Sociology Vocabulary Flashcards
The reduction of a dead human remains to its essential inorganic elements by use of fire.
Cremation
The tendency of off-spring to move away from the area in which they were born.
Neo-localism
Must-behavior which dictates the individual must abstain from certain acts dealing with death.
Taboos
The acquiring of the culture by a person through deliberate instruction by other members of that society.
Direct Learning
Arrangements between a funeral establishment and family which designates details of a funeral service, including the selection of merchandise, prior to the death of the person.
Pre-need Programs
The belief that the created is united with the creator at death.
Doctrine of Atonement
An all-inclusive term used to encompass all funerals and/or memorial services.
Funeral Rite
Funeral rites with the body NOT present.
Memorial Service
A household or family unit created by related nuclear families and/or friendships.
Modified Extended Family
The emotional attitude that all cultures are equal and pertinent.
Cultural Relativism
The science of social groups; the processes that tend to maintain or change these forms of organizations and the relations between groups and individuals.
Sociology
Behavioral patterns which are observable by others.
Overt Conduct
A funeral rite which may be construed as being identifiable with a preliterate society.
Primitive Funeral Rite
Rites with the body present.
Funeral
A funeral rite which deviates from the normal or prescribed.
Non-traditional Funeral Rite
Like abstract patterns of and for living and dying, which are identifiable in all cultures.
Cultural Universal
A division, or smaller identifiable unit of a culture, connected to that culture by common traits, having unique traits to itself.
Subculture
Existential statements about the physical and social world.
Beliefs
The creation of a system which governs through departments and subdivisions managed by sets of officials following an inflexible routine.
Bureaucratization
A household or family unit consisting of one man and one woman married to each other and their children, if any.
Nuclear Family
The offspring of a specific set of parents.
Issue
Any of the basic divisions or groups of mankind, distinguished by customs, characteristics, languages, rather than physical characteristics of race.
Ethnic
Categorization of people by money, prestige and power; a ranking of social status (position) in groups such as upper, middle and lower class.
Social Stratification
A household or family unit consisting of father and mother and all their children (except married daughters), their son’s wives and children (except married daughters).
Extended Family (Joint Family)
Social behavior as dictated by the tradition of the people.
Customs
Male and female have equal rights, duties, and governing power.
Egalitarian
Any event performed in a solemn and prescribed manner.
Rite
An event which allows those who have something in common with each other to deal with one another in regard to that which they share.
Social Function
Of or characteristic of the present or recent times; not ancient, often used to designate certain contemporary tendencies.
Modern
Two unrelated adults of the opposite sex sharing the same living quarters.
Cohabitants
Dealing with agriculture, farm based. The locale of the extended (joint) family system.
Agrarian
The study of death, derived from the name Thanatos, Greed god of death.
Thanatology
The sate of quality of being mobile; the ability to move from place to place readily, or to move from class to class; either up or down.
Mobility
A culture developed before the invention of writing, and hence, leaving no written record.
Pre-literate Society
An instrumental action dealing with death, that is also expressional and that may or may not be charged with symbolic content expression, among other things, the attitudes of the participants and possible onlookers (passive participants) who may be regarded as co-beneficiaries.
Ceremony (Ritual)
Living or happening in the same period.
Contemporary
A social grouping in which members possess roughly equivalent culturally valued attributes.
Class
The father rules the family; power is passed to the oldest male child.
Patriarchal
Specified methods of procedure.
Rules
The family into which one is born.
Family of Orientation (Family of Origin)
Individual crafting of products is replaced by manufacture of goods utilizing mass production techniques.
Industrialization
The change from rural to urban in character.
Urbanization
A process by which a person learns the norms of his culture by observation of others in his or her society.
Indirect Learning
A culturally entrenched pattern of behavior made up of: (1) sacred beliefs, (2) emotional feelings accompanying the beliefs, and (3) overt conduct presumably implementing the beliefs and feelings.
Religion
The emotional attitude that one’s own race, nation, group, or culture is superior to all others.
Ethnocentrism
Things to which socially created meaning is given.
Symbols
A funeral rite that follows a prescribed ritual or ceremony dictated ether by religious belief or social custom.
Traditional Funeral Rite
A group of persons forming a single community with some interests in common.
Society
Behaviors which are construed as somewhat less compulsive than mores of the same society and do not call for a strong reaction from the society if violated.
Folkways
The mother rules the family; a woman holding a position analogous to that of a patriarch.
Matriarchal
The method by which the social values are internalized (learned).
Enculturation (Socialization)
A must-behavior not necessarily a basic or important pattern of a people (related to death) but one which is enforced by those governing; a rule of action prescribed by an authority able to enforce its will.
Law
A household or family unit created by one male and one female and the children from their previous marriages and may include children from the present marriage.
Blended Family
A funeral rite that is adjusted to the needs and wants of those directly involved; one which has been altered to suit the trends of the times.
Adaptive Funeral Rite
A situation in which a person or entity is unknown.
Anonymity
Pertaining to demography, the science of vital statistics, or of births, deaths, marriages, ect. of populations.
Demographic
A household or family unit consisting of one adult, either male or female, and his/her children.
Single Parent Family
Must-behavior, the basic and important patterns of ideas and acts of a people as related to treatment of the dead, which calls for strong reaction from the society if violated.
Mores
Consists of abstract patterns (the rules, ideas, beliefs shared by members of society) of and for living and dying, which are learned directly or indirectly.
Culture
The family established by one’s marriage and the production of children.
Family of Procreation
Any disposition of a human remains which is completely devoid of any form of funeral rite at the time of disposition.
Immediate Disposition
Ceremonies centering around transition in life from one status to another (ex: Baptism, marriage and the funeral).
Rites of Passage
A funeral rite that is in essence devoid of religious connotation.
Humanistic Funeral Rite
A process involving all activities associated with final disposition
Funeralization
The upward or downward movement of a person or family within the social classes of their society.
Social Mobility
