social structure 1-2 institutions, status, roles, groups, persons
- Structure = Arrangement of persons in an institutionalised behaviour.
- Herbert Spencer gave the analogy of house and organism to explain the concept of social structure. structure refers to the way in which parts are interconnected so that an entity emerges as an integrated whole, which for the purpose of analysis can be broken down into individual parts.
- Radcliffe brown considered person as the unit of structure. he considered social structure as a reality.
- Evans prichard said that social structure refers to relations between groups. Structure is an organised combination of groups. Individuals come and go but groups remain. Social structure is not an empirical reality. He said that family is not a structural group.
- Claude Levi Strauss considered structure as not an empirical reality but a model. He used the analogy of language. The linguist uses language to create its grammar and structure. from Sushil experiences and social relations we obtain the data and we can create an abstract model of social structure. What people say and what people do is different. What people say is mechanical model and what people do is statistical model. Both are important to derive social structure
- Edmund leach. he argued that statistical models are more important in understanding social structure.
- R Firth 1955. Focused on formal and informal structure in society.
- Examples: Caste structure. Present society. Primitive societies.
- After 1960 with the advent of clifford geertz and turner interpretivism tried to improve social structure model.
- With practice theory thinkers like Pierre bourdieu and Anthony giddens the emphasis shifted from structure to the agent, person and individual. Practice theorists are also called poststructuralist. Anthony giddens gave the theory of structuration, which gives a model encompassing both structure and action.
- Social structure is the web of interacting social forces from which have arisen the various models of observing and thinking , Mannheim, 1936
- Social structure is concerned with the principal forms of social organisation that is types of groups, associations and Institutions and the complex of those which constitute society,. Ginsberg, 1947
- It refers to the pattern within culture and organisation through which social action takes place. It enables and constraints what is possible in social life
