C HAPTER 5 Social Structure and Society

Chapter Outline  Social Structure and Status  Social Structure and Roles  Society  Modernization and the Theoretical Perspectives

Social Structure  Social structure - the underlying pattern of social relationships.  Relationships among individuals are patterned.

Status  Status – a position that a person occupies within a social structure.  Individuals in interrelated statuses usually behave in orderly and predictable ways.  Status helps us define who and what we are in relation to others within the same social structure.

 Statuses may be assigned or earned.  Individuals occupy many statuses at once as well as throughout their life course.  A status set is all the statuses that an individual occupies at a particular time.

Types of Status  Ascribed status – assigned to us at birth. Gender and age are both ascribed.  So are princess, prince, lower class, higher class.  Achieved status – earned or chosen because people have a degree of control and choice.  Spouse, occupation, at some stages/societies lower class, higher class.

Types of Status  Master status – affects/influences most other aspects of a person’s life.

The Interrelationships of Social Statuses

Roles  Roles - culturally defined rights and obligations attached to social statuses; the expected behaviors attached to a status.  Role sets – all of the roles that are attached to a single status.  As you can see, the structure gets complex, as a person can have many role sets that are associated with the many statuses of their status set.

Rights and Obligations  The roles of one status are matched with the roles of other statuses through rights and obligations.  Rights inform one person of the behavior that can be expected from another person.  Obligations inform individuals of the behavior others expect from them.

Role Performance  Occurs when roles are put into action through social interaction.  Social interaction is the process of two or more persons influencing each other’s behavior.  According to Erving Goffman, statuses are analogous to the parts of a play and roles are the script. In turn, social interaction represents the way the actors respond to cues given by other actors.

The Stage Analogy

Questions for Consideration  How do the principles of interaction mentioned in the video relate to how Goffman discusses social interaction and role performance?  What is the importance of the pleasure principle of interaction?

Role Conflict & Role Strain  Role conflict occurs when role performance in one status clashes with role performance in another status.  Role strain occurs when the roles of a single status are inconsistent.

Zimbardo Experiment  The experiment was designed to observe the behavior of people without record of crime or violence in a mock “prison.”  Zimbardo was amazed at the rapidity with which statuses were adopted and roles fulfilled by “liberal” college students randomly assigned to play prisoners and guards.

Questions for Consideration  How can you discuss Zimbardo’s experiment within the context of one of the three major theoretical perspectives?  Do you think this experiment could be carried out today under the sociological code of ethics?  What examples of various statuses, roles, role strain, and role conflict can you identify in this experiment?

Types of Society  Society – composed of people living within defined territorial borders, sharing a common culture.  Societies become more complex as the means for solving subsistence problems improve.  Major types of societies are hunting and gathering, horticultural, pastoral, agricultural, industrial, and postindustrial.

Comparison of Major Types of Society: Hunting and Gathering

Comparison of Major Types of Society: Horticultural

Comparison of Major Types of Society: Pastoral

Comparison of Major Types of Society: Agricultural

Comparison of Major Types of Society: Industrial

Comparison of Major Types of Society: Postindustrial

Differences between Preindustrial and Industrial Societies  Tönnies (1887) distinguished between:  gemeinschaft, based on tradition, kinship, and intimate social relationships,  gesellschaft, based on weak family ties, competition, and less personal social relationships.

Differences between Preindustrial and Industrial Societies – Cont.  Durkheim (1893) also identified two types of society by looking at their social solidarity.  Mechanical solidarity – foundation for social unity; achieves this through a consensus of beliefs, values, and norms; strong social pressures for conformity and dependence on tradition and family.

Differences between Preindustrial and Industrial Societies – Cont.  Organic solidarity – achieves social unity through complex specialized statuses that make members interdependent. Dependence and need for cooperation replace the homogeneity of beliefs, values, and norms characteristic of simpler societies.

Differences between Preindustrial and Industrial Societies – Cont.  Robert Redfield (1941) made a distinction between folk society and urban society.  Folk society – rests on tradition, cultural and social consensus, family, personal ties, little division of labor, and an emphasis on the sacred.

Differences between Preindustrial and Industrial Societies – Cont.  Urban society – social relationships are impersonal and contractual; the importance of the family declines;  cultural and social consensus is diminished; economic specialization becomes even more complex; and secular concerns outweigh sacred ones.

Major Features of Postindustrial Society  Economic base is grounded more in service industries than in manufacturing. Relies on expertise in production, consumption, and government.  Bell (1999) identifies five major features of postindustrial society: 1. Majority of labor force is employed in services rather than agriculture or manufacturing. 2. White-collar employment replaces blue-collar work.

Major Features of Postindustrial Society 3. Theoretical knowledge is the key organizing feature. 4. Through new means of technological forecasting, society can plan and control technological change. 5. Intellectual technology dominates human affairs.

Questions for Consideration  In what ways have you experienced role conflict and/or role strain? Describe these situations and how you felt.  In what ways will your work life be different in a postindustrial society than it would be in an industrial society?

Modernization and the Theoretical Perspectives  Modernization – entails the broader social changes that accompany economic development based on industrialization.  According to modernization theory, the changes associated with modernization are the result of an evolutionary process by which societies become increasingly complex.

Modernization and the Theoretical Perspectives  Broader societal changes that accompany modernization:  population growth  life expectancy increases  death rate declines

Modernization and the Theoretical Perspectives  Modernization brings an expanded upper and middle classes, with more emphasis placed on personal achievement.  Modernization promotes political democracy.  Modernization transfers education from the family to formal schooling.  Modernization affects family life.

Convergence  Advocates of convergence foresee the development of social and cultural similarities among modernizing nations.  This leads to the creation of a global culture – a homogenized way of life spread across the globe.

Divergence  Supporters of divergence see the persistence of cultural differences among modernizing societies as a result of intervening idiosyncratic social and cultural forces in the move toward modernization.

Globalization  Globalization is the process by which increasingly permeable geographical boundaries lead different societies to share in common some economic, political, and social arrangements.

World-System Theory  World-system theory – the pattern of a nation’s development hinges on its place in the world economy.

Postmodernism  Postmodernism contains within it a critique of modernism on the grounds that its benefits are enjoyed by some to the detriment of others.  Postmodernism questions the key assumptions of modernism.  Postmodernism emphasizes the domination of the weak by the strong.  Postmodernism questions the existence of an ultimate truth.