2,407 articles
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States: Indigenous captivity practices, European enslavement of Native people (2.5-5 million estimate), the Southeastern Indian slave trade of 1685-1715, and chattel slavery practiced by the Five Civilized Tribes until the 1866 treaties.
Slavery in India
Slavery in India spans ancient dāsa servitude, Mughal domestic and military slavery, colonial-era abolition by the Indian Slavery Act of 1843, and continuing debt bondage under the 1976 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.
Slavs
The Slavs are a European ethno-linguistic group speaking Slavic languages (Indo-European), first recorded by Byzantines as Sclaveni in the 6th century; divided into South, East, and West branches, with debated origins and ancient DNA evidence of 6th–8th century migration.
Slim Keith
Slim Keith, born Nancy Gross (some sources Mary Raye Gross), was an American socialite and style icon, wife of Howard Hawks, Leland Hayward, and Sir Kenneth Keith, and a Capote swan cut off by "La Côte Basque, 1965."
Sloane Ranger
Sloane Ranger, also Sloane or Sloanie, a British informal label for a young upper-class Londoner in country-style clothes; coined by Peter York in Harpers & Queen, October 1975, from Sloane Square plus the Lone Ranger, and codified in the 1982 Official Sloane Ranger Handbook.
Slovaks
Slovaci, a West Slavic nation native to Slovakia speaking Slovak; 85.8% of Slovakia's 2001 population, shaped by Hungarian rule, Czechoslovakism, and the 1993 dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
Slovenes
Slovenes are a South Slavic people of the Eastern Alps centered on Slovenia, speaking Slovene (about two million speakers). Defined by Slavic 6th–7th-century settlement, Carantania, Trubar's 1550 Reformation printing, Habsburg rule, Yugoslav statehood, and 1991 independence.
Snark subreddits
Snark subreddits, such as r/DuggarsSnark and r/fundiesnarkuncensored, are Reddit communities where snarkers criticize and gossip about a specific influencer, celebrity, YouTuber, or show, studied as anti-fandom.
Soccer mom
Soccer mom is a US informal term, coined about 1990-95, for a middle-class suburban mother who drives her children to soccer and other activities; it became a key 1996 election swing-voter label and later a cultural stereotype.
Social
Social: adjective for anything involving interaction among people. Covers social facts (Durkheim), individualism versus holism, social ontology, social structure, networks, and modern uses like social media and social capital.
Social capital
Social capital: the resources, trust, networks, and support people obtain through social connections. Key theorists Bourdieu, Coleman, Putnam; forms bonding, bridging, linking; measured via OECD's four interpretations.
Social class
Social class: groups sharing similar standing by wealth, income, education, family background, and occupation. Central concepts from Marx, Weber, and Bourdieu; measured by schemes like EGP and PISA's ESCS.
Social class in the United Kingdom
Social class in the United Kingdom: stratification by occupation, education, wealth, and culture, officially measured via NS-SEC since 2001, academically via the Goldthorpe scheme, and multidimensionally via the 2011-2013 Great British Class Survey's seven classes.
Social class in the United States
Social class in the United States divides Americans into upper, middle, and lower classes based on income, occupation, education, and wealth. The core middle class shrank from 35.5% of families in 1979 to 30.8% in 2024 while the upper middle class grew, and class shapes health, mobility, and political power.
Social exclusion
Social exclusion, also known as marginalization, is the process of preventing individuals or groups from full participation in economic, social, and political life, a concept that originated in France in 1974.
Social group
A social group, known in sociology as a sociological group, is any set of at least two people who interact regularly and share a sense of aligned identity.
Social impact assessment
Social impact assessment (SIA) is a systematic process of analyzing, monitoring, and managing the intended and unintended social consequences of planned interventions such as projects, policies, and programs.
Social networking service
Social networking service (SNS): online platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and X where users build profiles and connection lists. Defined by boyd and Ellison; began with SixDegrees.com in 1997; distinct from topical forums and social media generally.
Social organization
Social organization: the patterned arrangement of relationships, roles, groups, institutions, and networks coordinating a society, studied through functionalism, conflict theory, interactionism, network science, emergency-response frameworks, and digital platforms.
Social science
Social science: the study of society and human behavior, spanning disciplines such as economics, sociology, psychology, and demography; uses quantitative, qualitative, and experimental methods under human-subjects rules and informs public policy.
Social services
Social services: organized public and voluntary programs delivering cash and in-kind benefits across the life cycle, also called social protection or social security; three pillars (social assistance, social insurance, labour market programs), about 20% of OECD GDP in spending, and persistent non-take-up of eligible benefits.
Social status
Social status is an individual's or group's rank of respect and admiration in a social hierarchy, attained via dominance (coercion) or prestige (valued knowledge), signaled through cues like speech, appearance, and titles, and studied across psychology and Weberian sociology.
Social stratification
Social stratification is sociology's term for ranking people into hierarchical layers by wealth, income, education, race, and power, studied through caste and class systems, Marx, Weber, and Davis-Moore theory.
Social structure
Social structure: the stable arrangement of statuses, roles, groups, networks, and institutions organizing a society. Covers Durkheim's solidarity, Marx's base and superstructure, Weber's class, status, and power, and functionalist versus relational conceptions.
Social work
Social work is a practice-based profession and academic discipline promoting social change, social justice, human rights, and wellbeing. Known internationally through the IFSW 2014 global definition, it arose from 19th-century charity and settlement movements, with clinical licensure, NASW ethics codes, and about 728,600 US workers in 2022.
Socialite
Socialite: a wealthy, fashionable person famous for attending elite parties and events rather than for achievement; also called high-society or leisured-class figures; distinguished from celebrities and debutantes by lifestyle-based fame and externally applied labeling.
Society
Society: a population sharing a territory, culture, and political authority. Covers Lenski's societal types, social institutions, cohesion and inequality research, and UN data on exclusion, aging, and labor.
Sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution is the change over time of non-biological aspects of human society. Covers 19th-century unilineal evolutionism (Tylor, Morgan), the Boasian critique, modern cultural evolutionary theory, and gene-culture coevolution.
Sociology of religion
Sociology of religion: the empirical social-scientific study of religion in its social context, founded by Durkheim, Weber, and Marx; central debates cover secularization theory, religious market and rational choice models, and insecurity theory.
Solidarity
Solidarity, as coined by Émile Durkheim in The Division of Labor in Society (1893), means social cohesion, mechanical solidarity from shared likeness and repressive law, organic solidarity from specialized interdependence and restitutive law.