According to sociologists, a society is a group of people with common territory, interaction, and culture. Social groups consist of two or more people who interact and identify with one another.
PluralismThe United States is a society composed of many groups of people, some of whom originally belonged to other societies. Sociologists consider the United States a pluralistic society, meaning it is built of many groups. As societies modernize, they attract people from countries where there may be economic hardship, political unrest, or religious persecution. Since the industrialized countries of the West were the first to modernize, these countries tend to be more pluralistic than countries in other parts of the world. Many people came to the United States between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Fleeing poverty and religious persecution, these immigrants arrived in waves from Europe and Asia and helped create the pluralism that makes the United States unique. AssimilationSome practices that are common in other societies will inevitably offend or contradict the values and beliefs of the new society. Groups seeking to become part of a pluralistic society often have to give up many of their original traditions in order to fit in—a process known as assimilation.
In pluralistic societies, groups do not have to give up all of their former beliefs and practices. Many groups within a pluralistic society retain their ethnic traditions.
EqualityIn a truly pluralistic society, no one group is officially considered more influential than another. In keeping with this belief, the United States does not, for example, put a legal quota on how many Italian Americans can vote in national elections, how many African Americans may run for public office, or how many Vietnamese Americans can live on a certain street. However, powerful informal mechanisms, such as prejudice and discrimination, work to keep many groups out of the political process or out of certain neighborhoods.
Did you know you can highlight text to take a note? x This shows grade level based on the word's complexity. [ kuh-myoo-ni-tee ] / kəˈmyu nɪ ti / See synonyms for: community / communities on Thesaurus.com This shows grade level based on the word's complexity. noun, plural com·mu·ni·ties. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. a locality inhabited by such a group. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists: the business community;the community of scholars;diversity within a college community;London's Jewish and Muslim communities. a group of associated nations sharing common interests or a common heritage: the community of Western Europe. Ecclesiastical. a group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule. Ecology. an assemblage of interacting populations occupying a given area. joint possession, enjoyment, liability, etc.: community of property. similarity; agreement; identity: community of interests. the community, the public; society: the needs of the community. See synonyms for community on Thesaurus.com QUIZ YOURSELF ON OPPOSITES OF RED BEFORE YOU TURN SCARLET We have a challenge that will make you blush: do you know the many words and ways to describe the opposite of red? Which of the following colors is used to symbolize AIR? TAKE THE QUIZ TO FIND OUT First recorded in 1325–75; from Latin commūnitās, equivalent to commūni(s) “common” + -tās noun suffix; replacing Middle English comunete, from Middle French, from Latin as above; see common, -ty2; 1. Community, hamlet, village, town, city are terms for groups of people living in somewhat close association, and usually under common rules. Community is a general term, and town is often loosely applied. A commonly accepted set of connotations envisages hamlet as a small group, village as a somewhat larger one, town still larger, and city as very large. Size is, however, not the true basis of differentiation, but properly sets off only hamlet. Incorporation, or the absence of it, and the type of government determine the classification of the others. com·mu·ni·tal, adjectivepro·com·mu·nity, adjective communistic, Communist Manifesto, Communist Party, communitarian, communitas, community, community antenna television, community association, community card, community care, community center Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022 A community is a social group whose members have something in common, such as a shared government, geographic location, culture, or heritage. Community can also refer to the physical location where such a group lives. It can refer to a town, city, village, or other area with a formal government whose residents share a nationality or culture, as in A group of town citizens decided to clean up the litter in their community. Community can also refer to the people who live in this area, as in Filipe was able to raise money for the city’s homeless shelter with help from the community. More generally, community can refer to a group that shares some trait or quality that separates it from the wider population as in Tracy was excited to find that the Muslim community in her city often held free talks on being a Muslim American. Example: Ria entered politics to help improve the lives of the people in her community. The first records of the word community comes from around 1325. It comes from the Latin commūnitās, meaning “joint possession or use.” A community has something in common, such as a geographic location or a shared culture. In terms of a specific location, community is a more general term than words like burrough, village, or city. When you refer to the community you live in, you could mean something as small as your neighborhood or as large as a metropolitan area. The sense of community that refers to a group of people with shared traits or qualities is frequently used when people talk about demographics. You have probably heard of polls or studies of “the Hispanic community” or “the Christian community,” for example. You’ll find this usage in academics, politics, business, and similar fields. The word community is common and is often used to refer to groups of people or the places where they live.
Is community used correctly in the following sentence? The charity group raised money to help local communities impacted by hurricanes. association, center, company, district, nation, neighborhood, people, public, society, state, colony, commonality, commonwealth, hamlet, locality, populace, residents, territory, turf, affinity
a group of people having cultural, religious, ethnic, or other characteristics in commonthe Protestant community a group of nations having certain interests in common the public in general; society common ownership or participation similarity or agreementcommunity of interests (in Wales since 1974 and Scotland since 1975) the smallest unit of local government; a subdivision of a district ecology a group of interdependent plants and animals inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other through food and other relationships C14: from Latin commūnitās, from commūnis common Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 A group of organisms or populations living and interacting with one another in a particular environment. The organisms in a community affect each other's abundance, distribution, and evolutionary adaptation. Depending on how broadly one views the interaction between organisms, a community can be small and local, as in a pond or tree, or regional or global, as in a biome. The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. FEEDBACK© 2022 Dictionary.com, LLC |