ because of socialization. The assumption is that males and females learn to be different.
Couples in relationships develop myths—versions of reality that emphasize sharing in order to preserve harmony and camouflage conflict.
Behavior patterned according to sex.
Gender is present in the processes, practices, images, ideologies, and distributions of power in the various sectors of social life.
Emphasizes the features of social organization that produce gender inequality.
Work apportioned according to sex. Traditionally, this has meant that women do the household chores of cooking, cleaning, and child care, while men do yardwork and home repairs.
The redevelopment of poor and working-class urban neighborhoods into middle- and upper-middle-class enclaves; often involves displacements of original residents.
The process by which the earth’s peoples are increasingly interconnected economically, politically, culturally, and environmentally.
The ideal colonial community based on patriarchy. The family was ruled by the father, who had authority over his wife, children, and servants, much as God the Father ruled over His children.
Mythical, idealized image of how the family once was.
Demographic trend toward an ever-increasing proportion of the population being old.
A federally funded program to educate disadvantaged preschool children.
Marriage as experienced by the woman.
When the partners in a marriage differ on significant social variables, such as race, religion, or social class.
Practice by which people work at legitimate occupations but evade taxes.
Unpaid household labor performed by wives, which serves to reproduce the paid labor force.
Marriage as experienced by the man.
(also known as homesourcing) A form of contingent work where independent contractors work from their homes.
A marriage of individuals who share similar social characteristics such as religion, race, age, and social class background.
When marriage partners are alike in various characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, religion, educational attainment, social class, and age.
Fear and hatred of homosexuals.
Residential unit in which members share resources. These units vary in membership and composition. A household is not always a family (parents and children), and a family is not always a household (because it may be separated geographically).
The strategy among the poor to double up in households to share expenses.
A husband who stays at home to care for the house and family while his wife works for pay outside the home.
Individuals, acting alone or with others, shape, resist, challenge, and sometimes change their social environments.
Marriage in which the female marries upward into a higher social stratum.
Marriage in which the female marries downward into a lower social stratum.
Shared beliefs about the physical, social, or metaphysical world.
Birth of a child to an unmarried woman.
Assumption that racial minorities are just like European immigrants and that they will eventually become assimilated.
The movement of people from one nation to another for permanent residence.
Sexual behaviors between persons so closely related that marriage between them is prohibited by law.
Process by which societies become increasingly organized around the production of goods and technology by machines.
Situation in which too much money purchases too few goods, resulting in rising prices.
Social arrangement that channels behavior in an important area of societal life.
Consumers purchase products to do activities personally that they once paid others to do.
Established and customary ways that exclude people of color from full and equal participation in the institutions of the dominant society. This occurs independent of any prejudice or discrimination on the part of individuals.
Practice by which the social arrangements and accepted ways of doing things in society disadvantage females.
The effort by women to sustain communication with their mates.
Individuals who, when compared to the socioeconomic status of their parents, do not measure up.
In socialization, the process by which society’s demands become part of the individual acting to control his or her behavior.
Emotionally charged relationship in which the participants are closely connected.
The type of intimate partner violence—mostly perpetrated by men—characterized by attempt to completely dominate a partner using power and control tactics.
Individuals who, in the course of their adult lives, decline in socioeconomic status.
Goods and services produced in unrecorded establishments to evade taxes.
Network of persons who are related by birth, adoption, or marriage.
The work that women do to sustain family (visits, letters, telephone calls, presents, and cards).
Children under age 13 who have no adult supervision after school.
Unintended consequence of a social arrangement or social action.
The contradiction that Latinos outlive Anglos, despite their generally lower incomes and educational levels, their lower probability of having health insurance, and that they go to doctors less often that Whites.
Theory that when individuals perceive that the negative things happening to them are not their fault, they tend to give up trying to change the situation.
Female whose sexual preference is for someone of the same sex.
Opportunities throughout one’s life cycle to live and experience the good things in society.
Relational patterns around which individuals organize their living arrangements.
Stereotypic description of Latino men, referring to male dominance, posturing, physical daring, and an exploitive attitude toward women.
Large-scale structures and processes of society, including the institutions and the system of stratification.
Social category in society holding superordinate power and successfully imposing their will on less powerful (minority) groups.
Exaggerated beliefs about the superiority of the male and the resulting discrimination against females.
Advantages and prerogatives that systematically benefit men and are denied to women.
Intended consequence of a social arrangement or social action.
A traditional socialization of Latina women to accept male domination.
Legal document drawn up prior to a marriage, specifying rights and duties of the partners and especially the disposition of property in case of death or divorce.
Manner in which decision making is distributed between a husband and wife.
A concept that refers to a couple’s subjective evaluation of their marriage relationship.
Socially approved sexual union between two persons (monogamy) or more than two (polygamy).
Well-educated and affluent couples tend to stay married, while the poor are more likely to get divorced.
Excess of women at the most marriageable age.
Tendency for males to marry down and for females to marry up in age, education, and social class.
A family form in which the woman holds the power.
The interconnected systems of inequality (race, class, and gender) in which each of us exists.
Social organization and process of small-scale social groups.
Social category composed of persons who differ from the majority, are relatively powerless, and are the objects of unfair and unequal treatment.
Laws forbidding people of different races from marrying. Abolished by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967.
Hatred of women.
The nuclear family that emerged in response to the requirements of an urban, industrial society consisting of an intact nuclear household unit with a male breadwinner, his full-time homemaker wife, and their dependent children.
The employment of women in work positions that are less difficult but less prestigious, less lucrative, and limited in advancement potential. These positions do make it easier for women to care for their families.
Form of marriage in which an individual cannot be married to more than one person at a time.
Mythical belief that assumes a single, uniform family experience.
Form of capitalism prevalent in the contemporary United States in which a few large corporations control the key industries, destroying competition and the market mechanisms that would ordinarily keep prices low and help consumers.
A conservative political movement reacting to social changes that have taken place since World War II, especially in the areas of morality, welfare spending, and the role of women.
Important societal norms, the violation of which results in severe punishment.
Frequency of actual deaths in a population.
More than one generation living together such as one where grandparents, their children, and their grandchildren are a household unit.
Deliberate misdefinition of a situation.
Idealized version about the way things are or were. These are beliefs that are held uncritically and without examination or scrutiny.
Erroneous belief based on two assumptions: (1) that the diverse groups in society have learned to compromise and live in harmony; and (2) that any group can gain its share of power, prosperity, and respectability merely by playing the game according to the rules.
Support network of friends that some single people establish for themselves. These provide a familial alternative to those people without traditional families.
People whose incomes are above the poverty threshold but below 125 percent of that threshold.
Current federal policy of withdrawing monies for social programs for the needy, leaving states and local governments with the responsibility to provide for them.
Changing consumption patterns that emphasize thrift.
Middle-class families who never expected to be poor but became so because of the Great Recession.
Those who are downwardly mobile because their skills are no longer needed. They are much more trapped in poverty than were the “old poor” of previous generations.
Laws providing for divorce by mutual consent of the partners.
Persons who live alone or with unrelated individuals.
Part of culture that refers to rules that specify appropriate and inappropriate behavior; in other words, the shared expectations for behavior.
Kinship unit composed of husband, wife, and children.
The proportion of married persons.
When a company moves its production to another country, producing the same products in the same way, but with cheaper labor, lower taxes, and fewer benefits to workers.
The poor of previous generations, who had more hope of upward mobility than the poor of today; the old poor had the advantages of an expanding economy and a need for unskilled labor.
Conception of society as a social system characterized by cohesion, consensus, cooperation, reciprocity, stability, and persistence.
The offshore sourcing of information-based goods and services.
Children who migrate alone, usually to pursue educational opportunities.
The basic assumptions that scholars have of the social worlds they study.
Policies of businesses that allow their employees to have children, take care of children, and meet emergency home needs without losing their jobs.
Mode of socialization in which parents encourage their children to explore, experiment, and question.
Family structure in which the father is dominant.
Violence initiated by men as a way of gaining and maintaining total control over their female partners.
Social relations in which men are dominant over women.
Male dominance in the interpersonal relations between women and men.
Male dominance in the institutions of the larger society.
Sexual interest in children.
Friends, usually of the same age and socioeconomic status.
A relationship organized around principles of equity and equality, and characterized by the sharing of economic, household, and child-rearing responsibilities.
Low-status, low-paying jobs reserved primarily for women.
The multiplicity of family and household arrangements that has emerged as a result of a number of social factors, such as women in the labor force, divorce, remarriage, and cohabitation arrangements.
Standard of living below the minimum needed for the maintenance of adequate diet, health, and shelter.
Ability of one person or group to get another person or group to act on its wishes regardless of whether the other person or group agrees to.
Respect of an individual or social category as a result of social status.
Small group characterized by intimate, face-to-face interaction.
Argument that the partner with the least interest in the relationship is the one who is more apt to exploit the other.
The distribution of goods and services, situations, and experiences that are highly valued and beneficial.
The strong positive value a society places on having children.
The transfer of moods from one social setting (e.g., work) to another (e.g., family).
Research techniques based on subjective analysis.
Research based on the analysis of numerical data.
This Mexican American ritual presents young women on their 15th birthday to the ethnic community as now eligible for marriage.
Socially defined category on the basis of a presumed common genetic heritage, resulting in distinguishing physical characteristics.
Groups labeled as “races” by the wider society and bound together by their common social and economic conditions resulting in distinctive cultural and ethnic characteristics.
The sociohistorical process by which races are continually being shaped and transformed.
System of inequality in which race is the major criterion for rank and rewards.
Domination and discrimination of one racial group by the majority.
Family form created by a remarriage that involves one or more children from the previous marriage of either spouse.
Marriage by anyone who has been previously married.
Mode of socialization in which parents demand rigid conformity in their children, enforced by physical punishment.
New scholarship that challenges the traditional interpretations.
Behavioral expectations and requirements attached to a position in a social organization.
Actual behavior of persons occupying particular positions in a social organization.
A type of multigenerational household in which adults take care of their aging parents and their children simultaneously.
A multigenerational household where adults are taking care of their aging parents and their children simultaneously.
The term referring to women’s responsibilities for housework, child care, and home management that women must do in addition to their labor in the workforce.
Large, impersonal, and formally organized group.
The capitalist economy is divided into two distinct sectors: one in which production and working conditions are relatively stable and secure, the other composed of marginal firms in which working conditions are poor and wages and job security are low.
Separation of one group from another.
Event that occurs because it was predicted. The prophecy is confirmed because people alter their behavior to conform to the prediction.
Adjusting the timing of events over the life course by eliminating or postponing activities in one sphere, either work or family, until a later stage.
These families or individuals with incomes below one-half the poverty threshold.
System of stratification that operates by ranking and rewarding women’s and men’s roles unequally (see patriarchy).
Number of males per 100 females in a population.
Treats gender differences as learned.
Individual actions and institutional arrangements that discriminate against women.
People’s sexual acts and activities.
An individual’s sexual self-classification as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or straight.
The sex of those to whom one is attracted.
Sexual behavior follows scripts that are learned by individuals and reflect society’s expectations for appropriate sexual conduct.
Hierarchical arrangement based on gender.
Control by four or fewer firms of 50 percent or more of a particular market.
A brother or sister.
Those individuals who are most important to a person, such as parents and close friends.
The type of intimate partner violence—perpetrated by both men and women—that occurs when a couple’s conflicts escalate to violence.
Number of persons who occupy the same relative economic rank in the stratification system.
The assumption that families are shaped by specific historical, social, and material conditions.
This approach focuses on the social sources of sexuality; it concludes that diverse social arrangements produce variation in sexual desire and practice.
Regulation of human behavior in any social group.
The belief that the principle of the survival of the fittest applies to human societies, especially the system of stratification.
Process of categorizing persons by some personal attribute.
Ranking of persons by wealth, family background, race, ethnicity, or sex.
Process by which individuals act toward or respond to each other.
One’s position in society based on family background, race, socioeconomic status, religion, sexuality, or other relevant social characteristics.
Movement by an individual from one social class or status group to another.
Collective attempt to promote or resist change.
Order of a social group as evidenced by the positions, roles, norms, and other constraints that control behavior and ensure predictability.
The varied ways in which people make a living.
The maintenance of life on a daily basis, including food, clothing, shelter, and emotional activity.
Ranking of people in a hierarchy that differentiates them as superior or inferior.
Patterned and recurrent relationships among people and parts of a social organization.
Differentiated group whose parts are interrelated in an orderly arrangement, bound by geographic space or membership.
Process of learning the culture.
Those individuals, groups, and institutions responsible for transmitting the culture of a society to newcomers.
Largest social organization to which individuals owe their allegiance. The entity is located geographically, has a common culture, and is relatively self-sufficient.
The measure of social status that takes into account several prestige factors, such as income, education, and occupation.
Scholarly discipline concerned with the systematic study of social organizations.
Carrying over the concerns, responsibilities, and demands of one part of life to another (e.g., the conditions of work that affect family life).
When working parents share child care, one parent takes care of the children while the other works.
Dorothy Smith’s concept for the glorified image of the family with a breadwinner husband and a wife whose primary responsibility is the care of husband, household, and children, even when she works for pay. This pervasive image serves an instrument of control by prescribing family structure in public policy.
Socially defined position in a social organization.
Child of one’s husband or wife by a former marriage.
The family form created in a remarriage that involves one or more children from the previous marriage of either spouse.
Person who occupies the parent role for the children by a former marriage of his or her spouse.
Exaggerated generalization about some social category.
Label of social disgrace.
In 1969, after the police raided a gay bar in New York City, the homosexual patrons fought back. This event marks the beginning of the modern gay movement.
View that structural conditions control the destiny of individuals and groups.
Assumption that families are shaped by the structure of society (e.g., the availability of work, remuneration for work, opportunities by race and gender).
Time constraints imposed by the demands of work and family roles.
Fundamental change of the economy resulting from powerful contemporary forces: technological breakthroughs in microelectronics, the globalization of the economy, capital flight, and the shift from a manufacturing economy to one based on information and services.
Patterns of superiority and inferiority, the distribution of rewards, and the belief systems that reinforce the inequalities of society.
Relatively cohesive cultural system that varies in form and substance from the dominant culture.
Sectors of economic potential, increased output, and rising employment.
Economic sectors experiencing declining output and employment.
When a child of one race or ethnic group is placed with adoptive parents of another race or ethnic group.
Rapid turnover in things, places, and people.
Family in which the members are located across national boundaries, but with a pattern of moving back and forth between countries.
Mothers live and work in one nation, while their children live in another nation.
Placing a child of one race or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another race or ethnic group.
Assumption that the poor have a set of distinctively negative values, psychological attributes, and maladaptive behaviors (see culture of poverty).
Being employed at a job below one’s level of training and expertise.
Work activities not regulated by the government or reported to the Internal Revenue Service.
The movement of people from rural to urban areas.
People in the lower classes sharing middle-class values but stretching them as they adjust to conditions of deprivation.
Shared criteria used in evaluating objects, ideas, acts, feelings, or events as to their relative desirability, merit, or correctness.
Diseases transmitted by sexual contact.
The decision by some couples not to have children.
Economic aid provided to those in need by the federal, state, and local governments.
Loss of a spouse by death.
The incompatibility experienced by individuals between their work responsibilities as workers and their responsibilities in their families.
Traditional uneven division of labor in which men’s work role takes priority over the family role, and women, even those who work outside the home, are to give priority to the family role.