Example:
Returns to education:  The phrase, "returns to education" refers to the future benefits that result from schooling.  These benefits may accrue to the individual (for example, in terms of higher income or improved occupational opportunities) or they may be public benefits (such as higher literacy rates, increased rates of civic participation, or voting).  Empirical evidence shows that there are positive individual and public returns to additional years of schooling in the United States and in most industrialized countries, though some of these benefits level off after persons attain some college.  Typically, returns are estimated for additional years of schooling, though research shows that there are ‘jumps' in individual returns associated with degree completion (eg., completing college is better than going for 3 years).  The two primary causal mechanisms that are thought to produce positive returns to education are (1) that school teaches valuable skills or information; and (2) that schooling serves as a signaling device about underlying individual qualities.  Empirical evidence is mixed about which mechanism is most important.
Related Concepts: 
Education, meritocracy, stratification, human capital.
Sources: 
Cheeseman-Day, Jennifer and Eric Newburger. 2002. "The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings." Current Population Reports, P23; No. 210. Washington, D.C. Census Bureau.

Stark, Rodney.  2007.  Sociology.  Pp. 445-479.  Belmont, CA:  Thompson/Wadsworth.

Key Concepts

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• Sociological Imagination
• Empirical Evidence
• Social Species
• Free Rider
• Innumeracy
• Social Desirability
• Population and Sample
• Socialization
• Norms
• Social Reproduction
• Social Mobility
• Stratification
• Ideal Type
• Group Solidarity
• Labor Market
• Selectivity
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• School Culture
• Contest Mobility/sponsored Mobility
• Equality of Opportunity/Equality of Outcome
• Self-fulfilling Prophecy
• Looking-glass self
• Socially Constructed
• Experiment
• Types of Intergenerational mobility (inheritance, structural, and exchange)
• Returns to Education
• Prestige
• Ascribed and Achieved Attributes
• Social Network
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• Small World
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• Local and Cosmpolitan Networks
• Balance Theory
• Unstable Triads
• Dissonance
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• Economic and Social Exchange
• Norm of Reciprocity
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• Electronic Communication Technlogies
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• Collective Behavior
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• Payoff Matrix
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• Biographical Availability
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