Social Structure and Social Interaction

Social Structure
• social structure: relatively stable patterns of social behavior
• relationship of people and groups to one another
• people learn different behaviors and attitudes because of their location in the social structure
• major components of social structure
• culture: language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and material objects that constitute a
people’s way of life
• social class: large number of people with similar amounts of income, education, and
occupational prestige
• social status: a position that one occupies
• role: behavior expected of someone who holds a particular status
• social group: two or more people who identify and interact with one another
• social institution: organized system developed to meet basic need of society
• society: group of people who share a culture and a territory

Social Status
• status set: all the statuses a person holds at a given time
• ascribed status: social position inherited at birth or received involuntarily later in
life
• achieved status: social position that is earned or at least involves some effort on
the individual’s part
• master status: status that has exceptional importance for social identity
– cuts across other statuses an individual holds
• status symbols: items used to identify status
• status inconsistency: contradiction or mismatch between statuses an individual
holds

Roles
• A role is the dynamic expression of a status.
– One occupies a status, but plays a role.
• role set: a number of roles attached to a single status
• role conflict: incompatibility of roles corresponding to two or more statuses
• role strain: incompatibility of roles corresponding to a single status
• role exit: process by which people disengage from important social roles

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 Social Institutions
• family
• religion
• law
• politics
• economics
• education
• medicine
• science
• military
• mass media

Societies
• types of societies
• hunting and gathering
• horticultural and pastoral
• agrarian
• industrial
• postindustrial
• sociocultural evolution
• changes that occur as a society gains new technology
• four social revolutions
• domestication of plants and animals
• invention of the plow
• invention of steam engine
• invention of microchip
• type of society in which we live is fundamental reason why we become who we are
• sets boundaries around our lives
• determines type & extent of social inequality that prevails
• governs relationships between men/women, young/elderly, rich/poor, racial & ethnic groups

What holds society together?

• social cohesion: the degree to which members of a society feel united by social
bonds
• Durkheim:
– mechanical solidarity: united by a sense of similarity
• moral consensus
– organic solidarity: united by interdependence based on specialized division of labor
• functional interdependence
• Tonnies:
– gemeinschaft: intimate community
– gesellschaft: impersonal association

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 Social Interaction in Everyday life
• social construction of reality: process by which people shape reality through
social interaction
– use of background assumptions and life experiences to determine what is real
• Hall: personal space
– intimate, personal, social, public distances
• Goffman: dramaturgical analysis
– impression management
• Garfinkel: ethnomethodology
• study of how people make sense of everyday life; attempt to reveal background assumptions
• Thomas Theorem: If people define situations as real, they are real in their
consequences.