NOTES

Social Structures

Status - any socially defined position within a society. A persons may hold any number of statuses (wife, woman, mother, citizen, Italian-American, customer etc).

Ascribed Status - imposed or given by others to a person
Achieved Status - taken on by a person

Master Status - a status that dominates other statuses, would often function to define social situation ( male, blind, sex offender)

Symmetrical Statuses - friend, enemy, neighbor - equitable, and identical
Complementary Statuses - husband/wife, teacher/student, doctor/patient, king/subject - contingent, non-dentical, not necessaririly equal.

Status set - combo of all statuses that an individual occupies. But the concept of status is not primarily useful for understanding an individual; better as a notion for understanding characteristics of a group.

 

Role - set of expectations, obligations, behaviors that are associated with a social status.

-ambiguity; roles change over time. Often enough there is uncertainty about the performance of a role (are husbands expected to be breadwinners anymore?)

- conflict - performance of one role may conflict with the performance of another - a teenager is often a peer and a child - friends expecting one behavior, parents its opposite

- strain

 

Group - a number of people that interact with one another, identify as part of the collectivity, share similar norms, values, have a structure.

primary and secondary groups - Cooley

Networks -

Societies of Humans all have DIVISION OF LABOR by which all tasks understood to be needed in a society get done.

Durkheim - society either is or requires a division of labor. Small societies characterized by what he calls mechanical solidarity - each individual contains entire social structure almost the way an individual has entire grammar of their language. With mechanical solidarity - many in group as 'cross-trained', not specialized in their work. Glue that binds them together is values, stories, affection, kin-type bonds.Larger scale societies with more specialized divisions of labor are characterized by what he calls organic solidarity (an organism has specialized organs each with their own job to do to). Individual groups and institutions function together without sharing same values, skills, roles, knowledge of one another. Here groups are glued together by material and performative dependencies on each other to satisfy needs.

Tonnies - Gemeinschaft - small scale, personal stronger than status/role.
Gesellschaft - larger scale, interaction governed more by impersonal role/status than personal relationships.

Rites de Passage - transformation from one status to another in the life-cycle - quickening, childbirth, naming, couvade, christenings, bris, circumcisions, menarche, sweet-sixteen, puberty trials for males, driver's license, proms graduations, divorces, weddings, funerals, retirements. - Ritualization of changes, reformation of community's relationships, resorting/balancing statuses and roles.

Institutions - organized, persistent, intentional patterns of behavior and belief that operate as functional, integrating forces of a society

Formal Organizations and Bureaucracies

Div of Labor
Hierarchical
Impersonal (status-defined, not person-defined)
Written rules - policies, practices, procedures
Ownership of implements and tools with the organization
Control of space/time with the organization.

Dysfunctions - red-tape, runaround/indecisive, trained incapacity, slow response to changes