Virtuous English AcademySocial Issues — B2 English Vocabulary
This B2 vocabulary list gathers 50 upper-intermediate English words about social issues — inequality, identity and community. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
- #B2
- #DailyLife
- #Flashcards
- #Definitions
- #Examples
- #Pronunciation
Using social issues words in English
Writing about society requires accuracy about people, and the most consequential trio on this page is immigrant, emigrant and migrant — three words describing the same person from three different vantage points. This page also fixes the prepositions that attach to prejudice and discriminate, and notes the convention English has settled on for describing disability.
What to watch out for
Immigrant arrives, emigrant leaves, migrant moves
The same person is an emigrant from the country they left and an immigrant in the country they entered — the prefixes carry the direction, e- out and im- in. Migrant is the neutral term for someone moving, without specifying which end you are standing at. A refugee is different again: someone forced to flee, with a specific status in international law.
Prejudice against, discriminate against
Both take against: prejudice against older applicants, discriminate against a group. Note that discriminate has a second, entirely positive meaning of telling things apart — discriminate between two shades — which is where discriminating taste comes from. Prejudice is normally uncountable when it means bias in general, but countable for a specific one: her prejudices.
Person-first is the current convention
Contemporary British usage prefers a person with a disability or disabled people to older phrases that reduce a person to a condition. The disabled as a group noun still appears in official writing but is increasingly avoided. Note also that benefit in the singular means an advantage, while benefits in British English usually means state welfare payments.
Words learners mix up
Writing about society goes wrong when a word that names a structure is swapped for one that names an attitude, or when a term for a shortage of money is used for a shortage of status. These three clusters keep them apart.
Keeping people apart, and bringing them in
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| segregation | Separation of groups, historically enforced by law or policy. The strongest word here, and it implies a system. | Residential segregation persisted long after the law changed. |
| exclusion | Being kept out of ordinary social and economic life. Broader than segregation and not necessarily deliberate. | Exclusion from digital services affects the oldest most. |
| integration | Groups coming to participate in one shared society. Historically expects the newcomer to do the adapting. | Language classes as a route to integration. |
| inclusion | Changing the institution so that everyone can take part. The emphasis is on what the system does, not the individual. | An inclusion policy covering recruitment and promotion. |
| multiculturalism | The position that distinct cultures should be maintained rather than merged. A policy stance, and contested. | Debate about multiculturalism dominated the decade. |
The pair worth understanding is integration against inclusion: the first asks the person to fit the institution, the second asks the institution to change. That is why inclusion has largely replaced the older word in policy writing, and using them as synonyms flattens a real disagreement.
Poor in money, or poor in standing?
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| deprivation | Lacking the material things considered normal — housing, heating, food. Measured, and usually of an area. | One of the ten most deprivation-affected wards. |
| underprivileged | Having fewer opportunities and advantages than others. About life chances rather than current income. | Bursaries aimed at underprivileged applicants. |
| destitute | Having nothing at all — no money, no home, no means of getting either. An extreme, not a comparison. | The family arrived destitute. |
| hardship | The experience of severe difficulty, usually financial. Uncountable, and it names what is suffered rather than who suffers it. | The fund exists to relieve hardship. |
| underclass | A group held to be permanently outside the labour market and the mainstream. Contested, and many sociologists reject it. | The idea of a stable underclass is disputed. |
Deprivation and underprivileged are comparative — they mean less than the surrounding standard — while destitute is absolute. That is why deprivation indices rank places and destitution counts people. Treat underclass carefully: it carries a judgement about permanence that the evidence rarely supports.
Prejudice, stereotype, stigma, taboo
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| prejudice | The attitude itself: a judgement formed before the evidence. Held by a person, and takes against. | Deep prejudice against the accent. |
| stereotype | The fixed mental picture of what a group is like. A belief about characteristics rather than a feeling of hostility. | The stereotype survives every study that contradicts it. |
| stigma | The social shame attached to a condition or circumstance. Attaches to the thing, and is felt by the person carrying it. | The stigma around asking for help. |
| taboo | A subject that may not be discussed at all. About what can be said, not about what is believed. | Money remains a British taboo. |
These describe four different locations: prejudice sits in a person, a stereotype in a shared picture, stigma on the condition, and a taboo on the conversation. A stereotype can exist without hostility, and a stigma can persist after the prejudice behind it has faded.
Collocations that sound natural
Charity reports, policy papers and news features draw on a narrow set of pairings. Learning them as units is far faster than assembling them word by word, and they turn up constantly in B2 reading tasks.
grassroots
a grassroots campaigngrassroots activismat grassroots levelgrassroots support
One word, and used attributively before a noun. It means starting from ordinary members rather than the leadership.
stigma
the stigma attached toreduce the stigmathe stigma surroundingtackle stigma
The fixed preposition is attached to or surrounding — never the stigma of a person.
solidarity
show solidarity witha gesture of solidarityin solidarity withinternational solidarity
Uncountable, and the preposition is always with.
asylum
claim asylumseek asyluman asylum seekergrant asylum
Uncountable and takes no article in these phrases. An asylum seeker has applied; a refugee has been recognised.
civil rights
the civil rights movementcampaign for civil rightsa civil rights lawyer
Plural only in this sense, and lower-case except when naming the specific American movement.
advocate
a leading advocate ofadvocate for changeadvocate reform
Stress differs by word class: the noun is AD-vo-kət, the verb AD-vo-kate. British English lets the verb take a direct object — advocate reform — where American English often adds for.
Formal, neutral or informal?
This is the topic where getting the register wrong causes offence rather than confusion. Several of these words have been quietly replaced in careful British writing, and knowing which is part of writing about society competently.
- slumAvoid of real placesNow widely regarded as demeaning to the people who live there. Development and planning writing uses informal settlement, and historical writing keeps slum for the nineteenth-century context where it belongs.
- underprivilegedSoftening · datedA euphemism that avoids naming poverty directly, and it is falling out of favour for that reason. Current policy writing prefers concrete terms — low-income, on free school meals, living in deprivation.
- delinquencyDated · institutionalNearly always in juvenile delinquency, and it now sounds of mid-twentieth-century social work. Contemporary writing says youth offending.
- alcoholismShifting clinical termStill widely understood, but health writing increasingly uses alcohol dependence or alcohol use disorder, and describes a person with an alcohol problem rather than an alcoholic.
- ethnicCareful useAn adjective for shared cultural heritage, and everyone has one — so ethnic people and ethnic food are both incoherent, since they treat the majority as the default. Correct uses attach it to something: ethnic group, ethnic minority.
- normNeutral · technicalA shared standard of expected behaviour. Countable in sociology — social norms — and distinct from normal, which describes what is common rather than what is expected.
- empowerOverusedTo give someone genuine power or confidence to act. So heavily used in marketing and mission statements that it is now often empty; if you can say what power was actually transferred, say that instead.
- humanitarianFormal · specificConcerned with relieving human suffering, especially in a crisis: a humanitarian corridor. Not a general synonym for kind, and distinct from charitable, which concerns giving.
Sentences to try
Four frames for an essay on society. Check the direction word and the preposition in each.
- She emigrated from Poland in 2004 and is now an immigrant in Ireland.
- The law makes it illegal to discriminate against anyone on those grounds.
- Prejudice against the group remains widespread.
- The charity works with people affected by homelessness and deprivation.
Questions about social issues vocabulary
What is the difference between an immigrant, an emigrant and a migrant?
They describe the same movement from different positions. An emigrant is someone leaving their country — the e- prefix means out. An immigrant is someone entering a new one — im- means in. So a person who moves from Italy to Canada is an emigrant in Italian sources and an immigrant in Canadian ones. Migrant is the neutral, direction-free term, often used for people who move seasonally or repeatedly. A refugee is someone forced to flee persecution or conflict and has a defined legal status.
Is it "discriminate against" or "discriminate to"?
Discriminate against: It is unlawful to discriminate against employees on grounds of age. The preposition is fixed, and prejudice takes the same one: prejudice against immigrants. Note that discriminate has a second, neutral-to-positive meaning of perceiving a difference, and that one takes between: The test discriminates between the two conditions. The adjective discriminating follows this positive sense and means having good judgement, as in a discriminating reader.
How should I write about disability in English?
Current British convention favours person-first or identity-first phrasing rather than language that reduces someone to a condition: a person with a disability, or disabled people, both of which are widely accepted. Older constructions such as the handicapped or suffering from a condition are now avoided in careful writing. Preferences vary between communities and change over time, so where a source or an organisation states its own preference, follow it. In academic work, mirroring the terminology of the field you are writing in is the safest approach.