Types of Societies
What is a Society?
• Society: people living within defined territorial
borders.
• a society meets its members’ needs for
• food
• shelter
• not all societies are the same, they have
developed since prehistory, and develop to this
day.
Hunting and Gathering
Hunting and Gathering
• People survive by hunting animals and
gathering edible foods.
• Usually these people are nomadic
• they do not have permanent homes.
• Their societies tend to be small, less than 50
people.
• Members tend to share their possessions
Hunting and Gathering
• Generosity and hospitality are valued
• “Play nice, or you’re on your own.”
• There is usually no clear leader
• Genders have clearly defined roles:
• Men hunt
• women gather and watch the children
• This society has more leisure time than any other
Horticultural Society
• This society feeds its people by planting
crops.
• The shift from H&G to Horticulture was
known as the agricultural revolution.
• Planting crops can support many more
people.
Horticultural Society
• This society gives rise to
large families
• more family members
means more people to
help grow food
• The family is very
important.
• Communities can grow up
to two thousand people.
• People do not have to
move as often.
• The work is very hard.
Pastoral Society
• Pastoral societies herd animals for food and materials.
• Those in a horticultural society may have
domesticated animals, but they do not depend on
them for food like pastoralists.
• They herd animals that can provide milk and meat.
• Cattle, Camels, Goats, Sheep
• They typically engage in trade with others to obtain
grain to feed their herds.
Pastoral Society
• Men are responsible for
the herds
• That puts them in
charge of the food
• Women have a low
status in these societies
• Surplus food means that
inequality can occur
• some will have more
than others
Pastoralist Society
• Because the food is taken care of by a few
members of the community, more people
are free to try other things like making
non-food items
• pottery, clothing, weaponry
• These non-food items encourage trade.
• The Family unit is the primary guiding
force in this society.
Agricultural Society
• These are like a combination between pastoralism
and horticultural societies
• Agricultural societies use plows and animals in
order to make farming more efficient.
• Plows destroy and bury weeds, while digging up
nutrient-rich soils that are deeper under ground.
• Their crops can then grow more effectively.
• Agricultural Societies produce a lot of food!
Agricultural Societies
Agricultural Societies
•
Tremendous amounts of food can be produced by relatively few
people.
•
Those not engaged in food production can study, and engage in more
advanced work.
•
politics
•
medicine
•
music or art
•
Metal work
•
More food means that cities can grow
•
Government begins to take over as the guiding force in agricultural
societies
Denpasar, Bali
• Societies like this exist today. Just
because agriculture is their primary, does
not mean that they do not build cities.
This is Denpasar, Bali.
Industrial Society
• With the invention of machinery, people could
make goods more efficiently.
• Machines need people to run them
• People can generally make more money in
factories than in the field planting crops.
• When more people are working in factories in
the city than in rural areas producing food, you
have an Industrial Society.
Industrial Society
• Marked by People moving to cities to find
work. This is called Urbanization.
• Work is performed by machines, people are
there to run the machines. This is called
Mechanization
• The Job skills needed in an industrialized
society require more education.
• School becomes very important.
Industrialized Societies
• Two Sociologists were interested in
Industrialized Societies. The first was
Ferdinand Tönnies.
• Ferdinand Tönnies divided preindustrial
and industrialized societies
• Gemeinschaft: communities
• Gesellschaft: society
Gemeinschaft
• German for Communities
• Characterized by:
• Tradition
• kinship
• intimate relationships
• close friendships
Gesellschaft
• German for Societies
• Characterized by:
• Weak Family ties
• competition
• less personal relationships
• The second sociologist was Emile
Durkheim
• He divided societies by social solidarity
• the degree to which a society is
unified
Social Solidarity
• Mechanical Solidarity
• if division of labor is simple (most people
doing the same type of work) they develop
mechanical solidarity
• They tend to think and act alike, and value
conformity.
• They place the group above the individual,
and emphasize tradition and family
Organic Solidarity
• In a more advanced or industrialized society,
there are a variety of jobs that must be done.
• There are workers, police, butchers, bakers,
and candlestick makers.
• Everyone relies on the others, so there is a
great deal of interdependence.
• Social Unity is achieved through complex,
specialized statuses that make the society
interdependent.
Postindustrial Society
• Postindustrial Society is where society
makes a switch
• producing goods through manufacturing
Services and Information
Postindustrial Society
• Sociologist Daniel Bell Identified five
major features:
Five Features of Post
Industrial Society
• Most of Labor force is employed in services
rather than manufacturing or agriculture
• White collar work replaces most blue collar work.
• Technical Knowledge is the key organizing
feature
• Technological change is planned and assessed
• Reliance on computer modeling.