Social Structure and Social Interaction: Understanding Society and Everyday Life

1. Chapter 4 Social Structure and Social Interaction

2. Chapter Outline • Intertwining Forces: Social Structure and Social Interaction • Social Structures • Types of Societies • A Case Study: When Institutions Die • Social Interaction and Everyday Life • Identity Work

3. Intertwining Forces: Social Structure and Social Interaction • Example: Racial inequality in the U.S. • Social Structure Forces: • There aren’t enough good-paying jobs near nonwhite communities. • Social Interaction Forces: • Racial inequality is reinforced when police officers assume nonwhites are more likely than whites to be criminals.

4.  Social Structure • Recurrent patterns of relationships that revolve around: • Status • Role • Institutions

5.  Five Basic Social Institutions • Family, to rear children. • Economy, to produce and distribute goods. • Government, to provide defense. • Education, to train new generations. • Religion, to supply answers about the unknown or unknowable.

6. Structural-functional Theory of Institutions • The order and stability institutions provide offers people a “liberating dependence.” • Patterned solutions are present for the most common of everyday problems.

7. Conflict Theory of Institutions • Patterned norms hold people in thrall to norms that may only oppress us. • Stability and order, for example, may require the oppression of women and the inequality of socially defined races.

8. Hunting, Fishingand Gathering Societies • Economically the least complex. • Division of labor is based on age and sex. • Economic activity is an adaptation to the natural environment, and does not produce surpluses.

9. Horticultural Societies • Began when people began to cultivate crops. • Allowed some in the society to pursue art, writing, and warfare. • Status hierarchy began to develop.

10.  Agricultural Societies • Began 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. • Surpluses became far greater and a complex class system developed. • Kings, priests, merchants, soldiers, and peasants were among the new social classes.

11. Industrial societies • Arose only a few hundred years ago. • Animal and human labor was replaced by complex energy technologies. • A new class order reflected a highly specialized division of labor.

12. The Tragedy of the Ojibwa Ojibwa society before 1963: • Retained the way of life of a hunting and gathering society. • Centered on the family. • Almost no contact with whites.

13. The Tragedy of the Ojibwa In 1963, Ojibwa society changed forever: • Canadian government moved them from reservation lands to a prepared community. • The result was a collapse of institutions that depended on their traditional ways. • A 1999 decision allowed their land to be clear cut. • Their future remains uncertain.

14. Sociology of Everyday Life: Assumptions • The problematic nature of culture. • Roles must be negotiated to go along with the cultural script. • The I/Me dialectic. • Interactions are a dialectic between human expression and social forces of restraint. • Biography. • Social actors bring unique biography to each interaction, so interactions tend to be unique.

15. Identity Work • Managing identities to support and sustain our self-esteem. • Consists of two general strategies: • avoiding blame • gaining credit

16. Two Ways of Avoiding Blame •  Accounts. Tell stories to justify behavior. Sometimes, they are excuses; sometimes, they are justifications. • Disclaimers. Efforts to evade blame or judgment before an act. We explain that is not our fault, but….