Topics in Sociology: Social Institutions

Social institutions are established or standardized patterns of rule-governed behavior. They include the family, education, religion, and economic and political institutions.
Major Perspectives
Marx
Social institutions are determined by their society’s mode of production.
Social institutions serve to maintain the power of the dominant class.
Weber
Social institutions are interdependent but no single institution determines the rest.
The causes and consequences of social institutions cannot be assumed in advance.
Durkheim
Set the stage for later functionalist analyses of institutions by concluding that religion promotes social solidarity and collective conscience.
Functionalist theory
The social institutions listed in this section (along with other social institutions) fulfill functional prerequisites and are essential.
Conflict theory
Social institutions tend to reinforce inequalities and uphold the power of dominant groups.
Emphasizes divisions and conflicts within social institutions.
Symbolic interactionism
Focuses on interactions and other symbolic communications within social institutions.
1. The Family:
A socially defined set of relationships between at least two people related by birth, marriage, adoption, or, in some definitions, long-standing ties of intimacy.
Key Questions
How do families vary across different societies, historical periods, classes, and ethnic groups?
How are authority, resources, and work distributed within families?
How do parents, particularly mothers, balance the demands of work and family?
What are the causes and effects of divorce, domestic violence, and single parenting?
Notes
Marx: The family upholds the capitalist economic order by ensuring the reproduction of the working class and by maintaining housewives as a reserve labor force.
Functionalist theory: Functions of the family include socializing children, regulating sexual behavior and reproduction, distributing resources, providing social support.
2. Education:
A formal process in which knowledge, skills, and values are systematically transmitted from one individual or group to another.
Key Questions
How do educational practices vary across different societies and historical periods?
How does education affect individuals’ subsequent activities and achievements?
What are the effects of class, race, and gender on educational institutions and experiences?
What are the causes and consequences of various trends in education, such as grade inflation, violence in schools, and increasing public funding of religious instruction?
Notes
Marx: Education serves the capitalist order by producing skilled workers with habits such as punctuality and respect for authority.
Functionalist theory: Functions of education include transmitting shared values and beliefs, transmitting specific knowledge and skills, sorting individuals based on skill, and establishing social control over youths.
Conflict theory: Educational tracking systems and other differential treatment of students reinforce social inequalities.
Symbolic interactionism: Face-to-face interactions in the classroom can have long-range consequences for students’ educational achievements.
3. Religion:
A unified system of beliefs and practices pertaining to the supernatural and to norms about the right way to live that is shared by a group of believers. Sociologists treat religion as a social rather than supernatural phenomenon.
Key Questions
How do the world religions differ? How are they similar?
How have religions developed and changed, and why do people engage with them?
What is the relationship between religion and other aspects of social life such as stratification, deviance, and conflict?
What are the causes and consequences of contemporary trends such as secularization, the splintering of religious groups, and shifting church–state relationships?
Notes
Marx: Religion is the “opium of the people”—it masks domination and diverts workers from rebelling against exploitation.
Weber: Classified religions by their approach to salvation:
Ascetic religions require active self-mastery; mystical religions require passive contemplation.
Other-worldly religions require focus on the next life (e.g., heaven); this-worldly religions require focus on earthly life.
Durkheim: Religion provides social solidarity and collective conscience; it expresses and celebrates the force of society over the individual.
Functionalist theory: Functions of religion include providing meaning for life, reinforcing social norms, strengthening social bonds, and marking status changes (e.g., marriage).Dysfunctions, according to some, include justifying persecution.
4. Economic Institutions:
Sociologists understand the economy as the set of arrangements by which a society produces, distributes, and consumes goods, services, and other resources.
Key Questions
What institutions and relations characterize different economic systems (e.g., capitalism, socialism, and feudalism)?
How do consumption and leisure patterns differ among various cultures, historical periods, and social groups?
How do the structures of business organizations affect productivity, job satisfaction, and inequalities?
What are the causes and consequences of contemporary trends such as economic liberalization, declining unionization, and increased consumer debt?
Notes
Marx: Economic organization (the means and relations of production) determines the major features of any society.
Functionalist theory: Functions of economic institutions include: production and distribution of goods, assignment of individuals to different social roles such as occupations.
5. Political Institutions:
Institutions that pertain to the governance of a society, its formal distribution of authority, its use of force, and its relationships to other societies and political units. The state, an important political institution in modern societies, is the apparatus of governance over a particular territory.
Key Questions
How do political institutions differ across historical periods and societies?
How do different social groups participate in political institutions, and with what consequences?
How and why do individuals participate in political processes such as voting or joining lobbying groups?
How are political institutions related to other aspects of society, such as the economy and the mass media?
Notes
Weber: Defines the state as an authority that maintains a monopoly on the use of violence in its territory. See Classical Sociological Thinkers > Max Weber > Key Concepts > Legitimate Authority.
Functionalist theory: Functions of political institutions include protection from external enemies, resolving group conflicts, defining societal goals, and strengthening group identity and norms. Pluralism, a particularly functional type of political institution, entails distribution of power among many groups so no one group can gain control.
Conflict theory: Pluralism and democracy are illusions that invite the powerless to believe that they have a voice in governance, when in fact their control is quite limited.
Topics in Sociology: Social Stratification and Mobility
Key Concepts
Social stratification: The division and hierarchical ranking of people into layers associated with different degrees of command over material resources, power, and prestige. Divisions upon which stratification may be based include:
Income and wealth: Closely related to occupational and educational status.
Race and ethnicity: Many sociologists believe that racial categories are false and refer to ethnic differences instead. Race is a socially constructed set of distinctions that categorize people on the basis of biological characteristics. Ethnicity is a way of categorizing people on the basis of their shared cultural, linguistic, or national identities.
Gender: The set of socially constructed meanings, practices, norms, skills, and other characteristics ascribed to people on the basis of biological sex.
Age: In many societies, power, prestige, rights, and obligations are assigned to people on the basis of their age.

Stratification system: A specific set of relationships between stratified groups in a society. Most complex societies have several intersecting stratification systems. Sociologists have identified four major types:
Slavery: Stratification system in which some people own others as their property and control their activities. People become slaves through birth, military defeat, or debt.
Caste: Stratification system in which people are assigned to the social group (caste) of their parents. Their affiliation entails specific rights and duties and determines their lifestyle, occupational choices, wealth, and prestige.
Estate: Stratification system based on legal and customary distinctions between a group that possesses land and power by virtue of noble birth, and a group that works for the first group in exchange for land and protection.
Class:See Classical Sociological Thinkers > Karl Marx > Class and Elements of Society > Social Structure > Key Concepts: Marxism, Weber, and Conflict Theory > Social Class.
Social mobility: The movement of individuals or groups up and down stratification hierarchies. Mobility depends on type of stratification: It is quite rare under slavery and more common under class systems.

Major Perspectives
Marx
See Classical Sociological Thinkers > Karl Marx > Key Concepts > Class.
Weber
Society is stratified by class, status hierarchies, political affiliations, and other designations.
Functionalist theory
Stratification systems reflect values shared throughout society.
Stratification and inequality serve a positive function by ensuring that the most important roles are performed by the most qualified people.
Conflict theory
Contemporary societies are stratified by class, status, ethnicity, gender, and other divisions.
Stratification systems involve domination and exploitation of some groups by others.
Symbolic interactionism
Focuses on face-to-face interactions in stratified societies and groups.
Elements of Society: Social Interaction
The process in which people act toward and respond to each other. Encounters may be face-to-face, or they may be more enduring and complex.
Major Perspectives
Symbolic interactionism and dramaturgy
Interaction is mediated by symbols and meanings.
Participants in an interaction actively create and interpret these symbols and meanings.
Exchange theory and rational choice
Interaction is mediated by the exchange of resources, esteem, prestige, and power.
Interaction participants actively try to maximize their rewards and minimize costs.
Key Concepts: Symbolic Interactionism, Dramaturgy
Gesture: One act in an ongoing interaction among several participants. George Herbert Mead distinguishes two types. Non-significant gestures include automatic reflexes such as breathing or blinking. Significant gestures include actions perceived as intentional; interaction participants try to interpret their intentions before responding to them.
Roles: Expectations about how people will behave in interactions that endure over time and across different situations. Such expectations make interaction more smooth and predictable. Contrast with Social Structure > Key Concepts > Functionalist Approach > Role.
Taking the role of the other: Imaginatively putting oneself in another’s situation. Mead claims this is necessary in attaching meanings to others’ gestures and anticipating their future actions, and is thus essential to all social interaction.
Impression management: Interaction participants’ attempts to control the impressions about themselves that others receive so that they appear to have a particular role or status or simply appear in a favorable light. (Dramaturgy)
Front stage and back stage: Two socially defined regions in which interaction occurs. The front stage is where impression management takes place; the back stage is where participants may relax and prepare for the next performance. (Dramaturgy)
Elements of Society: Culture
The symbols, values, material artifacts, and rules of behavior that a society or group collectively creates and uses.
Major Perspectives
Durkheim (functionalist theory)
Culture provides collective conscience, social solidarity, and social control.
Culture is widely shared; it creates and reflects social harmony.
Marx (conflict theory)
Culture creates and gives meaning to social divisions and conflicts.
Dominant culture reflects the lives and interests of dominant groups.
Culture is an element of a society’s superstructure, shaped by its base. (Marx only)
Weber
Whether culture creates unity or conflict is an empirical question.
Interests are most important in shaping social life, but culture can play an important role in certain instances.
Symbolic interactionism
Culture is understood as the patterns, rules, and meanings of social interaction; these are the foundation of all social order.
Key Concepts
Symbol: A sign that represents one or more meanings. Signs and meanings are linked by social convention. Examples: language, gestures, and art.
Language: A rule-governed system of communication using vocal and written symbols (words) that have common meanings among all members of a linguistic group.
Values: Socially created ideas about what is desirable and worthwhile in life, which may guide people’s goals, choices, and judgments.
Norms: Standards or codes of behavior, including expectations and obligations, that are specific to particular social settings. Examples: manners, customs, and laws. Fulfilling or violating norms often results in positive or negative sanctions.
Material culture: Material culture includes physical artifacts (e.g., adornments, buildings, and weapons) and the ways that societies produce and use them.
Subculture: A system of norms, material artifacts, and other cultural elements shared by a minority of people within a society that distinguishes the minority from the rest. Subcultures are often seen as dominated by their parent cultures.
Cultural capital: Cultural elements such as knowledge or taste used as a form of wealth, often to distinguish oneself from others and gain access to elite circles and opportunities. Seen as a means by which inequalities are maintained alongside formally equal opportunity.
Cultural universals: Elements common to all cultures or societies, though they may take different forms in different societies. Examples: funeral rites, cooperative work.
Cultural relativism: The position that there are no universal cultural values or ideas. A culture can only be understood on its own terms, not from the perspectives of other cultures.
Ethnocentrism: A tendency to judge all cultures in terms of one’s own; a belief that one’s own culture is morally, intellectually, and/or aesthetically superior to all others.
Ideology: A system of ideas and values that justifies a particular political or social program. Conflict theory definition: A system of ideas and values that justifies one group’s subordination of another by presenting a distorted view of reality that conceals power imbalances and reflects only the experiences of the powerful.