Assignment # 02

Topic:
SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Subject:
Sociology
Submitted By:
Azeem Mushtaq
Reg.ID:
FA08-BEC-008
Submitted to:

Date:
16-05-2011
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Social Institutions
A social institution may be defined as an organizational system which
functions to satisfy basic social needs by providing an ordered framework
linking the individual to the larger culture.

A social institution is a complex, integrated set of social norms organized

around the preservation of a basic societal value. These are established or
standardized patterns of rule-governed behavior. They include the family,
education, religion, and economic and political institution.

Groups of persons banded together for common purposes having rights,

privileges, liabilities, goals, or objectives distinct and independent from those of
individual members.
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Social institutions are determined by their society’s mode of production and

they serve to maintain the power of the dominant class. Social institutions are
interdependent but no single institution determines the rest. The causes and
consequences of social institutions can not be determined in advance.

GENERAL FUCTIONS OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

1. Institution Satisfy the Basic Needs of Society.

2. Institution Define Dominant Social Values.

"Bill of Rights"

3. Institutions Establish Permanent Patterns of Social Behavior

Monogamy

4. Institutions Support Other Institutions.

"Adultery".

5. Institutions Provide Roles for Individuals .

Husband and Wife.

Sociologists often reserve the term "institution" to describe normative systems

that operate in five basic areas of life which may be termed as the Primary
institutions.

(1) In determining Kinship

(2) In providing for the legitimate use of power

(3) In regulating the distribution of goods and services

(4) In transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next

(5) In regulating our relation to the supernatural

In short these five basic institutions are called the family, government,
economy, education and religion.
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The five primary institutions are found among all human

groups. They are not always as highly elaborated or as distinct from one
another as into the United States, but, in rudimentary form at last, they exist
everywhere. Their universality indicates that they are deeply rooted in human
nature and that they are essential in the development and maintenance of
orders. Sociologists operating in terms of the functionalist model society have
provided the clearest explanation of the functions served by social institutions.
Apparently there are certain minimum tasks that must be performed in all
human groups. Unless these tasks are performed adequately, the group will
cease to exist. An analogy may help to make the point. We might hypothesize
that cost accounting department is essential to the operation of a large
corporation. A company might procure a superior product and distribute it
then at the price which is assigned to it, the company will soon go out of
business. Perhaps the only way to avoid this is to have a careful accounting of
the cost of each step in the production and distribution process.

These institutions can be explained as

1-The Family
A socially defined set of relationships between at least two people related by
birth, marriage, adoption, or, in some definitions, long-standing ties of
intimacy.

The family upholds the capitalist economic order by ensuring the reproduction
of the working class and by maintaining housewives as a reserve labor force.

Functions of the family include socializing children, regulating sexual behavior

and reproduction, distributing resources, providing social support.

THE SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS OF THE FAMILY

1. The control and regulation of sexual behavior.

2. To provide for new members of society (children).

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3. To provide for the economic and emotional maintenace of individuals.

4. To provide for primary socialization of children.

2- Education
A formal process in which knowledge, skills, and values are systematically
transmitted from one individual or group to another.

Even in "primitive" societies, there are highly developed methods of conveying

knowledge and values.  These methods will affect reception of new ideas.  The
effective communicator learns and uses the insider formats and channels.

Education serves the capitalist order by producing skilled workers with habits
such as punctuality and respect for authority.

Functions of education include transmitting shared values and beliefs,

transmitting specific knowledge and skills, sorting individuals based on skill,
and establishing social control over youths.

Educational tracking systems and other differential treatment of students

reinforce social inequalities. Face-to-face interactions in the classroom can
have long-range consequences for students’ educational achievements.

THE SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION

1. Transmitting culture.

2. Preparation for occupational roles

3. Evaluating and Selecting competent individuals

4. Transmitting functional skills for functoning in society.

3-Religion
A unified system of beliefs and practices pertaining to the supernatural and to
norms about the right way to live that is shared by a group of believers.
Sociologists treat religion as a social rather than supernatural phenomenon.

This entails beliefs about the world, universal order and good, spiritual beings
and powers, as well as rituals and ceremonies. For many peoples, religion is
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not separated into a separate sphere of life but is part of the fabric of society,
making "conversion" difficult, because of the "religious" identity of the society.
Concepts of loyalty, identity, faithfulness and personhood are in this category.
Political and religious institutions are often related.  This may involve
"religious" ceremonies of cultural identity.

Religion is the “opium of the people”. It masks domination and diverts workers
from rebelling against exploitation.

Classified religions by their approach to salvation:

 Ascetic religions require active self-mastery; mystical religions require

passive contemplation.

 Other-worldly religions require focus on the next life (e.g., heaven); this-
worldly religions require focus on earthly life.

Religion provides social solidarity and collective conscience; it expresses and

celebrates the force of society over the individual.

Functions of religion include providing meaning for life, reinforcing social

norms, strengthening social bonds, and marking status changes (e.g.,
marriage).Dysfunctions, according to some, include justifying persecution.

THE SPECIFIC FUNCTIONOF RELIGION

1. Providing solutions for unexplained natural, phenomena.

2. Supplying a means for controlling the natural world.

3. Religion tends to support the normative structure of the society.

4. Furnishing a psychological diversion from unwanted life situations.

5. Sustaining the existing class structure.

6. Religion serves as an instrument of socialization.

7. Religion may both promote and retard social change.

8. Religion may both reduce and encourage conflict in groups.

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4-Economic Institutions
Sociologists understand the economy as the set of arrangements by which a
society produces, distributes, and consumes goods, services, and other
resources.

This involves the production of goods and the organization of labor, the
provision of care and similar factors, not just money, buying and selling.  Every
society has systems of provision or procurement.  Economic and political
institutions are related.

Economic organization --the means and relations of production-- determines

the major features of any society.

Functions of economic institutions include: production and distribution of

goods, assignment of individuals to different social roles such as occupations.

THE SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS OF ECONOMY

1. Provide methods for the production of goods and services.

2. Provide methods for the distribution of goods and services.

3. Enable societies members to consume goods and services which are

produced.

5-Political Institutions
Institutions that pertain to the governance of a society, its formal distribution
of authority, its use of force, and its relationships to other societies and
political units. The state, an important political institution in modern societies,
is the apparatus of governance over a particular territory.

Every society has an organizational principle, with authority figures, with

defined roles and obligations.  There are written or oral laws.  Some societies
are tightly knit, while others are very loosely organized.  The Luo people, for
instance, traditionally had no chiefs, the society being organized around
families.

--the state is an authority that maintains a monopoly on the use of violence in

its territory.
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Functions of political institutions include protection from external enemies,

resolving group conflicts, defining societal goals, and strengthening group
identity and norms. Pluralism, a particularly functional type of political
institution, entails distribution of power among many groups so no one group
can gain control.

Pluralism and democracy are illusions that invite the powerless to believe that
they have a voice in governance, when in fact their control is quite limited.