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| Sociology Terms –A
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| Altruism |
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Altruism is the unselfish concern of one individual for the welfare of another. William Hamilton (1970) suggests altruistic acts are generally aimed at close relationships such as parents, siblings, grandparents and grandchildren. The closer the relationship the more likely altruistic behaviour will occur. The willingness to behave in an altruistic manner decreases according to Hamilton, as the relationship becomes more distant.
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| Anarcho Syndicalism |
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Anarcho-syndicalism is a current of thought and principles which appeared at the end of the 19th century. It has these fundamental characteristics:
The goal of organizing the world's workers for the defense of their immediate interests, and to obtain improvements in their quality of life. To form unions to achieve this.
The creation of a structure in which there are neither leaders nor executive power.
The desire for the radical transformation of society, a transformation to be brought about by the means of a Social Revolution. Without this goal of transformation, anarcho-syndicalism does not exist.
Anarcho-syndicalism has the conviction that the causes of social inequality and injustice, are based on power, on the principle of authority, which puts a minority in charge, disposing of the wealth produced by society and maintaining its privileges by means of violence, and the obedient majority, has no more than what it needs to survive and must suffer the violence of the minority. Consequently, anarcho-syndicalism, in order to eliminate injustice opposes the principle of authority, decision-making by the elites, and the ultimate representation of power: the State.
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| Androcentrism |
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Androcentrism : A tendency towards male bias in institutions or a tendency to disregard the female contribution to society and culture. The concept of androcentrism was first articulated in the early twentieth century by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who wrote in The Man-Made World.
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| Anomie |
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Durkheim defined the term anomie as a condition where social and/or moral norms are confused, unclear, or simply not present. Durkheim felt that this lack of norms--or preaccepted limits on behavior in a society--led to deviant behavior.
Anomie = Lack of Regulation / Breakdown of Norms
From Durkheim’s theory of anomie is a condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals, whose behavior and desires are unregulated and unguided, leading to social upheaval and individual suffering. Anomie is a social instability. In this situation people have their own way of thinking, beliefs and culture, which increase social upheaval because they are not united and associated to solve problem together so they suffer individually and can’t connect to the society. When the anomie condition is created social norms are break down. To solve this kind of situation society recreates their social norms to guide the behavior of its individual member.
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| Apartheid |
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The term "global apartheid" describes the current international system of minority rule that keeps Africa poor. The term apartheid (from the Afrikaans word for "apartness") was coined in the 1930s and used as a political slogan of the National Party in the early 1940s. Apartheid met with both international condemnation and spurred a resistance movement among black South Africans. Apartheid was defined as a crime in 2002 by the International Criminal Court; the United Nations had declared it a crime against humanity in 1973, though many nations still not have signed on to the convention.
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| Aristocracy |
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Aristocracy is a name associated with Western Europe and the old days. There was, for example, up until the midpoint of the Twentieth Century, an automatic assumption among the powers that be that there were two distinct classes: Aristocracy and Commoners. Aristocracy is a form of government in which rulership is in the hands of an "upper class" known as aristocrats. (The Greek origins of the word aristocracy imply the meaning of "rule by the best".). This inevitably means those with the power to hold wealth, and to define who shall remain in poverty and slavery.
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| Atavism |
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An atavism is the reappearance of a lost character specific to a remote evolutionary ancestor and not observed in the parents or recent ancestors of the organism displaying the atavistic character. Atavism helps to explain the rarity of the criminal type in woman. The very precocity of prostitutes – the precocity which increases their apparent beauty – is primarily attributable to atavism. Due also to it is the virility underlying the female criminal type; for what we look for most in the female is femininity, and when we find the opposite in her we conclude as a rule that there must be some anomaly. And in order to understand the significance and the atavistic origin of this anomaly, we have only to remember that virility was one of the special features of the savage women. – believed to be found in suspicious individuals, atavistic human beings were throwbacks to earlier stages of evolution and were not sufficiently mentally advanced for successful life in the modern world. Characteristics are long arms, large lips, crooked noses, an abnormally large amount of body hair, prominent cheekbones, eyes of different color. Atavism implies the notion of born criminals.
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