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Civic engagement
Civic engagement, also called citizen participation, is participation in community and political life to improve conditions or shape policy; measured through behaviors like voting and volunteering and attitudes, with OECD-defined policy levels and U.S. CEV tracking.
Civil marriage
Civil marriage: marriage under state law, not religious authority. Also called civil wedding; related to marriage registry, Marriage Act 1836. Distinguished from religious marriage and civil partnership by state registration and its legal consequences.
Civil Partnership Act 2004
Civil Partnership Act 2004 (c. 33), UK statute assented 18 November 2004 and in force 5 December 2005, created civil partnership for same-sex couples with rights parallel to marriage; extended to opposite-sex couples from 2 December 2019 after Steinfeld and Keidan.
Civil Rights Act of 1866
Civil Rights Act of 1866, enacted April 9, 1866 over President Andrew Johnson's veto; first major U.S. law passed over a veto. Declared birthright citizenship and equal contract, court, and property rights; became template for the Fourteenth Amendment; survives as 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-1982.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Public Law 88-352), signed by Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964, bans discrimination by race, color, religion, sex, and national origin in employment, public accommodations, and federally funded programs, and created the EEOC under Title VII.
Civil rights movements
Civil rights movements are organized campaigns for equal legal treatment, from the US Black freedom struggle of the 1950s-1960s (Montgomery boycott, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965) to Black Lives Matter and 2025-2026 voting rights protests, with parallel women's, LGBTQI+, and global movements.
Civil union
Civil union: a legally registered relationship giving couples some or all marriage rights without marriage; also called registered partnership (partnerschap, PACS). First law Denmark 1989; spread through Europe and US states; largely displaced by same-sex marriage.
Civilization and Its Discontents
Civilization and Its Discontents (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur) is Sigmund Freud's 1930 essay on the conflict between instinct and civilization, covering the oceanic feeling, instinctual renunciation, guilt, and the Eros-versus-death-drive struggle.
Claire Wineland
Claire Wineland, also known as Claire Lucia Wineland, was an American activist with cystic fibrosis who founded Claire's Place Foundation and died in 2018 at age 21.
Clan
Clan: a unilineal or ambilineal descent group claiming common, often mythical, ancestry without demonstrated genealogical links (Gaelic clann). Distinct from a lineage; typically exogamous; genetic studies of Central Asian clans support shared clan ancestry but not tribal ancestry.
Clan Campbell
Clan Campbell (Clann Chaimbeul), a Scottish Highland clan of Argyll whose chief is the Duke of Argyll (Mac Cailein Mòr); rose under Robert the Bruce, became Earls of Argyll in 1457, and is linked to the 1692 Glencoe massacre.
Clan Donald
Clan Donald (MacDonalds, Clann Dòmhnaill), Scotland's largest Highland clan, descended from Donald of Islay, grandson-line of Somerled; produced the Lords of the Isles (1336-1493) with branches Sleat, Clanranald, Glengarry, Keppoch, Glencoe.
Clan Douglas
Clan Douglas (Dubhghlas) is a powerful Scottish Lowland clan from Douglas Water, Lanarkshire, first recorded c. 1175-1199. Its Black (Earls of Douglas) and Red (Earls of Angus) branches differ in Y-DNA; the chiefship is dormant, with no chief recognized by the Lord Lyon.
Clan Fraser of Lovat
Clan Fraser of Lovat, a Gaelic Highland clan (MacShimidh) centred on Beauly, Inverness-shire, descending from Sir Simon Fraser; chiefs as Lords Lovat from about 1460, seat Beaufort Castle, motto Je Suis Prest.
Clan Gregor
Clan Gregor (Clan MacGregor, Mac Griogair), an ancient Highland Scottish clan of the Siol Alpin, motto 'S Rioghal mo Dhream; proscribed by James VI in 1603, restored 1774, famous for Rob Roy.
Clan Kerr
Clan Kerr, a Scottish Border riding clan of Roxburghshire with Ferniehirst and Cessford branches, motto Sero sed serio, chief the Marquess of Lothian, famed for the Scott feud and Culloden service.
Clan Leslie
Clan Leslie, a Lowland Scottish clan of Aberdeenshire, the Garioch and Fife; motto Grip Fast, three buckles arms; chiefs tied to Earls of Rothes; founder tradition Bartolf, Hungarian noble of 1067; notable member Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven.
Clan Mackenzie
Clan Mackenzie (Clann Choinnich), a powerful Scottish Highland clan of Kintail and Ross, motto Cuidich 'n Righ; chiefs became Earls of Seaforth (1623) and Cromartie (1703); last Seaforth chief died 1815.
Clan MacLeod
Clan MacLeod, in Gaelic Clann Leóid, is a Scottish Highland clan of the Hebrides named for Leod, a Norse-Gael born about 1215, whose chiefs have held Dunvegan Castle on Skye for over 750 years.
Clan Stewart
Clan Stewart (Gaelic Stiubbard), Scottish clan of the High Stewards of Scotland, Breton-Norman origin under David I; royal house from Robert II (1371) to Queen Anne (1714), with Highland branches Appin, Atholl, and Balquhidder.
Clans of Baganda
Clans of Baganda (ebika bya Buganda): the over fifty patrilineal, exogamous totemic clans of Uganda's Buganda kingdom, tracing origins to Kintu, Kimera, Ssese, and Buddu migrations, each led by a mukulu w'ekika.
Clara Vegas
Clara Vegas (Clara Federica Vegas Goetz, born 2002 in Chacao) is a Venezuelan beauty queen, actress, and model, Miss Venezuela 2025 and daughter of Miss Venezuela 1990 Andreína Goetz; she represents Venezuela at Miss Universe 2026 in Puerto Rico.
Class: A Guide Through the American Status System
Class: A Guide Through the American Status System is Paul Fussell's 1983 Summit Books bestseller describing nine American status castes, taste-based class indicators, category X, and prole drift; distinct from Jilly Cooper's 1979 Class.
Classical conditioning
Classical conditioning, also called Pavlovian or respondent conditioning, is a type of associative learning in which a neutral stimulus paired with a reflex-eliciting stimulus comes to elicit a learned response.
Classical test theory
Classical test theory (CTT) is a psychometric framework modeling an observed test score as true score plus random error, used to analyze reliability and validity of tests.
Classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom
Classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom: self-identified ethnic group categories used in UK censuses and official statistics since 1991, with 18 categories in England and Wales, 19 in Scotland, 16 in Northern Ireland, and five high-level groups.
Classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, also called classification of Native Americans, is how states and censuses define and count Indigenous populations across the Americas.
Claudette Colvin
Claudette Colvin (1939–2026), American civil rights pioneer arrested March 2, 1955 at age 15 for refusing a Montgomery segregated bus seat nine months before Rosa Parks, and plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle.
Clement Payne
Clement Osbourne Payne (1904–1941) was a Trinidad-born Barbadian labor organizer whose deportation in July 1937 triggered four days of rioting known as the 1937 Disturbances.
Clerical celibacy
Clerical celibacy is the church-law requirement that clergy be unmarried and continent, mandatory in the Latin Catholic Church since the Gregorian Reform and Lateran councils, while Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches ordain married priests but choose celibate bishops.