Social Systems: Meaning, Elements, Characteristics, and Types
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Social System
Social System
Meaning, Elements,
Meaning, Elements,
Characteristics and Types
Characteristics and Types
Sr. Jisha Chakkunny M
PG Department of Sociology
•
The term ‘system’ implies an orderly arrangement,
an interrelationship of parts. In the arrangement,
every part has a fixed place and definite role to play.
•
The parts are bound by interaction. To understand
the functioning of a system, for example the human
body, one has to analyse and identify the sub-
systems (e.g. circulatory, nervous, digestive,
excretionary systems etc.)
•
To understand how these various subsystems enter
into specific relations in the fulfillment of the
organic function of the body.
•
Social system may be described as an
arrangement of social interactions based on
shared norms and values.
Meaning of Social System:
•
It is Talcott Parsons who has given the concept
of ‘system’ current in modern sociology.
•
Social system refers to’ an orderly arrangement,
an inter relationships of parts.
•
Society is a system of usages, authority and
mutuality based on “We” felling and likeness.
Differences within the society are not excluded.
Definition
•
A social system may be defined, after Parsons, a
plurality of social actors who are engaged in
more or less stable interaction “according to
shared cultural norms and meanings”
Individuals constitute the basic interaction
units.
•
But the interacting units may be groups or
organisation of individuals within the system.
•
The social system,
according to Charles P.
Loomis,
is composed of the patterned
interaction of visual actors whose’ relation to
each other are mutually oriented through the
definition of the mediation of pattern of
structured and shared symbols and expectations.
•
Social system is a comprehensive arrangement.
•
It takes its orbit all the diverse subsystems such
as the economic, political, religious and others
and their interrelation too.
•
Social systems are bound by environment such
as geography. And this differentiates one system
from another.
Elements of Social System:
•
1. Faiths and Knowledge:
•
2. Sentiment:
•
3. End Goal or object:
•
4. Ideals and Norms:
•
5. Status-Role:
•
6. Role:
•
7. Power:
•
8. Sanction:
1. Faiths and Knowledge:
•
The faiths and knowledge brings about the
uniformity in the behaviour. They act as
controlling agency of different types of human
societies.
2. Sentiment:
•
Man does not live by reason alone. Sentiments –
filial, social, notional etc. have played immense
role in investing society with continuity.
•
It is directly linked with the culture of the
people.
3. End Goal or object:
•
Man is born social and dependent. He has to
meet his requirements and fulfill his obligations.
•
Man and society exist between needs and
satisfactions, end and goal.
•
These determine the nature of social system.
They provided the pathway of progress, and the
receding horizons.
4. Ideals and Norms:
•
The society lays down certain norms and ideals
for keeping the social system intact and for
determining the various functions of different
units.
•
These norms prescribe the rules and regulations
on the basis of which individuals or persons may
acquire their cultural goals and aims.
5. Status-Role:
•
Every individual in society is functional. He goes
by status-role relation. It may come to the
individual by virtue of his birth, sex, caste, or
age. One may achieve it on the basis of service
rendered
6. Role:
•
Role is the external expression of the status.
While discharging certain jobs or doing certain
things, every individual keeps in his mind his
status.
•
This thing leads to social integration,
organization and unity in the social system.
7. Power:
•
Conflict is a part of social system, and order is its
aim.
•
It is implicit, therefore, that some should be
invested with the power to punish the guilty and
reward those who set an example.
8. Sanction:
•
It implies confirmation by the superior in
authority, of the acts done be the subordinate or
the imposition of penalty for the infringement of
the command.
•
The acts done or not done according to norms
may bring reward and punishment.
Characteristics of Social System:
•
Social system has certain characteristics.
These characteristics are as follows:
•
1. System is connected with the plurality
of Individual actors:
•
It means that a system or social system cannot
be borne as a result of the activity of one
individual. It is the result of the activities of
various individuals.
•
For system, or social system, interaction of
several individuals has to be there.
2. Aim and Object:
•
Human interactions or activities of the
individual actors should not be aimless or
without object. These activities have to be
according to certain aims and objects.
3. Order and Pattern amongst various
Constituent Units:
•
It has to be according to a pattern, arrangement
and order.
•
The underlined unity amongst various
constituent units brings about ‘social system’.
4. Functional Relationship is the
Basis of Unity:
•
Different constituent units have a unity in order
to form a system.
•
This unity is based on functional relations.
•
As a result of functional relationships between
different constituent units an integrated whole is
created and this is known as social system.
5. Physical or Environmental Aspect
of Social System:
•
It means that every social system is connected
with a definite geographical area or place, time,
society etc.
6. Linked with Cultural System:
•
Social system is also linked with cultural system.
•
It means that cultural system bring about unity
amongst different members of the society on the
basis of cultures, traditions, religions etc.
7. Expressed and implied Aims and
Objects:
•
Social system is also linked with expressed and
implied aims.
•
It means that social system is the coming
together of different individual actors who are
motivated by their aims and objectives and their
needs.
8. Characteristics of Adjustment:
•
Social system has the characteristic of
adjustment.
•
It is a dynamic phenomenon which is influenced
by the changes caused in the social form.
9. Order, Pattern and Balance:
•
Social system has the characteristics of pattern,
order and balance.
•
Social system is not an integrated whole but
putting together of different units.
Maintenance of Social System:
•
A social system is maintained by the various
mechanisms of social control.
•
These mechanisms maintain the equilibrium
between the various processes of social
interaction.
In brief, these mechanisms may be
classified in the following categories:
•
1. Socialization.
•
2. Social control.
(1) Socialization:
•
It is process by which an individual is adjusted
with the conventional pattern of social
behaviour. A child by birth is neither social nor
unsocial. But the process of socialization
develops him into a functioning member of
society. He adjusts himself with the social
situations conforming with social norms, values
and standards.
(2) Social Control:
•
social control is also a system of measures by
which society moulds its members to conform
with the approved pattern of social behaviour.
•
According to Parsons, there are two types of
elements which exist in every system. These are
integrative and disintegrative and create
obstacles in the advancement of integration.
Functions of Social System:
•
Social system is a functional arrangement. It
would not exist if it were not so. Its functional
character ensures social stability and continuity.
•
The functional character of society,
Parsons
has
discussed in depth. Other sociologists such as
Robert F. Bales
too have discussed it.
•
It is generally agreed that the social
system has four primary functional
problems to attend. These are:
•
1. Adaptation,
•
2. Goal attainment,
•
3. Integration,
•
4. Latent Pattern-Maintenance.
1. Adaptation:
•
Adaptability of social system to the changing
environment is essential.
•
a social system is the result of geographical
environment and a long drawn historical process
which by necessity gives it permanence and
rigidity.
•
It need be a flexible and functional
phenomenon.
2. Goal Attainment:
•
Goal attainment and adaptability are deeply
interconnected.
•
Both contribute to the maintenance of social order.
•
Every social system has one or more goals to be
attained through cooperative effort.
•
Perhaps the best example of a societal goal is
national security.
•
Adaptation to the social and nonsocial environment
is, of course, necessary if goals are to be attained.
ADAPTATION CONTINUE…..
•
For example, there must be a process of ensuring
that enough persons, but not too many, occupy each
of the roles at a particular time and a process for
determining which persons will occupy which roles.
•
These processes together solve the problem of
allocation of members in the social system. We have
already touched upon the “need” for property
norms.
•
The rules regulating inheritance e.g., primogeniture-
in part solve this problem.
3. Integration:
•
Social system is essentially an integration system.
•
In the general routine of life, it is not the society but
the group or the subgroup in which one feels more
involved and interested.
•
Society, on the whole does not come into one’s
calculations.
•
Durkheim, that individual is the product of society.
Emotions, sentiments and historical forces are so
strong that one cannot cut oneself from his
moorings.
INTEGRATION CONTINUE..
•
The command and obedience relation as it exists
is based on rationality and order. If it is not
sustained, the social order would break down.
•
This necessitates the need for social control.
“Social control” is the need for standardized
reactions to violations in order to protect the
integrity of the system
4. Latent Pattern-maintenance:
•
Pattern maintenance and tension management
is the primary function of social system.
•
In absence of appropriate effort in this direction
maintenance and continuity of social order is not
possible.
•
In fact within every social system there is the in
built mechanism for the purpose.
LATENT PATTERN MAINTANENECE…..
•
Every individual and subgroup learns the patterns in the
process of the internalization of norms and values.
•
It is to invest the actors with appropriate attitude and
respect towards norms and institution, that the
socialization works.
•
Society has the responsibility, like a family, to keep its
members functional, to relieve them of anxiety, to
encourage those who would be detrimental to the entire
system.
•
The decline of societies has been very much because the
pattern maintenance and tension management
mechanism has often failed.
Social structure
•
Social structure
, in
sociology
, the distinctive,
stable arrangement of institutions
whereby
human
beings in a society interact and
live together. Social structure is often treated
together with the concept of
social change
, which
deals with the forces that change the social
structure and the organization of society.
•
the term
social structure
refers to regularities in
social life, its application is inconsistent.
•
For example, the term is sometimes wrongly
applied when other concepts such as custom,
tradition,
role
, or
norm
would be more accurate.
•
Studies of social structure attempt to explain
such matters as
integration
and trends in
inequality.
•
In the study of these phenomena, sociologists
analyze organizations, social categories (such as
age groups), or rates (such as of
crime
or birth).
•
This approach, sometimes called formal
sociology, does not refer directly to individual
behaviour or interpersonal interaction.
•
Therefore, the study of social structure is not
considered a behavioral science; at this level, the
analysis is too abstract.
•
Social structure is sometimes defined simply as
patterned social relations—those regular and
repetitive aspects of the interactions between the
members of a given social entity.
•
The term
structure
has been applied
to
human
societies since the 19th century.
•
Before that time, its use was more common in
other fields such as construction or biology.
•
According to Marx, the basic structure of society
is economic, or material, and this structure
influences the rest of social life, which is defined
as nonmaterial, spiritual, or ideological.
•
The
biological
connotations
of the
term
structure
are evident in the work of British
philosopher
Herbert Spencer
. He and other
social theorists of the 19th and early 20th
centuries conceived of society as an
organism
comprising
interdependent parts that
form a structure similar to the anatomy of a
living body.
•
In the most general way, social structure is
identified by those features of a social entity (a
society or a group within a society) that persist
over time, are interrelated, and influence both
the functioning of the entity as a whole and the
activities of its individual members.
•
The origin of contemporary sociological
references to social structure can be traced
to
Émile Durkheim
, who argued that parts of
society are interdependent and that this
interdependency imposes structure on the
behaviour of
institutions
and their members
•
. In other words, Durkheim believed that
individual
human behaviour
is shaped by
external forces.
•
Similarly, American anthropologist
George P.
Murdock
, in his book
Social Structure
(1949),
examined
kinship
systems in preliterate societies
and used social structure as a taxonomic device
for classifying, comparing, and correlating
various aspects of kinship systems.
Social Structure Definition
•
According to
Radcliff-Brown
social structure
is a part of the social structure of all social
relations of person to person. In the study of
social structure the concrete reality with which
we are concerned is the set of actually existing
relations at a given moment of time that link
together certain human beings.
•
According to
Talcott Parsons
, the term social
structure applies to the particular arrangement
of the interrelated institutions, agencies and
social patterns as well as the statuses and roles
which each person assumes in the group.
Parsons has tried to explain the concept of social
structure in abstract form. All the units of social
structure that is institutions, agencies, social
patterns, statuses and roles are invisible and
intangible and hence are abstract.
•
According to
Maclver and Page
the various
modes of grouping together comprise the
complex pattern of the social structure. They
have also regarded that social structure is
abstract which is composed of several groups
like family, church, class, caste, state or
community etc.
What is Social Structure in Sociology?
•
Social structure is an abstract entity.
•
Its parts are dynamic and constantly changing.
•
They are spatially widespread and therefore
difficult to see as wholes.
•
Social structure denotes patterns which change
more slowly than the particular personnel who
constitute them.
•
Actually the proper functioning of social
structure depends upon proper assignments of
roles and statues.
•
The integration and coordination of the different
parts of social structure depend upon conformity
of social norms.
•
The stability of a social structure depends upon
the effectiveness of its sanction system.
•
The successful working of social structure
depends upon the realisation of his duties by the
individuals and his efforts to fulfil these duties.
SOCIAL ROLE
•
Man is a social animal.
•
Human beings interact with each other in their day-to-
day lives
•
Social roles include a defined set of actions assigned to
every individual in the society
•
The status of each person can be relative to those of
others. Status of a person can be of two types,
either
Ascribed
(assigned to a person by birth)
or
Achieved
(earned through effort).
•
Each person in a given social status is expected to have
certain responsibilities in the society. These expectations
on people of a given social status, in terms of behaviour,
obligations and rights are called
‘Social Roles’
.
•
A
role
(also
rôle
or
social role
) is a set of
connected
behaviors
,
rights
,
obligations
, beliefs,
and norms as conceptualized by people in a
social situation.
•
It is an expected or free or continuously
changing behavior and may have a given
individual
social status
or
social position
.
Characteristics of the Role:
•
1. Action Aspect of Status:
•
The role is in fact the action aspect of status. In
involves various types of actions that a person
has to perform in accordance with the
expectations of the society.
2. Changing Concept of Role:
•
Social roles as already stated, are in accordance
with the social values, ideals, patterns etc. These
ideals, values and objects change and so the
concept of the role also changes.
3. Roles are not Performed 100% for
the Fulfillment of the Expectations:
•
It is not possible for anyone to perform his role
fully in accordance with the expectations of the
society.
4. Difference in the Importance of
Role:
•
From the socio-cultural point of view all the
roles are not equally important. Some of the
roles are more important while the others are
less.
There are different concepts related
to Social Roles.
•
Role conflict
: Role conflict refers to the situation that
happens when a person is expected to act in
contradictory roles in everyday life. The conflicts can
either be a product of contradictory interests or when
there exists different norms on what the responsibilities
of a particular role are. Role conflicts happen in personal
as well as professional life. An example of role conflict is
the situation that occurs when a working mother is
judged to not fit into the role of a “good wife”.
•
Role Distancing
: Role distancing refers to the practice
of distancing oneself from a role. For example, an actor
may have to put into practice the concept of role
distancing very often, between professional and personal
perspectives.
•
Role exit
: The process of discontinuing from a role
in order to establish a new one. An example is the
transformation of an individual into a parent.
•
Role expectation
: This refers to the set of actions
that are expected from a person playing a certain
role. For instance, each profession has a specific set
of roles that are expected from them.
•
Role performance
: Role performance is a term
that refers to the level of performance of a person
with respect to the role that s/he is assigned with.
•
Role reversal
: It refers to the act of people
exchanging their roles with each other. For
examples, a psychologist can at time seek help from
a close friend or relative.
•
Role segregation
: Refers to the separating of role
partners from each other. For examples, a judge of
Court would not appear for a case which s/he has
personal connections with.
•
Role set
: It refers to the cumulative set of roles that
an individual has, from various roles that s/he plays.
•
Role strain
: This refers to the stress that a person
experiences in meeting expectations and obligations
associated with any role. An example is when a
person is working on a laptop, but wishes to cook
food for his children at the same time.
•
Role taking
: The act of assuming to take up the
role of another person so as to understand things
from their point of view. An example is while an
advocate tries to think from the point of view of the
accused while examining a case.
Agency-Structure
•
Agency-making individual choices based on free-
will
•
Structure-cultural and structural influences
operate in the decision making process – How
society is organized – Society is patterned
Agency- Social Structure
•
Agency: ability to act independently of structure
•
Social Structure: pre-existing social
arrangements that shape behavior.
•
Agency-making individual choices based on free-
will
•
Structure-cultural and structural influences
operate in the decision making process
Reference:
•
Herton and Hunt, Sociology, Mcgraw - Hill
International, Singapore 1984
•
Andreas Hess, Concept of Social Stratification, European
and American Models, Palgrave, Houndmills, NY , 2001
•
Giddens, Anthony, Capitalisation and Modern Social
Theory, University Press Cambridge, 1971
•
Smelser, N.J.The Sociology of Economic Life, Prentice
Hall, New Delhi - 1988.
•
Haralombos, M, and Heald, R.M. Sociology: Themes and
Perspectives, Oxford. Delhi - 1980.
•
Randall Collins, Theoretical Sociology, Harcourt Brace
and Company, Florida, 1996.
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
Social systems are orderly arrangements of social interactions based on shared norms and values. Talcott Parsons introduced the concept in modern sociology, defining it as an interrelationship of social actors interacting based on shared cultural norms. Social systems encompass various subsystems like economic, political, and religious, all interconnected within their environment. Elements of a social system include faiths and knowledge, sentiment, end goals, ideals and norms, status-role, role, power, and sanction.
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Presentation Transcript
Social System Meaning, Elements, Characteristics and Types Sr. Jisha Chakkunny M PG Department of Sociology
The term system implies an orderly arrangement, an interrelationship of parts. In the arrangement, every part has a fixed place and definite role to play. The parts are bound by interaction. To understand the functioning of a system, for example the human body, one has to analyse and identify the sub- systems (e.g. circulatory, nervous, digestive, excretionary systems etc.) To understand how these various subsystems enter into specific relations in the fulfillment of the organic function of the body.
Social system may be described as an arrangement of social interactions based on shared norms and values.
Meaning of Social System: It is Talcott Parsons who has given the concept of system current in modern sociology. Social system refers to an orderly arrangement, an inter relationships of parts. Society is a system of usages, authority and mutuality based on We felling and likeness. Differences within the society are not excluded.
Definition A social system may be defined, after Parsons, a plurality of social actors who are engaged in more or less stable interaction according to shared cultural norms and meanings Individuals constitute the basic interaction units. But the interacting units may be groups or organisation of individuals within the system.
The social system, according to Charles P. Loomis, is composed of the patterned interaction of visual actors whose relation to each other are mutually oriented through the definition of the mediation of pattern of structured and shared symbols and expectations.
Social system is a comprehensive arrangement. It takes its orbit all the diverse subsystems such as the economic, political, religious and others and their interrelation too. Social systems are bound by environment such as geography. And this differentiates one system from another.
Elements of Social System: 1. Faiths and Knowledge: 2. Sentiment: 3. End Goal or object: 4. Ideals and Norms: 5. Status-Role: 6. Role: 7. Power: 8. Sanction:
1. Faiths and Knowledge: The faiths and knowledge brings about the uniformity in the behaviour. They act as controlling agency of different types of human societies.
2. Sentiment: Man does not live by reason alone. Sentiments filial, social, notional etc. have played immense role in investing society with continuity. It is directly linked with the culture of the people.
3. End Goal or object: Man is born social and dependent. He has to meet his requirements and fulfill his obligations. Man and society exist between needs and satisfactions, end and goal. These determine the nature of social system. They provided the pathway of progress, and the receding horizons.
4. Ideals and Norms: The society lays down certain norms and ideals for keeping the social system intact and for determining the various functions of different units. These norms prescribe the rules and regulations on the basis of which individuals or persons may acquire their cultural goals and aims.
5. Status-Role: Every individual in society is functional. He goes by status-role relation. It may come to the individual by virtue of his birth, sex, caste, or age. One may achieve it on the basis of service rendered
6. Role: Role is the external expression of the status. While discharging certain jobs or doing certain things, every individual keeps in his mind his status. This thing leads to social integration, organization and unity in the social system.
7. Power: Conflict is a part of social system, and order is its aim. It is implicit, therefore, that some should be invested with the power to punish the guilty and reward those who set an example.
8. Sanction: It implies confirmation by the superior in authority, of the acts done be the subordinate or the imposition of penalty for the infringement of the command. The acts done or not done according to norms may bring reward and punishment.
Characteristics of Social System: Social system has certain characteristics. These characteristics are as follows: 1. System is connected with the plurality of Individual actors: It means that a system or social system cannot be borne as a result of the activity of one individual. It is the result of the activities of various individuals. For system, or social system, interaction of several individuals has to be there.
2. Aim and Object: Human interactions or activities of the individual actors should not be aimless or without object. These activities have to be according to certain aims and objects.
3. Order and Pattern amongst various Constituent Units: It has to be according to a pattern, arrangement and order. The underlined unity amongst various constituent units brings about social system .
4. Functional Relationship is the Basis of Unity: Different constituent units have a unity in order to form a system. This unity is based on functional relations. As a result of functional relationships between different constituent units an integrated whole is created and this is known as social system.
5. Physical or Environmental Aspect of Social System: It means that every social system is connected with a definite geographical area or place, time, society etc.
6. Linked with Cultural System: Social system is also linked with cultural system. It means that cultural system bring about unity amongst different members of the society on the basis of cultures, traditions, religions etc.
7. Expressed and implied Aims and Objects: Social system is also linked with expressed and implied aims. It means that social system is the coming together of different individual actors who are motivated by their aims and objectives and their needs.
8. Characteristics of Adjustment: Social system has the characteristic of adjustment. It is a dynamic phenomenon which is influenced by the changes caused in the social form.
9. Order, Pattern and Balance: Social system has the characteristics of pattern, order and balance. Social system is not an integrated whole but putting together of different units.
Maintenance of Social System: A social system is maintained by the various mechanisms of social control. These mechanisms maintain the equilibrium between the various processes of social interaction.
In brief, these mechanisms may be classified in the following categories: 1. Socialization. 2. Social control.
(1) Socialization: It is process by which an individual is adjusted with the conventional pattern of social behaviour. A child by birth is neither social nor unsocial. But the process of socialization develops him into a functioning member of society. He adjusts himself with the social situations conforming with social norms, values and standards.
(2) Social Control: social control is also a system of measures by which society moulds its members to conform with the approved pattern of social behaviour. According to Parsons, there are two types of elements which exist in every system. These are integrative and disintegrative and create obstacles in the advancement of integration.
Functions of Social System: Social system is a functional arrangement. It would not exist if it were not so. Its functional character ensures social stability and continuity. The functional character of society, Parsons has discussed in depth. Other sociologists such as Robert F. Bales too have discussed it.
It is generally agreed that the social system has four primary functional problems to attend. These are: 1. Adaptation, 2. Goal attainment, 3. Integration, 4. Latent Pattern-Maintenance.
1. Adaptation: Adaptability of social system to the changing environment is essential. a social system is the result of geographical environment and a long drawn historical process which by necessity gives it permanence and rigidity. It need be a flexible and functional phenomenon.
2. Goal Attainment: Goal attainment and adaptability are deeply interconnected. Both contribute to the maintenance of social order. Every social system has one or more goals to be attained through cooperative effort. Perhaps the best example of a societal goal is national security. Adaptation to the social and nonsocial environment is, of course, necessary if goals are to be attained.
ADAPTATION CONTINUE.. For example, there must be a process of ensuring that enough persons, but not too many, occupy each of the roles at a particular time and a process for determining which persons will occupy which roles. These processes together solve the problem of allocation of members in the social system. We have already touched upon the need for property norms. The rules regulating inheritance e.g., primogeniture- in part solve this problem.
3. Integration: Social system is essentially an integration system. In the general routine of life, it is not the society but the group or the subgroup in which one feels more involved and interested. Society, on the whole does not come into one s calculations. Durkheim, that individual is the product of society. Emotions, sentiments and historical forces are so strong that one cannot cut oneself from his moorings.
INTEGRATION CONTINUE.. The command and obedience relation as it exists is based on rationality and order. If it is not sustained, the social order would break down. This necessitates the need for social control. Social control is the need for standardized reactions to violations in order to protect the integrity of the system
4. Latent Pattern-maintenance: Pattern maintenance and tension management is the primary function of social system. In absence of appropriate effort in this direction maintenance and continuity of social order is not possible. In fact within every social system there is the in built mechanism for the purpose.
LATENT PATTERN MAINTANENECE.. Every individual and subgroup learns the patterns in the process of the internalization of norms and values. It is to invest the actors with appropriate attitude and respect towards norms and institution, that the socialization works. Society has the responsibility, like a family, to keep its members functional, to relieve them of anxiety, to encourage those who would be detrimental to the entire system. The decline of societies has been very much because the pattern maintenance and mechanism has often failed. tension management
Social structure Social structure, in sociology, the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together. Social structure is often treated together with the concept of social change, which deals with the forces that change the social structure and the organization of society.
the term social structure refers to regularities in social life, its application is inconsistent. For example, the term is sometimes wrongly applied when other concepts such as custom, tradition, role, or norm would be more accurate.
Studies of social structure attempt to explain such matters as integration and trends in inequality. In the study of these phenomena, sociologists analyze organizations, social categories (such as age groups), or rates (such as of crime or birth). This approach, sometimes called formal sociology, does not refer directly to individual behaviour or interpersonal interaction. Therefore, the study of social structure is not considered a behavioral science; at this level, the analysis is too abstract.
Social structure is sometimes defined simply as patterned social relations those regular and repetitive aspects of the interactions between the members of a given social entity.
The term structure has been applied to human societies since the 19th century. Before that time, its use was more common in other fields such as construction or biology.
According to Marx, the basic structure of society is economic, or material, and this structure influences the rest of social life, which is defined as nonmaterial, spiritual, or ideological.
The term structure are evident in the work of British philosopher Herbert Spencer. He and other social theorists of the 19th and early 20th centuries conceived organism comprising interdependent parts that form a structure similar to the anatomy of a living body. biological connotations of the of society as an
In the most general way, social structure is identified by those features of a social entity (a society or a group within a society) that persist over time, are interrelated, and influence both the functioning of the entity as a whole and the activities of its individual members.
The origin of contemporary sociological references to social structure can be traced to mile Durkheim, who argued that parts of society are interdependent and that this interdependency imposes structure on the behaviour of institutions and their members
. In other words, Durkheim believed that individual human behaviour is shaped by external forces. Similarly, American anthropologist George P. Murdock, in his book Social Structure (1949), examined kinship systems in preliterate societies and used social structure as a taxonomic device for classifying, comparing, and correlating various aspects of kinship systems.
Social Structure Definition According to Radcliff-Brown social structure is a part of the social structure of all social relations of person to person. In the study of social structure the concrete reality with which we are concerned is the set of actually existing relations at a given moment of time that link together certain human beings.
According to Talcott Parsons, the term social structure applies to the particular arrangement of the interrelated institutions, agencies and social patterns as well as the statuses and roles which each person assumes in the group. Parsons has tried to explain the concept of social structure in abstract form. All the units of social structure that is institutions, agencies, social patterns, statuses and roles are invisible and intangible and hence are abstract.
