Social Studies - Glossary

1. Analyze: to examine the nature or structure of something, especially by separating it into its parts, to understand or explain it. For example, Researchers analyze the data collected in detail to make conclusions. 

2. Census: ?the process of officially counting something, especially a country’s population, and recording various facts. For example, a national census is taken every ten years.

3. Characteristics: typical feature or quality that something/somebody has. For example, all human languages share some common characteristics.

4. Chronological: (of a number of events) arranged in the order in which they happened. For example, facts should be presented in chronological order.

5. Citizen: a person who has the legal right to belong to a particular country. For example, the primary responsibility of a state is to protect its citizens.

6. Citizenship: the state of being a citizen and accepting the responsibilities of it. For example, the role of the education must be to prepare young people for citizenship. 

7. Civic: connected with the people who live in a town or city. For example, civic duties and responsibilities. 

8. Civilization: a society, its culture, and its way of life during a particular period of time or in a particular part of the world. For example, civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome. 

9. Climate: the regular pattern of weather conditions of a particular place. 

10. Community: all the people who live in a particular area, country, etc. when talked about as a group. 

11. Competencies: a skill that you need in a particular job or for a particular task. 

12. Constitution: the system of laws and basic principles that a state, a country or an organization is governed by. 

13. Culture: the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group. 

14. Democracy: a system of government in which the people of a country can vote to elect their representatives.  

15. Diversity:  the quality or fact of including a range of many people or things.  

16. Entrepreneurship: the activity of making money by starting or running businesses, especially when this involves taking financial risks; the ability to do this.  

17. Enumerate: to name things on a list one by one.  

18. Formative Assessments:  a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course.  The general goal of formative assessment is to collect detailed information that can be used to improve instruction and student learning while it’s happening. For example, exit slips, discussions etc.

19. Global Citizen: A global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world – and their place in it. They take an active role in their community and work with others to make our planet more peaceful, sustainable, and fairer.

20. Global Warming: ?the increase in temperature of the earth’s atmosphere that is caused by the increase of particular gases, especially carbon dioxide. 

21. Harmony: a state of peaceful existence and agreement. 

22. Implications: a possible effect or result of an action or a decision. 

23. Inclusion: the fact or policy of providing equal opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise not get them, for example people who are disabled or belong to minority groups. 

24. Inference:  something that you can find out indirectly from what you already know. 

25. Inflation:  a general rise in the prices of services and goods in a particular country, resulting in a fall in the value of money; the rate at which this happens. 

26. Inquire: to investigate, look into. For example, students will inquire the reasons for downfall of Mughal Empire.

27. Interconnected: to connect similar things; to be connected to or with similar things. For example, inflation is interconnected with poverty. 

28. Interdependence: the fact of depending on each other; the fact of consisting of parts that depend on each other. For example, there is economic interdependence between rural and urban areas. 

29. Interfaith harmony: mutual understanding, harmony and cooperation among people belonging to different faiths and religions. 

30. Investigate: to find out information and facts about a subject or problem by study or research.  

31. Latitude:  the distance of a place north or south of the equator (= the line around the world dividing north and south), measured in degrees.

32. Legislature:  a group of people who have the power to make and change laws. 

33. Longitude: the distance of a place east or west of the Greenwich meridian, measured in degrees. 

34. Manifesto: a written statement in which a group of people explain their beliefs and aims, especially one published by a political party to say what they will do if they win an election.

35. Multi-cultural: means consisting of or relating to people of many different nationalities and cultures.

36. Nationalism: a feeling of loving your country very much and being very proud of it; a feeling that your country is better than any other.  

37. Negotiation: formal discussion between people who are trying to reach an agreement. 

38. Norms:  standards of behaviour that are typical of or accepted within a particular group or society. 

39. Resilience:  the ability of people or things to recover quickly after something unpleasant, such as shock, injury, etc.

40. Responsibilities: the civil duties that each citizen is supposed to fulfill. It is believed that these responsibilities help make the country a peaceful and suitable place to live in.

41. Rights: the benefits and the allowances that a certain governing body owes to the citizens, residents, and the people whom they govern. Usually, these rights are found to exist in democracies, and in such cases, they are protected by the constitution.

42. Scarcity: shortage of something (resources). 

43. State: a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government. 

44. Summative Assessments: are used to evaluate student learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period—typically at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year. For example, end of unit exam or final term exam. 

45. Sustainability: the use of natural products and energy in a way that does not harm the environment.

46. Timeline: a horizontal line that is used to represent time, with the past towards the left and the future towards the right.

47. Tolerance: the quality of being willing to accept or tolerate somebody/something, especially opinions or behaviour that you may not agree with, or people who are not like you. 

48. Values: beliefs about what is right and wrong and what is important in life. 

49. Weather: the condition of the atmosphere at a particular place and time, such as the temperature, and if there is wind, rain, sun, etc.