Table Of ContentThe SAGE Dictionary of
S O C I O L O G Y
STEVE BRUCEand STEVEN YEARLEY
00-Bruce-3321-Prelims.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page i
The Sage Dictionary of Sociology
00-Bruce-3321-Prelims.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page ii
00-Bruce-3321-Prelims.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page iii
The Sage Dictionary of Sociology
Steve Bruce and Steven Yearley
SAGE Publications
London ●Thousand Oaks ● New Delhi
00-Bruce-3321-Prelims.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page iv
© Steve Bruce and Steven Yearley 2006
First published 2006
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research
or private study,or criticism or review,as permitted under
the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act,1988,this
publication may be reproduced,stored or transmitted in
any form,or by any means,only with the prior permission
in writing of the publishers,or in the case of reprographic
reproduction,in accordance with the terms of licenses
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.Inquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be
sent to the publishers.
SAGE Publications Ltd
1 Oliver’s Yard
55 City Road
London EC1Y 1SP
SAGE Publications Inc.
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks,California 91320
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
B-42,Panchsheel Enclave
Post Box 4109
New Delhi 110 017
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 0 7619 7481 4
0 7619 7482 2
Library of Congress Control Number Available
Typeset by C&M Digitals (P) Ltd,Chennai,India
Printed on paper from sustainable resources
Printed in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press Ltd,Trowbridge,Wiltshire
00-Bruce-3321-Prelims.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page v
Contents
Preface vii
A 1
B 16
C 26
D 60
E 80
F 101
G 118
H 129
I 142
J 160
K 162
L 165
M 179
N 206
00-Bruce-3321-Prelims.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page vi
contents
O 217
P 224
Q 249
R 252
S 266
T 298
U 308
V 313
W 316
X 321
Y 322
Z 323
Bibliography 324
[vi]
00-Bruce-3321-Prelims.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page vii
Preface
We would like to welcome readers to our new dictionary.It has been written with a
number of aims in mind.First,we have tried to ensure that nothing said in any entry
is more obscure than the term it is supposed to explain.It is always frustrating to look
something up only to find that the definition is less understandable than the original
concept.Second,and not always easy,we have tried to ensure that we really understand
what we are saying; newcomers to the discipline may find it reassuring that we are
sometimes perplexed by the work of our colleagues.Third,we have aimed for consis-
tency of comment.Most comparable reference works are written by large teams and
what is said in one entry often jars with what is said in another.All of our entries are
joint productions which,while they do their best to explain fairly their subjects,often
express our preferences.Fortunately neither of us is terribly doctrinaire.
A common weakness of technical reference works is that while they address igno-
rance of the matter in hand,they assume too much general knowledge.We have tried
to take nothing for granted;in particular we have made a point of briefly explaining the
origins of ordinary language terms.Although our prose is always correct, it is never
pompous or overly formal and we have even allowed humour to intrude.
Last,we have tried to keep entries relatively brief.We have not listed all the works
of the authors mentioned or gone into lengthy biographical details.In an age of Internet
search engines,such information is readily available.This dictionary offers readers an
accessible and lucid starting point for their enquiries and we hope people will find it a
pleasure to use.
We would like to take this chance to thank our colleagues.Steve Bruce is very grate-
ful to David Voas and Tony Glendinning for help with the statistics entries. Steve
Yearley is similarly appreciative of the help of Andy Tudor with the entry on Anthony
Giddens and grateful to Phil Stanworth who persistently excused the borrowing of his
books without permission.
00-Bruce-3321-Prelims.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page viii
01-Bruce-3321-Ch.A.qxd 11/18/2005 3:20 PM Page 1
A
ABSOLUTE POVERTY Also known as predictability. While this fits the history of
subsistence poverty,this is an idea of poverty western Europe,in eastern Europe and other
derived from the minimum requirements for parts of the world absolutism retarded rather
subsistence:what a person must have to live than encouraged progress.
and to make a living.
ABSTRACTED EMPIRICISM C. Wright
Mills in The Sociological Imagination (1959)
ABSOLUTE RATES OF MOBILITY We can
derided social scientists who allowed the pri-
describe social mobility in absolute or rela-
mary task of understanding to be subverted
tive terms. The absolute rate of mobility is
by technical issues of data collection and
the proportion of people in a particular
analysis. Mills thought his colleagues misled
social class who move up or down in the
by a desire to imitate the natural sciences.
socio-economic hierarchy. Relative social
Excessive concern with the internal validity
mobility is the proportion of one social class
of statistical techniques and the assumption
that moves up or down compared with the
that if it could not be quantified,it was not
proportion of another class that moves.The
evidence,meant that what passed for sociol-
distinction is important because the two
ogy was actually closer to alchemy: elegant
measures can give a very different impression
but pointless.Worse,because the survey data
of the degree of social mobility.
favoured by empiricists related to indivi-
duals (e.g. their attitudes or their demo-
ABSOLUTISM This denotes a political graphic characteristics), the importance of
regime in which the ruler (usually a social structure was under-estimated.Mills’s
monarch) is not constrained in the exercise critique is a useful caution against losing
of power either by custom or by rule of law, sight of the purpose of research, but its
and which has an effective centralised blanket application as an argument against
administration so that the ruler’s will can be quantitative research is improper.Empirically-
turned into action.The idea plays an impor- minded historical sociologists (such as
tant part in models of political evolution. Charles Tilly) and students of social mobility
Max Weber saw the absolutist state as a (such as John Goldthorpe) have ably demon-
progressive stage between feudalism and strated that it is possible to combine statisti-
modern capitalism:it created a bureaucratic cal and technical sophistication in data
administration,gradually gained a monopoly collection and analysis with insightful theory
of the legitimate use of force,and used that and a due appreciation of the role of social
force to impose law and order and hence forces.
