1.

Acculturation A process of culture change due to contact between societies; often used to refer
to subordinate tribal societies adapting to more dominant societies
2. Agency A concept referring to the willed and voluntary nature of an individual’s life and action
as opposed to the constraint and determinism of social structures
3. Animism Belief in spirits dwelling in natural objects and phenomenon
4. Anthropology 'The study of humans'; social science which encompasses the fields of physical or
biological anthropology, archaeology, social or cultural anthropology, and linguistic
anthropology
5. Authority The exercise of legitimate power
6. Band A small social group (e.g. ranging from 6-50) occupying a territory, usually consisting of a
kin group, and characteristic of societies subsisting by hunting and gathering. Bands are
nomadic, fluid (in population size), and generally egalitarian
7. Bilateral kinship The kinship system wherein blood relationships are traced through both father
and mother. (Also called Cognatic descent.)
8. Caste system A hereditary system of rank, usually religiously dictated, that tend to be fixed
9. Chiefdom A political system in which king groups are linked together through a political (or
religious) hierarchy. Leadership is monopolized by highly ranked members who inherit their
political roles
10. Citizenship May be defined as: (a) identification of an individual based on a formal-legal status
coterminous with the emergence of states; or (b) shared membership of a political community
in which conception [of] citizens are political actors constituting political spaces
11. Class A term used by Max Weber to refer to a group of people who have a similar level of wealth
and income
12. Class system A social ranking based primarily on economic position in which achieved
characteristics can influence mobility
13. Closed system A social system in which the position of each individual is influenced by his or her
ascribed status and there is little or no possibility of individual mobility
14. Compadrazgo The establishment of ties between godparents and godchildren, and 'coparents'
through ritual; ritual 'coparenthood'
15. Conformity In Robert Merton’s “Strain Theory,” refers to the pursuit of cultural goals through
approved means
16. Cultural relativism The ethical insistence that other cultures can only be evaluated and
understood in terms of their own standards and values
17. Culture The system of knowledge, norms and values more or less shared by members of a
particular society
18. Culture-specific (or culture- bound) syndrome A set of associated symptoms that is identified as
a particular illness or ailment by the group itself; 'folk illness'
19. Deviance The recognized violation of cultural norms
20. Diffusion The process by which discrete cultural elements (e.g. ideas, artifacts, practices) may
spread from one society to another
21. Discovery The process of making known or sharing the existence of an aspect of the world
22. Education The systematic transfer of knowledge and skills from one generation to the next
through teaching, training or research; may take place in formal (ex: schools) or informal (ex:
home) settings
23. Enculturation A child's incorporation into his or her society through learning of the culture
24. Environmentalism Concern, advocacy or work toward protecting nature or the environment
25. Ethnicity One’s identification with social group that shares cultural traditions, languages, social
experiences, or ancestry
26. Ethnocentrism Viewing other peoples and ways of life in terms of one's own cultural
assumptions
27. Family A set of people related by blood, marriage (or some agreed-upon relationship), or
adoption, who share the primary responsibility for reproduction and caring for members of
society
28. Feminism/Feminist The various individuals, theories, doctrines, and social movements
concerned with the experience of women, especially the oppression and unequal treatment of
women
29. Formal organization A large secondary group organized to achieve its goals efficiently
30. Gender The socially-constructed attitudes, meanings, beliefs, and behaviors associated with the
sex differences of being born male or female that are learned through the process of
socialization
31. Gift exchange See Reciprocity
32. Globalization The economic, cultural, and political interdependence and interconnectedness of
all nations in the planet, best captured in the definition by Roland Robertson: “the time-space
compression of the world and the increased consciousness o the world as a whole”
33. Government One of the institutions involved in governance; one of the four elements of the
state tasked to make, implement, and interpret law
34. Group Any number of people with similar norms, values, and expectations who regularly and
consciously interact
35. In-group A social group toward which a member feels respect and loyalty
36. Institutions Humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social
interactions; stable, recurring patterns of behavior; hence, political institutions are not the same
as political organizations
37. Innovation In Robert Merton’s “Strain Theory,” a type of deviance characterized by the use of
unconventional means rather than conventional means to achieve a culturally approved goal
38. Invention The process of combining existing cultural items into a form that did not previously
exist
39. Market transactions Profit-oriented impersonal exchanges
40. Matrilineal descent Kin relations are traced only on the mother’s side