6,078 articles
Scandal
Scandal: a public moral conflict in which a widely publicized norm violation becomes a matter of public concern, with media, historical, and digital dynamics distinguished by publicity, denunciation, and sanction.
Scapegoating
Scapegoating means holding an individual or group unfairly responsible for a misfortune or another's wrongdoing, from the Leviticus 16 ritual goat, and drives prejudice, pogroms, and witch-hunts.
Schadenfreude
Schadenfreude, from German Schaden (harm) + Freude (joy), is pleasure at another's misfortune, an emotion distinct from gloating and sadism; studied since the OED's 19th-century entry, triggered by deservedness, envy, and rivalry, and linked to ventral striatum reward activity.
Schedule
A schedule, or timetable, is a basic time-management tool listing the intended times of tasks, events, or actions, used by individuals and organizations to meet goals within a set time.
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, also known as Dalits and Adivasis, are constitutionally designated disadvantaged groups in India, beneficiaries of legislative, employment, and education quotas since 1950.
Scheduled castes in Karnataka
Scheduled castes in Karnataka are 101 communities listed in the 1950 Constitution, representing 17.15 percent of the population, and hold 18 percent of Gram Panchayat positions.
Scheduled castes in Punjab
Scheduled castes in Punjab: 37 constitutionally listed Dalit communities, India's highest SC population share (31.9% in 2011), including Ad-Dharmis, Mazhabhis, Valmikis and Ravidasis, with Punjab-specific sub-categorised reservation and cultural assertion through deras.
Schema (psychology)
Schema (psychology): a structured packet of prior knowledge guiding perception, comprehension, and memory; rooted in Kant, Bartlett (1932), and Piaget, formalized by Rumelhart, critiqued for weak testability, and linked to vmPFC-hippocampus networks.
Schizoposting
Schizoposting is internet slang for posting memes as though one were having a mental breakdown, drawing on schizophrenia and conspiracy themes; it originated on 4chan in 2016 and spread widely after 2019.
School bullying
School bullying is repeated, unwanted aggressive behavior among school-aged children involving a power imbalance, occurring physically, verbally, relationally, or online. It affects over 30% of students globally, and school-based prevention programs reduce perpetration by roughly 18-19% and victimization by 15-16%.
School counselor
School counselor: master's-level certified educator delivering academic, career, and social/emotional programs in pre-K-12 schools, guided by the ASCA National Model; recommended 250:1 caseload versus a 372:1 national ratio, with meta-analytic effect size 0.30.
Schuylkill notes
Schuylkill notes: small folded conspiracy-theory notes, also called the Schuylkill Notes mystery papers, found in sealed food packaging, clothing pockets, and on Pennsylvania trails since about 2019; authorship unknown, FDA and FBI attention, insertion replicated in-store.
Scientific racism
Scientific racism, also called race science, uses the authority of science to argue that races form a hierarchy; it flourished from the 1800s and is now discredited.
Scopophilia
Scopophilia, Freud's term for the pleasure of looking, a component sexual drive subdividing into voyeurism and exhibitionism; central to Laura Mulvey's 1975 male gaze theory of cinema.
Scotch-Irish Americans
Scotch-Irish Americans, also called Ulster Scots Americans, are Americans descended from Protestant settlers, mostly of Scottish origin, who settled in Ulster and migrated to colonial America in the eighteenth century.
Scott Alexander
Scott Alexander is the pen name of Scott Siskind, a Bay Area psychiatrist and rationalist blogger who wrote Slate Star Codex (2013-2020), deleted it during a New York Times naming dispute, and relaunched as Astral Codex Ten.
Scott MacFarlane (journalist)
Scott MacFarlane is an American broadcast journalist, a CBS News correspondent from 2021 to 2026 known for January 6 Capitol riot coverage, now chief Washington correspondent at MeidasTouch and an independent Substack journalist.
Scottish Americans
Scottish Americans are Americans claiming Scottish or Scots-Irish ancestry; 5.3 million reported Scottish ancestry in the 2020 US Census (1.6%), with colonial-era settlement, 19th-century peak immigration, and wide diaspora estimates of 40 to 80 million.
Scottish clan
Scottish clan, from Gaelic clann (children): Highland and Islands kinship group led by a chief, dating from the 11th to 12th centuries, a minority structure alongside Lowland families; suppressed after 1745, revived as heritage with invented clan tartans.
Scottish people
Scottish people: residents of Scotland defined in official statistics by self-described national identity rather than ethnicity. 65.5% identified as Scottish only in the 2022 census; 12.9% had a minority ethnic background; Scots and Gaelic are the indigenous languages.
Scottish Rite
The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is a Masonic degree system (4°–32°, honorary 33°) governed by Supreme Councils, originating in France despite its name, with Southern (1801) and Northern (1813) US jurisdictions.
Scotty Bowers
Scotty Bowers, also known as George Albert Bowers, was an American former U.S. Marine and Hollywood gas station attendant who arranged liaisons for stars from the 1940s.
Scout Motto
Scout Motto: "Be Prepared," the motto of the Scout Movement defined by Robert Baden-Powell in Scouting for Boys as readiness in mind and body to do one's duty; used since 1907, shared by WAGGGS, translated into dozens of languages.
Scouting
Scouting: global non-formal educational youth movement founded by Robert Baden-Powell (Brownsea Island camp, 1907; Scouting for Boys, 1908), now about 60 million members via WOSM (176 NSOs) and WAGGGS; distinct from talent scouting in sports.
Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders
The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) is a 41-item questionnaire completed by a child and a parent to screen for anxiety disorders in children and adolescents.
SCUM Manifesto
SCUM Manifesto, by Valerie Solanas (Society for Cutting Up Men), is a 1967 self-published radical feminist tract calling for eliminating the male sex; it gained notoriety after Solanas shot Andy Warhol in 1968.
Sealing (Mormonism)
Sealing (Mormonism): LDS temple ordinance binding spouses, children, and generations for eternity, based on Joseph Smith's 1843 revelation, including proxy sealings for the dead, adoption sealings ended in 1894, and divorce cancellation rules.
Sealioning
Sealioning is a trolling and harassment tactic of relentless, superficially polite demands for evidence, coined from David Malki's 2014 Wondermark comic "The Terrible Sea Lion" and named during GamerGate; it exhausts targets and undermines their authority.
Sean Eldridge
Sean Eldridge, American political activist, Freedom to Marry communications and political director (2010-2011), OutRight Action International board member, NY LEAD co-founder, and 2014 Democratic House candidate in New York's 19th District; husband of Chris Hughes.
Seattle Freeze
Seattle Freeze: term for Seattle residents' polite but distant social culture, coined by Julia Sommerfeld in the Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine in 2005, supported by civic-engagement rankings and studied as a self-fulfilling stereotype.