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| The study of human behaviour and societies, with particular emphasis on the industrialized world. |
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| Material, structural, and cultural elements that make up the total system. |
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| In the social sciences, a scholar’s work about another scientist’s theory or writings. |
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| C. Wright Mills’s term for the application of imaginative thought to the asking and answering of sociological questions; the ability to see the effects of social patterns and history on human behaviour. |
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| A theoretical framework or worldview within which middle-range theories and generalizations regarding social reality are formulated and tested. |
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| The theory that people perceive their world through the framework of language. |
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| A social science closely linked to sociology, that concentrates (though not exclusively) on the study of traditional cultures—particularly hunting-and-gathering and horticultural societies—and the evolution of the human species. |
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| The study of hominid activity and culture in the past based primarily on the discovery and analysis of the material culture they have left behind. |
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| The transmission of information from one individual or group to another. |
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| The process by which members of a group make the ideas, values, and norms of the group their own. |
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| The specialization of work tasks or occupations and their interrelationships. |
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| The pursuit of one’s values and beliefs, often to the exclusion of practical reality. |
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| Thomas Robert Malthus's theory of population dynamics, according to which population increase inevitably comes up against the “natural limits” of food supply because population grows geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, . . .) while food supply grows arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, . . .). |
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| The view that material conditions (usually economic and technological factors) play the central role in determining social stability and change. |
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| The study of large-scale organizations, sociocultural systems, or the world- system of societies. |
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| The study of small-scale patterns of human interaction and behaviour within specific settings. |
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| A rule or expectation of conduct that either prescribes a given type of behaviour or forbids it. |
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| Culturally defined standards held by human individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, beautiful, good, or bad. |
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