Social Structure
Social Structure
• The underlying patterns of relations in a group.
• We carry a “social map” for situations that we have learned.
• Components:
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Culture
social class
social status
Roles
Groups
social institutions
• All components work together to maintain social order by
limiting, guiding, and organizing human behavior.
Social Status
• Social Status describes the position that a person occupies
in society or social group.
• Serve as guides for our behavior
• Sets limits on what we can and cannot do
• EX: son, daughter, teacher, student, worker
• Roles: An expected behavior associated with a particular
status.
• Occupy a status but you play a role.
• Ex: Status male; acting tough role
Cont.
• Ascribed Statuses: inherited at birth or receives involuntary later in
life
• race, sex, social class of parents
• Achieved Statuses: voluntary, earned or accomplished
• student, friend, spouse, dropout (positive or negative)
• “Status set”: all the statuses or positions an individual occupies.
• Social worker, mother, sister etc.
• Master Status: a position that strongly affects most other aspects of
a person’s life.
• sex, race, age)
• “Status inconsistency”: refers to a contradiction or mismatch
between statuses. (gas station attendant with a Ph.D.)
Roles
• Role Conflict: what is expected of us in one role is incompatible with
what is expected of us in another role; conflict between role.
• Roles: son, student, friend, worker
• Conflict: all want different things from you on the same day (visit
someone, b-day party, study, called to work)
• Role Strain: the same role presents inherent conflict; conflict within
a role
• Role: student
• Strain: do well
• Role exit: refers to the ending of a role, including the adjustments
people make when they face not “being” what they formerly were.
Social Institutions
• A system of statuses, roles, values, and norms that is organized to
satisfy one or more of the basic needs of society.
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Family
Economic Institutions
Political Institutions
Education
Religion
• Institutions of Family
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Statuses: mother, father, child #1, child #2
Role expectations: Dad & mom work, teenagers help, babies play, etc
Values: All for one, and one for all
Norms: Help in need
• Types of Societies
• Preindustrial: Hunter Gatherer and Agricultural Societies
• Industrial: shift of from production of food to manufactured goods.
• Postindustrial: economic activity centers on the production of information and services.
Gemeinschaft and Gesellshaft
Contrasting
Societies
• Gemeinschaft: Cmmunity
• “Intimate Community”:
• Ferdinand Tonnies
• Describes village life, the type of society in
which everyone knows everyone else.
• Example: Amish
• Believed that the new society was crowding
out family and friendships. This new type….
• Gesellshaft: Society
• “Impersonal Association”:
• Believed that the ties between families and
friends had shrunk in importance.
• Example: City Life
• Social structure set the context for what
we do, feel, and think, and ultimately,
then, for the kind of people we become.
Cultural Variations
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What cultural variations (differences)
exist in our American culture?
Subcultures: a goup with its own
unique values, norms and behaviors.
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Teenagers, ethnic groups,
motorcycle enthusiasts, Amish
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http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com
/2012/03/subcultures-among-us-theamish.html
Countercultures: A subculture who
rejects values, norms, and practices of
the larger society and replaces it with
a new set of cultural patterns.
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Satanists, motorcycle gangs and
the mafia.