Social Structure

1. Social Structure

2. Social Structure • The underlying patterns of relations in a group. • We carry a “social map” for situations that we have learned. • Components: • Culture • social class • social status • Roles • Groups • social institutions • All components work together to maintain social order by limiting, guiding, and organizing human behavior.

3. 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

4. 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.)

5. 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.

6. Social Institutions • A system of statuses, roles, values, and norms that is organized to satisfy one or more of the basic needs of society. • Family • Economic Institutions • Political Institutions • Education • Religion • Institutions of Family • 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.

7. Gemeinschaft and GesellshaftContrasting 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.

8. Cultural Variations • What cultural variations (differences) exist in our American culture? • Subcultures: a goup with its own unique values, norms and behaviors. • Teenagers, ethnic groups, motorcycle enthusiasts, Amish • http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2012/03/subcultures-among-us-the-amish.html • Countercultures: A subculture who rejects values, norms, and practices of the larger society and replaces it with a new set of cultural patterns. • Satanists, motorcycle gangs and the mafia.