Chapter 3 - Social Structure

CHAPTER 3

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

What is SOCIETY?

What exactly is SOCIETY?Several conditions to be met before people can be said to be living as one:

They must occupy a common territory. They must share the same government or other political authority. They must to some extent have a common culture and a sense of

membership in, and commitment to the same group. The people have something in common, a set of loyalties, and

sentiments , an esprit de corps. The people are organized in the sense that everyone has a function or

role to perform in an orderly manner. The group recruits its members by sexual reproduction and in addition

by migration. A member of the social group may sacrifice himself for the welfare of

the group, as for instance, he may die in defense of his group.

SOCIETY• is a population that occupies the same territory, is subject to

the same political authority, and participates in a common culture

• is a group of organized individuals who think of themselves as a distinct group who have something in common that binds them to unite as one

• consists of all the people who share a distinct and continuous way of life and think of themselves as one united people.

• is not only a group of people living together in a definite territory but is a social system of long established relationships with a certain way of life which people in it recognize and follow

STATUSES

• is a position in a group or society• ex: labor leader, dean of a college, choir

member, senator, broadcaster, bank manager• determines where that individual “fits” in a

society and how he or she should relate to other people

Ascribed statuses in-born statuses ex: gender and race

Achieved statuses earned statuses are those that result from our actions

Statuses are sometimes ranked with a social structure; namely,

Vertical Social Structures one is considered higher than the other ex: in countries like Philippines, America &

Britain Horizontal Social Structures

In these, the various statuses are merely different from each other, not higher or lower.

Despite our many statuses, we are usually influenced by only one status at a time when we relate to another person.

Master status could be determined by the nature of a

society or physical appearance

Subordinate status/statuses

Status Inconsistency• a situation in which aspects of an

individual’s status or statuses appear contradictory

Social Class• is a category of people of roughly

equivalent status in an unequal society

Its sociological concept is derived directly from the theater, and refers to the parts a person plays in society.

Specifically, a role is a set of expected behavior patterns, obligations and privileges attached to a particular social status.

Thus, the distinction between status and role is simple:

“You occupy a status, but you play a role.”

ROLES

• Role Expectations– is the basis of the actual content of our role

behavior– the generally accepted social norms that

prescribes how a role is ought to be played– these expectations may be at odds to our

role performance.

• Role Performance– the actual behavior of a person playing a

role

• Role strain– a situation in which contradictory

expectations are built into a single role

• Role conflict– a situation in which two or more of a

person’s roles have contradictory requirements

• is a unit of interacting personalities with an interdependence of roles and status existing between the members

• is a collection of people interacting together in an orderly way in the basis of shared expectations about each other’s behavior

Most social behavior takes place within and among groups that are constantly being formed and reformed.

GROUPS

2 Main Types of Groups:1. Primary Group

o consists of a small number of people who interact over a relatively long period on a direct, intimate basis

o ex: families, cliques of friends and peers, and close neighbors

o These groups are important building blocks of social structure.

2. Secondary Groupo consists of people who interact on a relatively temporary,

anonymous, and impersonal basiso ex: formal organizations, political parties, government

bureaucracieso They are increasingly important in large modern societies.

• is stable cluster of values, norms, statuses, roles, and groups that develops around a basic social need. ( See figure 3.1)

Every society must meet certain basic social needs if it is to survive and provide a satisfying life for its members.

INSTITUTIONS

Characteristics of Institutions:

1. Institutions tend to be resistant to change.

2. Institutions tend to be independent.3. Institutions tend to change together.4. Institutions tend to be the site of major

social problems.

Interaction is the basic “stuff” of social behavior. Society cannot survive without it. Given the enormous diversity of social interaction, sociologists have classified it into major types. They also discovered certain patterns of behavior in virtually all kinds of social interaction.

SOCIAL INTERACTION

Forms of Interactions:1. Exchange– is a transaction between two individuals, groups,

or societies in which one takes an action in order to obtain a reward in return

2. Competition – In a competitive interaction, each tries to achieve

that goal before the other does.– Competition is not the exact opposite of

cooperation, though.

3. Cooperation– is an interaction in which two or more individuals

work together to achieve a common goala. Spontaneous cooperation

is the oldest type of cooperationb. Traditional cooperation

brings down added stability to the social structure

c. Directed cooperation is based not on custom but on the directions of

someone in authorityd. Contractual cooperation

originates from voluntary action

4. Conflict— exists in all forms of social structure

In competition, the contestants try to achieve the same goal in accordance with commonly accepted rules. The most important of these rules is usually that competing parties should concentrate on winning the game and not on hurting each other. When competing parties no longer play by these rules, competition has become conflict. In conflict, then, defeating the opponent by hook or by crook, has become the goal.