Social structure
Meaning of Structure:
The word ‘Structure’ in its original English meaning refers to “building
construction” or “arrangement of parts”, or “manner of organization”. Gradually,
structure began to imply inter-relations between the parts of any whole. For
example, a building which has structure consists of various parts such as stones,
sand, bricks, iron, cement, wood, glass etc. Structure of Building Needs Sand
Concretes, Stones, and Bricks etc in the same way, society too has its own
structure called ‘social structure’. The components or units of social structure are
“persons”.
Social structure refers to the stable patterns of collective rules, roles and activities
or in a society or in one of its part. For example, In the University every year
seniors depart and a new class of freshman enters, some faculty members are
replaced, new classes are added to the curriculum, the administration arranges to
include students representatives in its planning sessions, curfews are abolished and
tuitions rises yet despite change in the personnel and policies, something about the
university remained unchanged. Faculty members still design their courses, assign
work to the students and evaluate their progress. This way in which individual
faculty members perform their role vary, but the general pattern are much the same
and fit together into an overall structure that we call a University. Structure itself
remain invisible, it silently shapes our action.
Introduction of Social Structure:
The word “structure” comes from the Latin verb struo, to join together, build,
arrange, or order. Struo is related to the Greek verb stornymi, to spread smooth or
level (Rosen 1980)
The concept of social structure became popular amongst the sociologists, after the
World War II. In this period of time the term Social Structure came to be applied to
‘almost any ordered arrangement of social phenomenon’. Herbert Spencer was the
first sociologist to through light on the structure of the society. He was too much
fascinated by his biological analogy (organic structure and evolution) to make clear
which he meant by the structure of the society. According to him the meaning of
social structure can be easily understood if we take an example of the organic
structure of body. Body is an arrangement of different parts like legs, mouth,nose
and ears ,etc. The body works through these interdependent and inter-related parts.
Social structure also consists of many parts like families, schools, factories, offices,
non-governmental origination, jails, police and hospitals ,etc.
Social life is composed of many levels of building blocks, from the very micro to
the very macro. These building blocks combine to form the social structure. Social
structure refers to the social patterns through which a society is organized and can
be horizontal or vertical. To recall, horizontal social structure refers to the social
relationships and the social and physical characteristics of communities to which
individuals belong, while vertical social structure, more commonly called social
inequality, refers to ways in which a society or group ranks people in a hierarchy.
Social structures are how societies are organized. Social structures help us define
who we are in a society and how we function in that society. Such things as our
race, our economic status, and gender play a role in social structure. Social
structures exist in all societies and have an effect on how humans operate within
society. These structures make up our society in which we live and are very
organized.
Social structures consist of social relationships, as well as any social institutions
within a society. One example of a social structure is social class (upper-class,
middle-class, and poor). The different social classes vary in the fact that they do
not have access to the same resources that society has to offer.
In addition, these social classes view one another differently. The interactions
between one social class might be completely different from the interaction within
another social class. Another example of a social structure is the different levels of
government. For example: the federal, state, and municipal levels of government.
