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]]>Social roles refer to the set of behaviors that are expected of individuals within social institutions. Society is like a stage and individuals are like actors within a society whereby, they have to play different roles within different social institutions. Each individual hold different status within distinct institutions of society. They have to perform set of roles associated with their ascribed or achieved status within a particular institution. For instance, within institution of family one may hold the status of brother or sister, son or daughter, father or mother. However, at work he/she could be a bank manager, janitor or president of the country. Whereby, parents’ responsibilities are to fulfill their children need of affection, nourishment, protection, education etc… whereas, children are supposed to respect and obey their parents. A person who occupy the status of father at home might be bank manager at work. At office he has to perform set of duties in accordance with his occupied status such as, supervision, hiring and training staff as well as, grow branch revenue.
Moreover, formal norms and customs of a given society specify social status and roles of individuals. Social Norms and customs vary from society to society. Individuals have to perform set of duties that are linked with his/her adhered status in accordance with societal norms and customs. Moreover, social norms and customs of societies do change with the passage of time. Due to which statuses and roles of individuals’ change as well. Not long ago current modern societies had differentiated the roles of individuals on the basis of gender for instance, within institution of family mother was supposed to perform household duties such as, taking care of children, cooking, cleaning etc… whereas, Father was supposed earn livelihood in order to support his family financially. Though, with the passage of time social structure of these societies evolved. As a result gender biased norms were eliminated and replaced by the norms according to which division of labor was determined based on individuals level of education and acquired skill set rather than their biological differences.
As discussed earlier an individual plays different roles within different social institutions. Sometimes, more than one role is associated with an individual status in a given institution; which is called as role set in sociology. For example an individual who occupy the status of field supervisor within a non-governmental organization is supposed to conduct awareness sessions, baseline survey, focus group discussions, and training sessions and formulate new strategies for the prevention of particular problem within a given community. These responsibilities are the role set of field supervisor within non-governmental organization.
Individual play different roles in different social institutions. When these roles come in conflict with one another is known as role conflict. Suppose if the Owner of an oil factory hires his friend to manage his business. Due to his friend maladministration company profit declines. As a businessman or owner he ought to fire his manager but as a friend he could not take away his friend livelihood.
When individual is stressed out due to excessive responsibilities associated with his statuses within different instructions of society is called role strain. Suppose a women may hold the status of teacher and single mother with in a society. As a teacher at school her role expectations are to prepare and submit progress report to the school board, train new hired staff, prepare notes and teach students. Whereas, within institution of family as a single mother; she is supposed to make lunch for her children, drop them to school, help them in their homework etc… She might be stressed due to her overlapping roles and may not get enough time to manage both her social and professional life. Which implies that, she is experiencing role strain.
Each individual plan to achieve a certain social status within a society, it might be to become a lawyer, doctor or engineer. He starts preparing to achieve that status via anticipatory socialization. However, after attaining desired status he may not get satisfaction and may decides to quiet his current status and try to obtain new status. For the attainment of new status an individuals has to perform new roles as well as abandon old ones. Abandoning old roles and initiating new responsibilities is known as role exit. For example a lawyer may not be happy with his current job and want to join Private Corporation as a business’s development officer. In order to attain new status he has to join business school and obtain professional degree in business administration. As well as, he has to quit his law practice or job.
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]]>The term primary group is coined by C.H Cooley in his book “social organization”. According to C.H Cooley, primary group is a small group, the characteristics of primary group is intimate face to face association and cooperation. Members of Street gang, family members living under same roof and students sharing a same room in hostel, can be considered as the primary groups. According to MacIver and Page, collection of individuals who are in relationship with each other is called primary group. It is called primary because the members of the group are emotionally attached with one another. They share the similar ways of life and interests. Family, close childhood friends and love relationships are the example of primary group. Individuals’ emotions, ideas, habits and beliefs develop in primary group.
The concept of secondary group was given by Maciver. Secondary groups are large in size and there is no intimate relationship amongst the individuals. The interaction among members is completely contractual and impersonal. Workplace and large educational institution are the examples of secondary group. In school teacher and student do interact but their relationship is solely based on teaching and learning. Therefore, it can be said that the relationship is merely mean to an end. Work place is another example of secondary group. Employees working in an organization interact with one another frequently but their relationship purpose is just to achieve the organizational goal.
Individual feeling of belongingness to a group is known as in-group. Out-group is a group to which an individual does not belong or the group other than his own. Members of in-group may feel threaten from out-group, furthermore, they may not agree with the ideology of the group or may be because the other group is different from their group culturally or racially. The size of the group can be as narrow as teenager’s football team or as wide as entire society. This “we and they feeling” between the groups are termed by William Graham Sumner in 1960 as in-group and out-group. For example if there is cricket match between Pakistan and India and India wins, to which Indians will say, we won the match and they lost. However, Pakistanis will say, we lost and they won. Therefore, for Indians, Pakistan is out-group and for Pakistanis India is out group. This relationship may exist between two states, teams, political organizations, ethnic groups and business organizations.
Primary group and in-group have impact on the behavior of an individual. The group an individual sees as a criterion for evaluating himself and his behavior is known as reference group. If an individual is inspired from street gang and wants to become a part of it. He will dress like them, try to behave like them and hangout where the gang do. If a person is inspired from a book club and he wants to join it. He will start reading the books which the members of book club is reading and will show interest in their discussion and take part in their discussions. Reference groups provide normative function by formulating and enforcing code of conduct. To get an approval of a group an individual have to follow the dictates of a group. Another function of reference group is comparison function. An actor will compare himself with the members of reference group (group of actors).
Groups make alliance with other groups as it grows larger, for similar purpose or objective. Coalition groups can be narrow and broad. NATO is the best example of coalition groups, alliance of 29 country for the security of European countries, against the soviet aggression and other external threat.
Formal groups has a pre-defined criteria of membership. Those who meet the criteria can become the member of the group. Such groups have code of conduct and there is penalty on violating the rules. UNO, New development bank, SOC, SAARC and EU are some examples of broad formal groups. School can be categorized as the narrow formal group.
Informal groups do not have any criteria for the membership. Anyone can join it anytime without meeting any standards. There is no rules and regulation in the non-formal groups. People in bar watching football match comes under the category of non-formal group. It does not require membership anyone can come, drink and watch game.
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]]>In sociology the term “group” refers to the number of individuals who share similar norms, values and beliefs, who interact with each other frequently and share other similar interests. Many people living in one geographical region or just living in a similar locale will not be considered as group. The concept of group cannot be constituted without social interaction. As mentioned above frequent social interaction among the individuals is necessary for the formation of group, no matter where the individuals lives, if there is correspondence between the individuals and they share similar interests and culture then, it will come under the category of social group.
Multiple sociologist have defined social group differently, few definition of social group are as follow, According to Merrill, social group is, when two or more than two people correspond with one another, for adequate period of time, for similar function or purpose . A.W Green defined social group as, an aggregate of people, who are organized, share one or more than one interest. Ogburn and Nimkoff is of the view that, when two and more than two people meet and influence the behavior of one another constitute the concept of social group.
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]]>Social structure can be defined as the organized set of social institutions and recurrent patterns of relationships among individuals within institutions that together create society. Usually, our daily life encounters have similar patterns. Each day we interact with our family members at home (brothers, sisters and parents) or we come across same people at school or college — university or office (friends, colleagues and teachers). These patterned or repeated social interactions are called social structure.
Moreover, every society comprises of five basic social institutions including, family, politics, economy, religion and education. These basic social institutions have established norms that defines the appropriate behavior, status and roles of individuals within a particular institution. Each individual has different status and roles within different social institutions. Institutional norms specify individual roles in accordance with their status for instance, at home an individual status may be of son or daughter, brother or sister, husband or wife and father or mother. But at work he or she might be janitor or president of the state.
Furthermore, social structure can be found at every level of society. It could be found in peer group, family, recreational groups, Public Corporation, Private Corporation and so on. Individuals with in these groups have patterned relationships which are repeated Day by day. These relationships are either enforced via formal norms or through customs. However, sociologist study Social structure on three levels these include, macro, maso and micro level.
At macro level social scientist study the social structure via analyzing social institutions and their interdependence to identify how these factors form patterns of social relationship that are repeated day by day. Family, economy, politics, religion, media, law and education are interconnected social institutions which together form the social structure of society. Individuals’ relationships are organized by social institutions through established norms. Institutional norms regulate behavior of individuals. It defines set of appropriate behaviors, status and roles of individual in a given institution.
Social institutions organize patterned relationships among individuals. These relationships have hierarchical order that result in power differential. Hierarchical positions grant some individuals more power than others in a given institution and social relationship. For instance, institution of family is the organization of different social relationships and roles such as, father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, etc… members within institution of family hold power in accordance with their hierarchical position. Usually, parents stand at the top of hierarchical ladder within family because of customs, status, roles, age and financial position. Therefore, they hold greater amount of power to make family decisions. Moreover, corporations or educational institutes organize social relationship among individuals such as, teacher and student —chancellor and teachers — employer and employee etc… however, an individual acquires the amount of power consistent with his or her hierarchical positions in a given institution or relationship. For instance, If we analyze the social relationship between chancellor and teachers at university. Chancellor holds more power compare to teachers because he stands at the top of hierarchical ladder. Therefore, he obtains the ability to formulate and change university policies. On the other hand, teachers cannot do so because their hierarchical position does not grant them authority of policy making. Moreover, teachers cannot defy the orders of chancellor. Whereas, chancellor could ignore and not consider the suggestions or concerns of teachers.
Like individuals some institutions or organization obtain more power than others. As discussed earlier that social institutions are interdependent. Malfunctioning of one institution can disorganize the entire structure of society. The actions or operations of individuals or institutions who obtain greater amount of power determine the structuring of individuals lives and society. For instance, in some societies women do not have a right to seek education which implies that, such societies have established gender biased norms. Which grant more privileges and power to men compare to women. Discriminatory institutional and social norms may give rise to social problems such as socioeconomic stratification. Social stratification is not merely product of class system but the outcome of systematic racism, sexism and other types of discrimination as well.
Maso level social structure refer to the institutionalized social networks. Social institutions organizes social relationships which determine the formation of different social networks and groups. The nature of social networks depend on the patterns of relationships organized by social institutions. Such social networks are the manifestation of meso social structure. Systematic Racism, sexism and other types of discrimination within social institutions result in Socioeconomic stratification. Social networks where relationships among individuals are structured by, difference in level of wealth, social status, ethnicity, race and level of education are the expression of social stratification.
Micro level Social structure refer to daily social interaction among individuals. Social interaction occurs on daily bases among peers, family members, colleagues etc… Institutional norms and customs shape patterned relationships further these relationships shape social interactions among individuals. For instance, we can use informal language in our peer group however, we cannot use informal language when we interact with our teachers, parents or elders.
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