What is a SOCIAL INSTITUTION?

-a group of social positions, connected by social relations, performing a social role, e.g. universities,
government, families

Characteristics of an Institution
Palispis (1996) pointed out the following characteristics and functions.
1. Institutions are purposive. Each of them has the satisfaction of social needs as its own goal or
objective.
2. Relatively permanent in their content. The pattern roles and relations that people enact in a
particular culture become traditional enduring. Although institutions are subject to change, the change
is relatively slow.
3. Institutions are structured. The components tend to band together, reinforce one another. This is
because social roles and social relations are in themselves structured combinations of behavior
patterns.
4. Institutions are a unified structure. They function as a unit.
5. Institutions are necessarily value-laden. Their repeated uniformities, patters and trends become
codes of conduct. Most of these codes subconsciously exert social pressures. However, others are in
form of rules and laws.

Functions of an Institution
1. Institutions simplify social behavior for the individual person. The social institutions provide
every child with all the needed social and cultural mechanisms through which he can grow socially.
2. Institutions provide ready-made forms of social relations and social roles for the individual.
The principal roles are not invented by the individuals, they are provided by the institutions.
3. Institutions also act as agencies of coordination and stability for total culture. The ways of
thinking and behaving that are institutionalized “make sense” to people.
4. Institutions tend to control behavior. They contain the systematic expectations of the society.
• Social Institutions can take many forms, depending on a social context.
• It may be a family, business, educational, or political institution.

EDUCATION
Multiple Functions of Schools
 Technical/economic - refers to the contributions of the school to the technical or economic
development and needs of the individual, the institution, the local community, the society and
the international community.
 Human/social - refers to the contributions of the school to human development and social
relationships at different levels of society.
 Political - refers to the contributions of the school to the political development at different levels
of society.
 Cultural - refers to the contributions of the school to the cultural transmission and development
at different levels of society.
 Education - refers to the contributions of the school to the development and maintenance of
education at the different levels of society.
Manifest and Latent Functions of Education
Manifest functions of education are defined as the open and intended goals or consequences
of activities within an organization or institution.
 Socialization
 Social control
 Social placement
 Transmitting culture
 Promoting social and political integration
 Agent of change

Latent functions of education are the hidden, unstated and sometimes unintended consequences of
activities within an organization or institution.
Restricting some activities
Matchmaking and production of social networks
Creation of generation gap

Functions of Schools by Calderon (1998)

Conservation function
 Instructional function
Research function
Social service function

RELIGION
Religion is the socially defined patterns of beliefs concerning ultimate meaning of life’ it assumes the
existence of the supernatural. -Stark

Characteristics of Religion
Belief in a deity or in a power beyond the individual
A doctrine (accepted teaching) of salvation
A code of conduct
The use of sacred stories
Religious rituals (acts and ceremonies)

Functions of Religion
Religion serves as a means of social control.
It exerts a great influence upon personality development.
Religion always fear the unknown.
Religion explains events or situations which are beyond the comprehension of man.
It gives man comfort, strength and hope in times of crisis and despair.
It preserves and transmits knowledge, skills,
spiritual and cultural values and practices
It serves as an instrument of change.
It promotes closeness, love, cooperation, friendliness and helpfulness.
Religion alleviates sufferings from major calamities.
It provides hope for a blissful life after death.

Churches, sects and cults

Church – tends to be large, with inclusive membership, in low tension with surrounding society and
tends toward greater intellectual examination and interpretation of the tenants of religion.
Sect – has a small, exclusive membership, high tension with society. It tends toward the emotional,
mystic, stress faith, feeling, conversion experience, to be “born again”.
Cult – the more innovative institutions and are formed when people create new religious beliefs and
practices. There are three types: audience cults, client cults and cult movements.

Elements of Religion
Sacred - refers to phenomena that are regarded as extraordinary, transcendent, and outside the
everyday course of events - that is, supernatural.
Legitimation of norms – Religious sanctions and beliefs reinforce the legitimacy of many rules and
norms in the community.
Rituals – are formal patterns of activity that express symbolically a set of shared meanings.
Religious Community – Religions establishes a code of behavior for the members, who belong and
who does not.

ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS

Microeonomics vs. Macroeconomics

Microeconomics - concerned with the specific economic units of parts that makes an economic
system and the relationship between those parts.
Macroeconomics - concerned with the economy as a whole, or large segments of it.

Basic Economic Problems

What goods and services to produce and how much?
How to produce goods and services?
For whom are the goods and services?

GOVERNMENT
The institution which resolves conflicts that are public in nature and involve more than a few people is
called a government. It can be city, provincial, national or even international.

THREE BRANCHES OF THE GOVERNMENT

Executive- Enforces rules and laws
Legislative- Makes rules and laws
Judicial- Interprets rules and laws

Politics and Administration

Politics - a pattern of human interaction that serves to resolve conflicts between people, institutions,
and nations
Administration - refers to the aggregate of persons in whose hands the reigns of
government are for the time being.

Constituent and Ministrant Functions of the Government

Constituent - contribute to the very bonds of society and are therefore compulsary.
Examples of constituent functions
• The keeping of order and providing for protection of persons and property from violence and
robbery.
• The definition and punishment for crimes
• The administration of justice in civil cases.
Ministrant - those undertaken to advance the general interest of society such as public works,
charity and are merely optional.