Meaning & use
social consciousness
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Meanings
noununcountable
awareness of problems in society, such as unfairness or poverty, and a feeling of responsibility to help fix them.
Grammar: No plural or article: she has strong social consciousness.
Patterns
- social consciousness about something
- raise social consciousness
The film helped raise social consciousness about homelessness.
Young voters showed a growing social consciousness.
Her social consciousness led her to volunteer.
noununcountabletechnical
the shared ideas, beliefs and attitudes held by the members of a society.
Grammar: A sociological use: the social consciousness of an age.
Patterns
- the social consciousness of a community
Slogans entered the social consciousness quickly.
The war changed the social consciousness of a generation.
Writers influence the social consciousness of a nation.
Common combinations
- raise social consciousness
- The campaign aims to raise social consciousness about pollution.
- a sense of social consciousness
- He has a strong sense of social consciousness.
- develop social consciousness
- Schools should develop social consciousness in students.
- growing social consciousness
- There is a growing social consciousness among consumers.
- shape social consciousness
- Media can shape social consciousness.
Synonyms and how they differ
- social awareness
- Social awareness is slightly more everyday and focuses on knowing about issues rather than feeling responsible.
- social conscience
- Social conscience stresses a moral duty to act, while consciousness is more about awareness.
- public awareness
- Public awareness refers to how much the general public knows of a topic.
- civic mindedness
- Civic mindedness focuses on caring about community and local participation.
Opposites
Word family
- conscious adjective
- aware of something
- consciousness noun
- the state of being aware
- socially adverb
- in a way relating to society
- conscience noun
- inner sense of right and wrong
Commonly confused: social consciousness or social conscience?
social consciousness vs social conscience
A social conscience is the moral feeling of responsibility to society; social consciousness is the awareness itself.
Practice
The documentary was meant to ___ social consciousness about child poverty.
Choose one answer.
Raise social consciousness means increase awareness. Lower and cancel go against the aim, and spend does not collocate with consciousness.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “social consciousness”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.