While studying human society sociologists are interested in larger groups of people at the meso - and macro-levels, or those ones called social communities. There are a lot of definitions of such a phenomenon but theorists agree that members of the community should possess a similar quality such as age, gender, job, nationality etc. and consider similarity as one of the main distinctions of the community. Examples are natural-historical communities like tribes, families, nationalities, nations and races; mass groups like crowds, TV audience etc.
A more important distinction of the social community is social interaction between its members. Interactions may be more enduring that determines a long-term existence of communities such as nations, races, and less enduring that is typical for occasional communities such as crowds, lines, passengers etc. But even occasional community with weak ties has its patrimonial and specific distinctions, regulating collective behaviour.
Besides similarity and social interaction, a social community also suggests that the actions undertaken by its members are oriented by expectations of behaviour of other individuals in the community. It encourages people’s deeper solidarity that forms a cohered group – a basic element of the society. Judging by it, a social community may be defined as natural or social grouping of people characterized by a common feature, more or less enduring social relations, goal attainment, common patterns of behaviour and speculation.
A social class is also considered as a structural element of the society. Although approaches differ, in general the concept of a class is connected with people’s relation to the means of production and character of acquiring wealth under a market economy. The known examples of a class are the nobility, bourgeoisie and proletariat. In each class society there are fundamental and non-fundamental classes. Fundamental classes are distinguished by a dominating way to produce material wealth within the socio-economic system (feudal, capitalist etc), for instance, under capitalism its fundamental classes are the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Non-fundamental classes are available because the rests of the previous relations of production are still kept in the society or new ones are emerging.
A social layer is an assortment of people who are distinguished by their social status and who perceive themselves cohered by this community. A social status is one’s position (place) in the social structure of the society connected with other positions by the system of rights and obligations. The status of a teacher has its meaning only with regard to a student, not to a passer-by or doctor. The teacher should translate knowledge to the student, check up how knowledge is learnt and assess it etc. The student should regularly attend lectures, prepare for seminars, pass credits and examinations in time etc. In other words, the teacher and the student enter into social relationships as representatives of two large social groups, as bearers of social statuses.
Social status is often considered as the “standing”, the honour or prestige attached to one’s position in the society. In modern societies, occupation is usually thought of as the main dimension of status, but even in modern societies other memberships or affiliations (such as ethnic groups, religion, gender, voluntary associations, hobby) can have an influence. For instance, a doctor will have a higher status than a factory worker but in some societies a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant doctor will have a higher status than an immigrant doctor of minority religion.
Every person can have several social positions, or statuses called by R. Merton a status set. Among them there must be the main status; it is a status used by the individual to identify himself or by other people to indentify a definite person. For males it is their occupation (a lawyer, banker, worker), for females it is a place of living (a housewife) but there exist other variants. It means that the main status is of relative character as it is not directly associated with gender, race or occupation. The main status is one that determines the person’s way and style of life, patterns of behaviour, friends etc.
Sociologists differentiate between social and personal statuses:
· social status identifies the person’s position in the society which he occupies as a representative of a large social group (occupation, class, nationality, gender, age or religion);
· personal status is the person’s position in a small group identified by how the members of the group estimate and percieve him due to his personal qualities. Being a leader or outsider, winner or loser means to occupy a certain position in the system of interpersonal, not social relations.
Statuses are also distinguished as ascribed and achieved ones. Ascribed status is a social status a person is given from birth or assumes involuntarily later in life. For example, a person born into a wealthy family has a high ascribed status.
Achieved status is a sociological term denoting a social position that a person assumes voluntarily which reflects personal skills, abilities, and efforts. Examples of achieved status are being an Olympic athelete, a criminal, or a teacher.
Achieved statuses are distinguished from ascribed statuses by virtue of being earned. Most positions are a mixture of achievement and ascribment; for instance, a person who has achieved the status of being a doctor or lawyer in Western societies is more likely to have the ascribed status of being born into a wealthy family.
The mentioned statuses are considered basic statuses which include kinship, demographic, economic, political and occupational statuses. There are also a number of non-basic statuses such as those of a passer-by, driver, reader, TV-watcher, witness of a road casualty etc. They are temporal positions and their rights and obligations are not registered as they are hardly fixed. No doubt, the status of a professor determines much in life of a certain person; as for his status of a patient, it does not.
If a social status identifies a particular position of an individual in a given social system, a social role represents the way that he is expected to behave in a particular social situation. Each individual plays many roles in the society; in one situation he is a boss, in another – a friend, in the third – father etc. All roles that a person plays are called a role set.
Roles are identified as ascribed if we are forced to play and as achieved if we choose to play them. The first is a role of a son or daughter in relations with a parent, the second – a subordinate with a boss.
Roles have two further dimensions: the prescribed aspect of a role, or role expectations, and role performance. The prescribed element in any role provides a norm-based framework governing the way people are generally supposed to interact. People expect one conduct from a banker and quite another – from an unemployed person. Role performance is what a person really performs within this framework. Each time a person who performs a certain role builds his behaviour according to the expectations of the social milieu. If his actual behaviour differs from what is expected, it means that conformity to culturally appropriate roles and socially supported norms is not created. Behaviour, which doesn’t correspond to the status, is not considered an appropriate role. For instance, if somebody came into the classroom, introduced himself as a teacher but then started painting the wall or washing the windows, his behaviour is a role but not that of a teacher.
In the society various social control mechanisms exist to restore conformity or to segregate the nonconforming individuals from the rest of society. These social control mechanisms range from sanctions imposed informally – for example, sneering and gossip – to the activities of certain formal organizations, like schools, prisons, and mental institutions.
Social institutions
Another structural element of the society is social institutions. These are not buildings, but organizations, or mechanisms of social structure, governing the behaviour of two or more people. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions. For example, the institution of the family and marriage, of religion etc.
American sociologist Erving Goffman (1922-1982) asserts that an institution is a place, like a building, in which activity of a particular kind regularly goes on. He uses this term for somewhere that embraces everything that its inhabitants do – where they live, work, play, sleep, day in day out. Members of the society have a similar mental concept of right and wrong, order and relationships, and patterns of good (positive values).
As the broadest organizers of individuals’ beliefs, drives and behaviours, social institutions evolved to address separate needs of the society, for instance, the military institution evolved out of the need for defense. Each society has a number of needs but those of fundamental character are only five. Consequently, there are five fundamental social institutions ensuring social needs in:
· procreation of the population (that of the family and marriage);
· social order and defense (the state, political institutions);
· getting means for existence (the production, economic institutions);
· translating knowledge, socialization of the growing-up generations, training personnel (education in its broad meaning including science and culture);
· solving spiritual problems, looking for sense of life (religion).
So social institutions can be defined as organized patterns of beliefs and behaviours centered on basic social needs, adapting to specific segment of the society in question.
American sociologist T. Veblen is the founding father of institutionalization as he was a first to give a detailed description of social institutions in his book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). He showed that evolution of the society is a process of natural selection of social institutions which by their nature present habitual ways to react to stimuli created by external changes.
Early mankind is known for promiscuity or non-regulated sex relations that could result in genetic degeneration. Gradually such relations began to be limited by bans. The first ban was that of incest, forbidding sex between kinship relatives, such as mother and son, brother and sister etc. The given ban is the first social norm, considered the most important in history. Later, other norms regulating sex relations appeared. People learnt to survive and adapt to life by organizing their relations with norms. Norms of family and marriage behaviour translated from generation to generation became collective habits, customs, traditions that regulated people’s way of life and their thinking. Those who broke such traditions (deviants) were punished (sanctioned). This is the way how the most ancient social institution of the family and marriage might have emerged. And this is the way why norms and values have become structural units of the society.
There are three terms to be differentiated in the related area such as “institute”, “institution” and “institutionalization”. To institute something is to bring it into use, set it up, or establish it by practice. A father might speak of instituting some changes in his family, perhaps forcing the children to be respectful, and not giggle at his words. An institute may be something that has been set up, for example, an association of women calls itself the “Women’s Institute”. If institution is spoken about, it is meant a totality of customs or practices that was established by the members of a particular society, by God, or just an established and respected practice (with no reference to its origin). Institutions are used about parts of the society, not the whole.
As a society is created by the interaction of people, they establish ways of interacting that are acceptable or unacceptable. When a way of behaviour is both emotionally satisfying and leads to rewards from others, it becomes institutionalized. The way by which behaviour, custom or practice is institutionalized, is called institutionalization. For instance, institutionalization of any science means working out various standards, laws, setting up research institutes, laboratories, faculties, departments at universities, also publishing textbooks, monographs and journals, training specialists in the area etc.
Thus, the concept of a social institution defines an aggregate of people whose activities in a certain area are regulated with inflexible systems of social, legal or other controls by organizations originally created for beneficial purposes and intents. As any structure, it is presented by its structural elements although some sociologists argue against, defining them as attributes.
Structural elements of the society’s fundamental institutions
| Institutions | Fundamental roles | Physical features | Symbolic features |
| Family and marriage | MotherFather Child | House Plot of landFurniture | RingsEngagement Marriage ceremony |
| Economy | Employer EmployeeSeller Buyer | EnterpriseOfficeShopBank | MoneySecurities Trade mark Marketing |
| Politics | Head of the stateMember of parliament Law-maker Subject of law | Public buildings and places | Flag ConstitutionHymn Law |
| Religion | Priest Parishioner Bishop | CathedralChurchChapel | ChristBibleConfirmation |
| Education | Teacher Student Professor | SchoolUniversity Textbook | Qualification Diploma Degree |
At the same time fundamental institutions are divided into smaller units called non-fundamental institutions. For instance, economy can’t operate without such practices as production, distribution, market, management, accounting, etc.; the institution of the family and marriage includes such practices as martenity, vendetta, sworn brotherhood etc. So non-fundamental institutions are social practices or customs, for example, vendetta or celibacy can be identified either as a tradition or settled practice. Both are right as the fundamental institution includes both traditions and practices.
If the purpose of fundamental institutions is to satisfy the basic needs of the society, non-fundamental institutions perform specialized objectives, serve particular traditions or satisfy non-fundamental needs. For instance, a higher school as a social institution meets the social need in training highly qualified specialists.
By its character of organization, institutions are subdivided into formal and informal ones. The activities of formal institutions are regulated by strictly settled directions such as law, charter, instructions etc. Formal institutions are often bureaucracies in which the functions of bureaucrats are impersonal, i. e. that their functions are performed independently of their personal qualities.
In informal institutions playing a very important role in interpersonal interaction, their aims, methods, means to achieve objectives are not settled formally and not fixed in the charter. For instance, organizing their leisure time, teenagers follow their rules of game, or norms which allow them to solve conflicts. But these norms are fixed in public opinion, traditions or customs, in other words, in informal sanctions. Very often public opinion or custom is a more efficient means to control an individual’s behaviour than legislative laws or other formal sanctions. For instance, people prefer being punished by their formal leaders than being blamed by colleagues or friends.
Both formal and informal institutions have functions. To function means to bring benefit. So, the function of a social institution is the benefit that it contributes to the society. In other words, the outcomes or end-products of the system, institution and the like are referred to as its function. If besides benefit there is damage or harm, such actions are referred to as dysfunction. For instance, the function of a higher education is to train highly qualified specialists. If the institution functions badly due to some circumstances (lack of personnel, poor teaching, or methodical and material basis), the society will not get specialists of the required level. It means that the institution dysfunctions.
Functions and dysfunctions can be manifest if they are formally declared, perceived by everybody and obvious, and latent which are hidden, or not declared. To manifest functions of a secondary school those of getting literacy, enough knowledge to enter university, vocational training, learning basic values of the society may be referred to. Its latent functions are getting a definite social status which enables to become ranked higher than those who are illiterate, making stable friends etc.
Functions and dysfunctions are of relative, not of absolute character. Each of them can have two forms – manifest and latent. In one and the same time both a function and dysfunction may be manifest for some members of the society and latent – for the other ones. For instance, some people consider important to obtain fundamental knowledge at university, others – to establish necessary links and relations. Latent functions differ from dysfunctions by that they don’t bring harm. They only show that the benefit from any institution (system etc) can be larger than it is declared.