LECTURE # 6.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

By
Prof. Dr. Najeebullah
 Points for debate
 What is Social Structure?
 What are the elements of Social Structure?
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
 Social Structure gives a society its characteristics
◦ Social Structure is a network of interrelated
statuses and roles that guide human interaction.

◦ Social structures are made of statuses

 Socially defined positions in a society
 Parents
 Teachers
 Students
 Engineers
 Software developers
ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

VALUS

Elements
STATUS of Social NORMS
Structure

ROLE
Your Task

 Define simply
◦ Status
◦ Role
◦ Norm
◦ Value
Status

 R. Linton (1936) defined status simply as a

position in a social system, such as child
or parent. Status refers to what a person
is?
 Status is socially defined position in a
group or in a society and has attached to
it one or more role
 Types of Status
 Ascribed: Is one that is assigned to a person at birth or at
different stages in the life cycle . For Example age, gender, etc.
 Achieved: are those which the individual acquires during his or
her lifetime as a result of the exercise of knowledge, ability, skill
and/or perseverance. For Example, Being a professional athlete is
an achieved status, as is being a lawyer or professor.
 Master: one status tends to out-rank others, plays the greatest
role in one’s life and determining social identity

Determinants of Status
Achieved
Ascribed •Education
•Sex differences •Occupation
•Age differences •Politics
•Caste differences •Physical Strength
•Racial differences •Specialization
•Kinship
 ROLES
 Davis, Kingsley : “Role is the manner in which a person
actually carried out the requirements of his position”

 Ogburn and Nimkoff : “Role is a set of socially

expected and approved behavior patterns consisting of
both duties and privileges, associated with a particular
position in a group”.

 Role Expectations and Role Performance

• Role expectations are the socially determined behaviors
expected of a person with a particular status.
• Role performance is the actual behaviors of a person with a
particular status. They may or may not be the expected
behaviors
 Role Conflict, Role Strain, and Role
Exit
• Role conflict occurs when fulfilling the role
expectations of one status interferes with a
second status.
• Role strain occurs when a person has
difficulty fulfilling the role of one status.
• Role exit is the process people go through
to detach from a role that was previously
central to their social identity.
Question for debate

 What is the difference between role

strain and role conflict?
 What is the difference between norm and
value?
 Can you differentiate them with
examples?
Your task
 What are the roles you have?
◦ List the roles you have in your life
◦ Identify examples of role conflict
◦ If no role conflict, why do you think that you
are without role conflict?
NORMS
 Norms are social rules that specify appropriate and
inappropriate behavior in given situations. They afford a
means by which we orient ourselves to other people.
Folkways, mores, and laws are types of norms

 Davis , Kingsley: ”social norms are controls. It is through

that human society regulates the behavior of its
members in such a way , they perform activities fulfilling
social needs-even sometime at the expense of organic
needs.”

 Bierstadt, Robert : “A norm in short, is a standardized

mode of procedure, a way of doing something that is
acceptable to our society.”
VALUE
 M.Haralambos : “ A value is a belief that
something is good and desirable. It defines
what is important, worthwhile and worth
striving for.”

 H.M. Johnson: “ Value may be defined as a

conception or standard cultural or merely
personal, by which things are compared and
approved or disapproved relatively to one
other held to be relatively desirable or
undesirable , more meritorious or more or
less correct.”
Social Structure Theories

1. Social disorganization theory

2. Strain Theory
3. Cultural deviance theory
Social disorganization theory
Major Promise
 Crime is a product of Transitional neighborhoods that manifest
disorganization and value conflict
Theoretical Basis.
• Crime Rates linked to neighborhood characteristics
• Breakdown in informal social control or inability to
establish
• Pulling forces that attract group membership (I.e.
gangs)

A decrease in the influence of existing social rules of

behavior upon the individual members of the group. An
area where social institutions, norms and values, are no
longer functioning.“
Strain Theory

Major Promise
 People who adopt the goals of society but lack the
means to attain them seek alternatives, such as crime.

 Strengths
 Points out how competition for success creates conflict
and crime. Suggests that social conditions and not
personality can account for crime. Can explain middle-
and upper-class crime.
 Basic Component of Strain Theory

Poverty
Maintenance of conventional
rules and norms
Strain
Formation of gangs
and groups
Crime and
delinquency
Criminal Careers
Cultural Deviance Theory
MAJOR PREMISE
Status frustration of lower-class boys,
created by their failure to achieve middle-
class success, causes them to join gangs.

Strengths
•Shows how the conditions of lower-class
life produce crime.
•Explains violence and destructive acts.
• Identifies conflict of lower class with
middle class
Social Institutions
• A social institution is a group of statuses
and roles that are organized to satisfy one or
more of the basic needs of society.
– The family, the most universal social institution, takes
responsibility for raising the young and teaching them
accepted norms and values.
– The economic institution organizes the production,
distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
– The political institution is the system of norms that
governs the exercise and distribution of power in
society.
– Education ensures the transmission of values, patterns
of behavior, and certain skills and knowledge.
– Religion provides a shared, collective explanation of
the meaning of life.
Question for debate

What is social interaction?

How social interaction takes place?
What the types of Social Interaction?
What is Social interaction?
It is a process by which people act towards and respond to
others---- the foundation of all relations and groups in
society
How social interaction takes place?
When you play a role – you are interacting with others
•Some interactions stabilize the social structure
•Some interactions promote change.

What are the types of social interaction?

There are five (5) types of interaction that takes place in
society
Types of Social Interaction

• There are five common forms of social interaction

1. Exchange
2. Competition,
3. Conflict
4. Cooperation
5. Accommodation.
Question for debate
Which of the above mentioned form of social
interaction stabilize the social structure and
which promote change?.
Exchange, cooperation, and
accommodation tend to stabilize
the social structure,

while competition and conflict

tend to encourage social change
 Exchange
• Exchange occurs when people interact in an effort
to receive a reward or a return for their actions.
• Reward might be tangible or intangible
• Reciprocity is the idea that if you do something for
someone, that person owes you something in return.
• Basis of exchange interactions
• Exchange theory is the idea that people are
motivated by self-interest in their interactions with
other people.
• Rewarded behavior is repeated
 Competition and Conflict
Competition
• Competition occurs when two or more people or groups oppose
each other to achieve a goal that only one can attain.
– Common in Western societies
– Sometimes considered basis of capitalism and democracy
– Can lead to psychological stress, a lack of cooperation, and conflict

Conflict
• Conflict is the deliberate attempt to control a person by force, to
oppose someone, or to harm another person.
– Has few rules of accepted conduct
– Can reinforce group boundaries and loyalty
Cooperation

• Cooperation occurs when two or more people or

groups work together to achieve a goal that will benefit
more than one person.
– A social process that gets things done
– May be used along with competition to motivate
members to work harder for the group
Accommodation
Accommodation is a state of balance between cooperation and conflict.

Compromise Truce
Each party gives up Temporarily brings a halt to
something they want in the competition or conflict
order to come to until a compromise can be
an agreement reached

Mediation Arbitration
Calling in a third party A third party makes a
who guides the two decision that is binding on
parties toward an both parties
agreement
Question for debate

What are the major categories/

types of Societies?
Types of Societies

• Sociologists classify societies according to

subsistence strategies, or the ways
societies use technology to meet the
needs of their members.
• Sociologists recognize three broad
categories of society
1. Pre-industrial
2. Industrial
3. Post-industrial.
Preindustrial Societies
 The largest groups studied by sociologists are entire
societies. Sociologists categorize societies according to
subsistence strategies. In a preindustrial society
food production is the main economic activity.

Hunter-Gatherer Pastoral Societies

Societies • Rely on domesticated
• Collect wild plants animals
daily • Lead a nomadic life
• Hunt for wild animals • Fewer people produce food
• Move constantly • Complex division of labor
• Rarely exceed 100 • Produce some items for
members trade
• Family is main social
unit
 Horticultural Societies Agricultural Societies
• Grow fruits and vegetables in • Animals are used to plow
garden plots fields
• Use slash-and-burn • Irrigation increases crop
techniques yields
• Move to new plot when old • Many members are able to
becomes barren engage in specialized roles
• Build semipermanent or • Cities are formed
permanent villages
• Leaders are often hereditary
• Village size depends on
amount of land for farming • Marked by powerful armies
• Division of labor creates and the construction of roads
specialized roles • Abandon bartering in order
• Economic and political to make trade easier
systems more developed • Power often unequally
because of the settled life
distributed
Industrial Societies
 In an industrial society:
• Production of food shifts to production of
manufactured goods
• Production moves from human and animal labor to
machines
• Increases food production and population
• Numbers and kinds of jobs increase
• Location of work changes to cities, away from the
home
• Social processes such as education take the place
of family
Postindustrial Societies

• Economic emphasis is on creation and

exchange of information and services
instead of manufacturing goods
• United States is a postindustrial society
• Standard of living improves
• Education and science are important
• Technological advances seen as key
Groups Within Society

• Groups are the foundation of social life.

They differ in terms of size, life,
organization, and purpose.
• Groups perform important functions, such
as setting membership boundaries,
choosing leaders, fulfilling goals, and
controlling members’ behavior
 Question for debate

How many types of group exists in a society?

Types of Groups
• Primary Groups • Secondary Groups
• The most intimate • Interaction is
type impersonal and
• Fundamental in temporary
forming the social • Involve only part of a
nature and ideals of member’s self
the individual • Casual and limited
• Small group that • Importance of person
interacts over a long linked to his or her
period of time on a
personal basis function
• Members can be
• Involves entire self of
a member replaced
Types of Groups (cont.)

 Reference Groups  In-Groups and Out-

• A group with whom an individual
Groups
identifies and whose attitudes and • In-group: any group that a person
values are adopted belongs to and identifies with
• Can have both positive and • Out-group: any group that the
negative effect on behavior person does not belong to or
identify with
Electronic
Communities Social Networks
• Have arisen with arrival of • The web of relationships
internet across groups that occurs
because of the many groups
• Some reflect primary-group
people belong to
dynamics
• No clear boundaries
Group Functions
• Define boundaries
– Use of uniforms, gestures, handshakes, or language
• Select leaders
– Leaders influence the attitudes and opinions of others
– Instrumental leaders help find specific means that will help the group
reach its goals
– Expressive leaders find ways to keep the group together and to maintain
morale
• Define purpose
– Set goals
– Assign tasks
– Make decisions
• Control members’ behavior
Task for coming class
 Read material and prepare written hints
about:-
 Social Structure of Pakistan
 Social Issues of Pakistani Society
 Factors responsible for social issues
 How to get rid of social issues? Solution model
 For debate and discussion in class