Social structure

Definition

Social structure is the distinctive, stable system of social relations that exists in any human society. It is not concerned with people as individuals, in groups, or in the organizations forming the society, nor the ultimate goal of their relationships. Rather, social structure deals with the organization of their relationships: how they are arranged into patterns. Thus, the concept of social structure assumes that human social relationships are not arbitrary or coincidental, but rather they follow certain patterns that can be identified.

Social structure is the institutional framework that makes for order in repetitive, rhythmic (whether daily, weekly, or yearly) interactions among people. The key to the social structure of a society is understanding its social institutions and their intertwining combinations. Social institutions provide the order necessary to make social structure possible.

Social structure can be divided into "micro-structure" and "macro-structure." Micro-structure is the pattern of relations among the basic elements of social life that cannot be further divided and have no social structure of their own (i.e. pattern of relations between individuals in a group composed of individuals, where individuals have no social structure). Macro-structure is thus a kind of “second level” structure, a pattern of relations among objects that have their own structure (e.g. the relationship among political parties, as political parties have their own social structure).

Development of Social Structure

There is no agreement on how different types of social structure develop. Generally, social structures form hierarchies or networks. The differences between these types of social structure are related to the notion of "social stratification," i.e. whether society is separated into different strata or levels, according to social distinctions such as race, class, and gender. The social treatment of persons within the social structure is then related to their placement within the various social strata.

In the hierarchical structures, stratification is vertical, with higher levels valued more than lower ones. There are those (mostly American) who claim that hierarchical social structures develop naturally. They suggest that such structures may be caused by larger system needs, such as the need for labor, management, professional, and military classes, or by conflicts among groups, such as competition among political parties or among different social classes. Others, (mainly in Europe) hold that this structuring is not the result of natural processes, but that it is socially constructed. It may have been created by those in power seeking to retain their power, or by economic systems that place emphasis upon monopoly and competition or cooperation and sharing.

The second type of structure is that of a network: people are connected, but not in pyramids. There is no "alpha male" at the top of the heap; there is not even any concept of higher and lower. In contrast to the "mechanical" solidarity of hierarchical social structure, noted for generally repressive and punitive legal systems, Emile Durkheim introduced the term "organic" solidarity to describe societies based on the network model, where law is generally restitutive. This type of structure is likened to the anatomy of a living body, where all social institutions are interdependent and these connections are what naturally impose constraints and goals on each other.

Elements of Social Structure

In order to discuss the basic division and types of social structures, the "unit" of social structure should be established first. Murdoch (Goldsmith 1978) has shown that the family is universal among stable societies and thus should be regarded as the "unit" of social structure.

Society is grouped into structures with different functions, meanings, or purposes. In a broader sense is the "social system," which can be viewed as a social structure composed of the economic system, legal system, political system, and cultural system (some sort of shared reality: language, norms, values, etc.). Social structure, however, is much more than that. It also includes education, family, religion, and social services such as health care. Language is the basic channel for communicating information and instruction in a society. There are cultural norms affecting marriage, child bearing, and child rearing. Political systems affect not only the individual political environment but also certain legal systems, regulation of violence (by a police force), property laws, trade rules, health care, and so forth. Societies also generally develop an agreed upon division of labor.

These different elements are interrelated, as can be seen from the following example: economic factors have been responsible for shifts in popular behavior, some of them cutting across class lines. As a result of increasing production, prosperity increased, and the general trend in the standard of living for most groups was upward, allowing ordinary people to improve their diet, housing, and increase leisure time. Workers pressed for a workday of 12 hours, then 10, and, in the early twentieth century, a few groups began to demand an even shorter period. Scattered vacation days were also introduced, and the “English weekend,” which allowed time off on Saturday afternoons as well as Sundays, spread widely.

Among the several elements of social and cultural structures, two are of great importance:

• The first consists of culturally defined goals, purposes, and interests, held out as legitimate objectives for all members of the society. They are simply the things “worth striving for.” Although some of these cultural goals may be directly related to human biological needs, they are not necessarily determined by them.
• The second element of the cultural structure defines, regulates, and controls the acceptable ways of reaching these goals. Every social group invariably matches its cultural objectives with regulations, rooted in the norms and values, regarding allowable procedures for moving toward these objectives.

Generally, no society lacks norms governing conduct. However, societies do differ in the degree to which acceptable behavior, social mores, and institutional controls are effectively integrated with the goals in the hierarchy of cultural values. The social structure remains intact as long as members of the society are able to achieve their goals within the framework of acceptable ways of reaching them. When cultural values and social structure become incompatible, changes in the social structure become inevitable.

Social Structure and Social Change

The problem is that these regulatory norms are not necessarily identical with technical or efficiency norms. Many procedures which, from the standpoint of the individuals would be most efficient in securing desired values (e.g. the exercise of force, fraud, or power), are ruled out of the institutional area of permitted conduct.

Thus, the culture and the social structure operate at cross-purposes. In this context, the sole significant question becomes: Which of the available procedures is most efficient in netting the culturally approved value? The technically most effective procedure, whether culturally legitimate or not, becomes typically preferred to institutionally prescribed conduct especially in a societal culture where there is heavy emphasis on wealth as a basic symbol of success without a corresponding emphasis upon the legitimate means to achieve it.

The pattern of relations between goals and desires of people of varying social positions is called "interest structure." In most cases, high rates of departure from institutional requirements are seen as the result of culturally induced, deep motivations which cannot be satisfied among those social strata with limited access to opportunity. The pressure of such a social order is upon outdoing one's competitors. So long as the sentiments supporting this competitive system are distributed throughout the entire range of activities and are not confined to the final result of success, the choice of means will remain largely within the realm of social control. When, however, the cultural emphasis shifts from the satisfaction deriving from competition itself to almost exclusive concern with the outcome, the resultant stress makes for the breakdown of the regulatory structure, the society becomes unstable and develops what a sociologist Durkheim calls "anomie" ( or normlessness ). What a long way from Gandhi's ideas: not to beat the other side but to come to a workable agreement that respects the needs of both sides, rather than investing a lot of energy hating and beating the opponent, try to see things from their side; better yet, work out a solution that makes them both look good.

In many key areas, such as in the relation between social structures and social changes, there appeared several schools of analyses, among them : structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism, introduced into sociology by Levi-Strauss, came originally from linguistic theories ( Saussure ) and quantitative macro-economics ( Pareto ). It favors deterministic structural forms ( that define forces ) over the ability of individual people to act. It might be argued that structuralism comes close to being identical with "mathematisation" of a given object. It is one thing to recognize that a one-to-one correspondence between signifier and signified cannot be rationally established in a way which will make sense in a cross-cultural context. Each given culture will form the world according to different structures of meaning. But since the entire world is grasped through such a system of forms, it is very easy by this route to arrive at a situation where the relation of the given society to the world has been reduced to one of the society to itself via a closed system of forms. This certainly makes the world-view of the given society intelligible, but not necessarily comprehensible.

Two big names connected with functionalism - a notion probably coined by Durkheim who claimed that every social and cultural phenomenon fulfills a certain function, namely the function to maintain a particular social order - are: Raddcliffe-Brown and Talcott Parsons. Radcliffe-Brown regarded the system of human interactions rather than human beings as being central in a functionalist approach to society and his "structure" refers to a system or organized parts: individual persons who participate in social life, occupying statuses within the system. These parts are individual persons who participate in social life, occupying statuses within the system. The social network is made up of social relationships between individuals of a society. The individual is in turn controlled by norms or patterns. It is the function of folklore to maintain these norms and patterns. Because of this tendency to explain cultural phenomena through the functioning of social structure, Radcliffe-Brown’s mode of thought was called structural-functionalism. Talcott Parsons developed a structural functionalism theory where he claimed that humans were "acting" in a non-voluntary way. He said that society was molding people and making them think that there was a certain way to look and live. Parsons tended to view these patterns - patterns of social interaction ( in which the humans are acting ) - as contributing to the relatively smooth functioning of society. The shared values and norms, the institution of the family, and the generally agreed upon means for accomplishing ends were viewed by Parsons as being functional for the operation of society as a system of interrelated parts where a change in any part affecting all the others. Talcott Parsons main goal throughout most of his studies was to convincingly describe logical types of social relation that included all groups of society not just the rich or poor. His most prominent accomplishment was to construct a system or general theory of social action to include a cross- section of society in all its aspects.

In the view of the structural functionalists, "without the normative regulation of means, society would be afflicted by chaos, anomie, and apathy ... social disorder". There is another way to deal with the danger of social disorders, however: structural changes.

To any societal survival, the social structural changes are crucial in preventing further protracted conflict. Usually, the status components of wealth, power, and prestige, and the class component definesocial space for conflict. John Burton wrote of conflict "prevention" by removing its underlying causes and creating conditions under which it need not occur. Addressing injustice before it provokes conflict often requires far-reaching changes in the existing structures and institutions of society. Suppose, for example, that research discovered that a major societal problem such as drugs or teenage pregnancy could be prevented by a redistribution of resources and the provision of more rewarding jobs. If such social structural changes were made, this might ensure that all members of society had sufficient opportunities for individual development and social bonding, and thus alleviate the structural conditions that contribute to these social problems. In some cases, parties are chiefly concerned with replacing or altering existing legal and political institutions. Reform of government institutions typically involves measures aimed at democratization and increased political participation. Societies strive to develop a "workable political system in which the multiple social groups can participate to their satisfaction." This sort of state reform has the potential to mitigate and heal the effects of violent intrastate conflict, as well as prevent future conflict.History provides many examples of political and social movements that aimed to radically change existing political and socioeconomic structures . The American New Deal, for example, used nonviolent methods to alter the balance of economic power between dominant and subordinate classes. The New Deal's labor legislation compelled larger interstate corporations to recognize and bargain with labor unions and banned unfair labor practices.

Conclusion

Social structure is the way in which society is organized into predictable relationships, patterns of social interaction ( the way in which people respond to each other ). These patterns are to some extent independent of the particular individual, they exert a force which shapes behavior and identity of the society. Culture, as the product of the interaction in society, both material and non-material ( meanings, beliefs, language, values, ideas, expectations, etc. ) is: shared,learned, and intergenerational. It also forms the foundation of social structure and the society uses norms as the modes of operations among the society’s elements. Sometimes, however, the shortcuts using institutionally inhibited conducts to achieve the culturally approved values ( e.g. wealth ) brings the necessary strain in, both, social and regulatory structures.

One danger of the various methods of sociologic research is that they prefer analyses that explain how and why social structures, intergroup and power relations, personalities and beliefs maintain and reproduce themselves, and, indeed, explain and analyze a status quo , rather than how and why society constantly generates forces for social change from within itself.

However, just so long things remain as they are, then structuralism and other analytical methods are fine of making things intelligible, and a great step forward from the dogmatic, normative, judgmental methods of European sciences when they have been required to objectively understand cultures other than their own. And certain types of dysfunction also become intelligible of course.But, any living culture will be constantly confronted with that which it does not recognise; that which was formerly unknown and “beyond” may become known, and there is no reason to suppose that the structural transformations which may follow from a change of conditions will be "homologous".

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Calllon, M., "Society in the Making: The Study of Technology as a tool for Sociological Analysis" in: The Social Construction of Technological Systems
• Durkheim, E., Uber soziale Arbeitsteilung : Studien uber die Organisation hoherer Gesselschaften, 2, Auglage , Frankfurt a. M, 1997
• E.Goldsmith, The Family Basis of Social Structure This article was published as Chapter 2 of The Stable Society 1978. The Wadebridge Press 1978.
• Levi-Strauss, Claude Structural Anthropology, publ. Allen Lane , The Penguin Press , 1958
• Merton R.K., "Social Structure and anomie", American Social Review 3 ( 1938 ) ,pp.672-682
• Parsons, Talcott, The Social System , Glencoe: The Free Press , 1951.
• Radcliffe-Brown, Reginald , Structure and Function in Primitive Society, New York: The Free Press, 1952

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