Social Structure
Building Blocks of Social
Structure
Chapter 4, section 1
Pgs. 66-68
Building Blocks
 Humans
are social beings, we live and work in
groups and interact in predictable ways.
 Every society has a structure that guides human
interaction.
 This structure helps people know what is expected
of them in most social situations and what they can
expect from others.
Building Blocks
Social structure gives a society its enduring characteristics
and makes patterns of human interaction predictable.
 Social Structure means the network of interrelated statuses
and roles that guide human interaction.
 A Status is a social defined position in a group or in a
society.

Each status has attached to it one or more roles
 A role is the behavior-the rights and obligations-expected of
someone occupying a particular status.

Status
Each individual in society
occupies several statuses.
 An individual can be a
father, a teacher, a
husband, an African
American and a church
deacon all at the same
time.

A status set is all of the
statuses that a person
occupies at any particular
time.
 Statuses are ways of
defining where individuals
fit in society and how they
relate to others in society.

Ascribed and Achieved Status


Ascribed status: is assigned
according to qualities beyond a
person’s control.
They are based on a person’s
inherited traits or are assigned
automatically when a person
reaches a certain age.


You hold the status of teenager or
young adult because of your age.
Other examples: your age, race,
family heritage.


Achieved Status: individuals
acquire this through their own
direct efforts.
These efforts include special
skills, knowledge or abilities.


People have control over their
achieved statuses.
These can include husband, or
wife, parent, high school
graduate or athlete.
Master Status

For most people one status
tends to take rank above
all others. This status
plays the greatest role in
shaping a person’s life
and determining his or her
social identity. This is
called a Master Status.

These can be either an
achieved status or an
ascribed status.

Example:
Occupation
 Wealth
 Marital Status
 Parenthood

Role

Roles are the components
of social structure that
bring statuses to life.

You occupy a status, but
you play a role.
At home you play the role
associated with the status
of son or daughter.
 At school you play the
role of student.



Reciprocal roles are
corresponding roles that define
the patterns of interaction
between related statuses.
One cannot fulfill the role
associated with the status of
husband without having
someone else perform the role
that goes along with the status
of wife.

Examples doctor-patient, athletecoach, employee-employer.
Role Expectation/Role Performance


The socially determined
behaviors expected of a person
performing a role are called
role expectations.
Parents are expected to provide
emotional and physical
security for their children
Police officers are expected to
uphold the law.

In reality people’s role
performance-their actual role
behavior-does not always
match the behavior expected
by society.


Some parents mistreat the
children.
Even when someone tries to
fulfill a role in the manner
expected by society, actual
performances may fall short of
expectations.
Role Performance
 Role
performance is much like a play, but there are
many differences:
 Most
real life role performance occurs with planning.
 Real life performance is ad-libbed.
 We choose our own cues and responses.
Role conflict
Problems can arise in part
because each of us is
asked to perform many
roles, some of which are
contradictory.
 Sociologists call the
different roles are attached
to a single status as a role
set.


Role conflict: occurs when
fulfilling the role expectation
of one status makes it difficult
to fulfill the role expectations
of another status.

To be a good employee an
individual needs to go to work,
but to be a good parent, that
individual needs to stay home to
take care of a sick child.
Role Strain
 Role
strain on the other hand, occurs when a
person has difficulty meeting the role expectations
of a single status.
 The
boss who must maintain the morale of workers
while getting them to work long periods of overtime is
likely to experience role strain.
To deal with conflict and strain we set priorities and
segregate roles.
Social Institutions

When these statuses and roles are organized to satisfy one
or more of the basic needs of society, the group is called
social institution.
The basic needs of society include providing physical and
emotional support for its members, transmitting knowledge,
producing goods and services, and maintaining social control.
 Some scholars have focused on the major institutions of family,
the economy, politics, education, and religion, media, medicine
and science.
