sociology Notes!!
 

[B]Basic Concepts[/B]

Introduction
Sociology (from Latin: socius, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the study of", from Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge" [1]) is the scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture[2]. Areas studied in sociology can range from the analysis of brief contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social interaction. Numerous fields within the discipline concentrate on how and why people are organized in society, either as individuals or as members of associations, groups, and institutions. As an academic discipline, sociology is usually considered a branch of social science


Sociological research provides educators, planners, lawmakers, administrators, developers, business leaders, and people interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy with rationales for the actions that they take.


Society
The term society is most fundamental to sociology. It is derived from the Latin word socius which means companionship or friendship. Companionship means sociability. According to George Simmel it is this element of sociability which defines the true essence of society. It indicates that man always lives in the company of other people. Man is a social animal said Aristotle centuries ago. Man needs society for his living, working and enjoying life. Society has become an essential condition for human life to continue. We can define society as a group of people who share a common culture, occupy a particular territorial area and feel themselves to constitute a unified and distinct entity. It is the mutual interactions and interrelations of individuals and groups.



Definitions of Society
August Comte the father of sociology saw society as a social organism possessing a harmony of structure and function.Emile Durkheim the founding father of the modern sociology treated society as a reality in its own right. According to Talcott Parsons Society is a total complex of human relationships in so far as they grow out of the action in terms of means-end relationship intrinsic or symbolic.G.H Mead conceived society as an exchange of gestures which involves the use of symbols. Morris Ginsberg defines society as a collection of individuals united by certain relations or mode of behavior which mark them off from others who do not enter into these relations or who differ from them in behavior. Cole sees Society as the complex of organized associations and institutions with a community. According to Maclver and Page society is a system of usages and procedures of authority and mutual aid of many groupings and divisions, of controls of human behavior and liberties. This ever changing complex system which is called society is a web of social relationship


Types of Societies


Writers have classified societies into various categories Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft of Tonnies, mechanical and organic solidarities of Durkheim, status and contract of Maine, and militant and industrial societies of Spencer. All these thinkers have broadly divided society into pre-industrial and post-industrial societies. Sociologists like Comte based their classification of societies on intellectual development.

Most of them concede the evolutionary nature of society- one type leading to the other. One more way of dividing societies is that of Marx. His classification of society is based on the institutional framework of society as determined by a group of people who control the means of production. Marx distinguishes five principal types of societies: primitive, Asiatic, ancient, feudal and capitalist.

Following these classifications, sociologists often refer to societies as primitive or modern non-literate or literate. A more recent kind of classification which is also used while distinguishing societies into types is the one between open and closed societies. A closed society is the one which is a traditional and simple society or a totalitarian State tends to resist change, while an open society admits change.

None of these classifications is accurate; for every major type have number of sub-types. One type like the capitalist can be of various kinds like carboniferous type, finance capital, and the modern neo-colonial or multi-national type. Further, it is to be borne in mind that the chief task of a sociologist is not that of identifying societies but finding out whether a particular kind of society has the potential to nurture, defend and survive. Such a study alone can reveal the sociological aspects of societies and thereby facilitating understanding of societies as they are, and, if need be, activate the required changes. In other words, sociology based on values relies on objective analysis of societies.

However, in recent years there have been several studies of what are variously called irrigation civilization or hydraulic societies. These studies have been related to the general study of bureaucracy, but little has yet been done in the way of large scale comparative work of various complex organized societies. It is not enough, however, to characterize pre-British India as an irrigation civilization with a centralized bureaucracy and a village system of production. The unity and stability of Indian society depended also upon two other factors, caste and religion. There, the aspect of caste to be emphasized is not so much its rigid hierarchical character and the way in which it divided groups from each other, as its integrating function, closely connected with religion.

M.N. Srinivas, in a discussion of Indian social structure, observes that caste guarantees autonomy to a community into relation with numerous other communities all going to form a hierarchy. The importance of such an institution is obvious in a vast country like India which has been the meeting place of many different cultures in the past and which has always had considerable regional diversity. While the autonomy of a sub- caste was preserved it was also brought into relation with others and the hierarchy was also a scale of generally agreed values.



The work of K. Wittfoged suggests that many important similarities can be found, in ancient Egypt, in Byzantium and elsewhere especially in the social functions of the priests and in the elements and caste revealed in detailed regulation of the division of labor. Each human group develops its own social and political structure in terms of its own culture and history. There broad types of social structures may be distinguished. First, the tribal society represented by the social structures of African tribes second, the agrarian social structure represented by the traditional Indian society. And the third, the industrial social structure represented by the industrially advanced countries Europe and U.S.A. Sociologists also speak of yet another type, called post industrial society, which is emerging out of the industrial society.

Community

The term community is one of the most elusive and vague in sociology and is by now largely without specific meaning. At the minimum it refers to a collection of people in a geographical area. Three other elements may also be present in any usage. (1) Communities may be thought of as collections of people with a particular social structure; there are, therefore, collections which are not communities. Such a notion often equates community with rural or pre-industrial society and may, in addition, treat urban or industrial society as positively destructive. (2) A sense of belonging or community spirit. (3) All the daily activities of a community, work and non work, take place within the geographical area, which is self contained. Different accounts of community will contain any or all of these additional elements.

We can list out the characteristics of a community as follows:

1. Territory
2. Close and informal relationships
3. Mutuality
4. Common values and beliefs
5. Organized interaction
6. Strong group feeling
7. Cultural similarity

Talcott Parsons defined community as collectivity the members of which share a common territorial area as their base of operation for daily activities. According to Tonnies community is defined as an organic natural kind of social group whose members are bound together by the sense of belonging, created out of everyday contacts covering the whole range of human activities. He has presented ideal-typical pictures of the forms of social associations contrasting the solidarity nature of the social relations in the community with the large scale and impersonal relations thought to characterize industrializing societies. Kingsley Davis defined it as the smallest territorial group that can embrace all aspects of social life. For Karl Mannheim community is any circle of people who live together and belong together in such a way that they do not share this or that particular interest only but a whole set of interests.

Association



Men have diverse needs, desires and interests which demand satisfaction. There are three ways of fulfilling these needs. Firstly they may act independently each in his own way without caring for others. This is unsocial with limitations. Secondly men may seek their ends through conflicts with one another. Finally men may try to fulfill their ends through cooperation and mutual assistance.

This cooperation has a reference to association.

When a group or collection of individuals organize themselves expressly for the purpose of pursuing certain of its interests together on a cooperative pursuit an association is said to be born. According to Morris Ginsberg an association is a group of social beings related to one another by the fact that they possess or have instituted in common an organization with a view to securing a specific end or specific ends. The associations may be found in different fields. No single association can satisfy all the interests of the individual or individuals. Since Man has many interests, he organizes various associations for the purpose of fulfilling varied interests. He may belong to more than one organization.

Main characteristics of Association:

Association: An association is formed or created by people. It is a social group. Without people there can be no association. It is an organized group. An unorganized group like crowd or mob cannot be an association.

Common interest: An association is not merely a collection of individuals. It consists of those individuals who have more or less the same interests. Accordingly those who have political interests may join political association and those who have religious interests may join religious associations and so on.

Cooperative spirit: An association is based on the cooperative spirit of its members. People work together to achieve some definite purposes. For example a political party has to work together as a united group on the basis of cooperation in order to fulfill its objective of coming to power.

Organization: Association denotes some kind of organization. An association is known essentially as an organized group. Organization gives stability and proper shape to an association. Organization refers to the way in which the statuses and roles are distributed among the members.

Regulation of relations: Every association has its own ways and means of regulating the relation of its members. Organization depends on this element of regulation. They may assume written or unwritten forms.

Association as agencies: Associations are means or agencies through which their members seek to realize their similar or shared interests. Such social organizations necessarily act not merely through leaders but through officials or representatives as agencies. Associations normally act through agents who are responsible for and to the association.

Durability of association: An association may be permanent or temporary. There are some long standing associations like the state; family, religious associations etc.Some associations may be temporary in nature.



Social Institutions



A social institution is a complex, integrated set of social norms organized around the preservation of a basic societal value. Obviously, the sociologist does not define institutions in the same way as does the person on the street. Lay persons are likely to use the term "institution" very loosely, for churches, hospitals, jails, and many other things as institutions.


Sociologists often reserve the term "institution" to describe normative systems that operate in five basic areas of life, which may be designated 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; and

(5) in regulating our relation to the supernatural.

In shorthand form, or as concepts, these five basic institutions are called the family, government, economy, education and religion.

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.

[B]Culture[/B]


As Homo sapiens, evolved, several biological characteristics particularly favorable to the development of culture appeared in the species. These included erect posture; a favorable brain structure; stereoscopic vision; the structure of the hand, a flexible shoulder; and year round sexual receptivity on the part of the female. None of these biological characteristics alone, of course, accounts for the development of culture. Even in combination, all they guarantee is that human beings would be the most gifted members of the animal kingdom.

The distinctive human way of life that we call culture did not have a single definite beginning in time any more than human beings suddenly appearing on earth. Culture evolved slowly just as some anthropoids gradually took on more human form. Unmistakably, tools existed half a million years ago and might be considerably older. If, for convenience, we say that culture is 500,000 years old, it is still difficult day has appeared very recently.

The concept of culture was rigorously defined by E.B. Taylor in 1860s. According to him culture is the sum total of ideas, beliefs, values, material cultural equipments and non-material aspects which man makes as a member of society. Taylor's theme that culture is a result of human collectivity has been accepted by most anthropologists. Tylarian idea can be discerned in a modern definition of culture - culture is the man-made part of environment (M.J. Herskovits).

From this, it follows that culture and society are separable only at the analytical level: at the actual existential level, they can be understood as the two sides of the same coin. Culture, on one hand, is an outcome of society and, on the other hand, society is able to survive and perpetuate itself because of the existence of culture. Culture is an ally of man in the sense that it enhances man's adaptability to nature. It is because of the adaptive value of culture that Herskovits states that culture is a screen between man and nature. Culture is an instrument by which man exploits the environment and shapes it accordingly.

In showing affection, the Maori rub noses; the Australians rub faces; the Chinese place nose to cheeks; the Westerners kiss; some groups practice spitting on the beloved. Or, consider this; American men are permitted to laugh in public but not to cry; Iroquois men are permitted to do neither in public; Italian men are permitted to do both. Since this is true, physiological factors have little to do with when men laugh and cry and when they do not do either. The variability of the human experience simply cannot be explained by making reference to human biology, or to the climate and geography. Instead, we must consider culture as the fabric of human society.

Culture can be conceived as a continuous, cumulative reservoir containing both material and non-material elements that are socially transmitted from generation to generation. Culture is continuous because cultural patterns transcend years, reappearing in successive generations. Culture is cumulative because each generation contributes to the reservoir.


An inherent paradox exists within the social heritage where culture tends to be both static and dynamic. Humans, once having internalized culture, attach positive value judgments to it and are more or less reluctant to change their established ways of life. Through most of recorded history men have apparently considered that change per say is undesirable and that the ideal condition is stability. The prospect of change can seem threatening, yet every human culture is subject to and does experience change. Those who speak of a generation gap portray two generations at odds with each other.


According to this view, the parent generation embodied the dynamic dimension. We contend that if, in fact, a generation gap does exist in modern societies, and the differences are of degree and not of substance. Part of the social heritage of almost every modern society is the high value placed on progress. Parents encourage young people to seek progress, and progress is a form of social change. Debates between generations in modern societies are seldom about whether any change should occur. The debates are usually about how such change should occur, how fast it should occur, and which methods should be used for bringing about change.

[B]The Development of Culture[/B]

The distinctive human way of life that we call culture did not have a single definite beginning. This is to say that human beings did not suddenly appear on earth. Culture evolved slowly just as anthropoids gradually took on more human form. The earliest tools cannot be dated precisely. Australopithecus may have used stones as weapons as long as five million years ago. Stones that have been used as weapon do not differ systematically from other stones, however, and there is no way to tell for sure. The first stones that show reliable evidence of having been shaped as tools trace back some 500,000 to 600,000 years. The use of fire can be dated from 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.

Tools of bone had come into existence by 100,000 B.C. the age of Neanderthals. The Neanderthals also apparently had some form of languages and buried their deal with an elaborateness that indicates the possibility of religious ceremonies. Cro-Magnon, dating from 35,000 years ago, was a superior biological specimen and had a correspondingly more elaborate culture. Their cave paintings have been found. They also made jewellery of shells and teeth, and carved statuettes of women that emphasized pregnancy and fertility. They made weapons of bone, horn, and ivory, and used needle in the fabrication of garments.

Thus, a striking parallel appears between the evolution of Homo sapiens and the development of culture. The parallel cannot be drawn in detail because all inferences to the period before the dawn of history must be made from material artifacts, and these tell little about the total way of life of the people who used them. Moreover, the parallel between biological and cultural evolution should not be overdrawn. Cro-Magnon's brain capacity, for example, was large, but factors having to do with the growth of culture itself were sufficient to prevent any quantum leap in the development of learned behaviour.

[B]Diffusion[/B]

In spite of the fact that invention occupied a dominant place in culture growth over such a long period of time, most of the content of modern cultures appears to have been gained through diffusion. The term diffusion refers to the borrowing of cultural elements from other societies in contrast to their independent invention within a host society

In order for diffusion to operate on a substantial scale, there must be separate societies that have existed long enough to have elaborated distinctive ways of life. Moreover, those societies must be in contact with one another so that substantial borrowing is possible. These conditions probably developed late in the evolutionary process. Once begun, however, culture borrowing became so pervasive that most of the elements of most modern cultures, including our own, originated with other people.

Culture has grown, then, through a combination of invention and diffusion. It grew slowly at first, mostly as the result of invention. As the culture base expanded and societies became differentiated, the large -scale diffusion of traits become possible and the rate of growth speeded up. In modern times, and particularly in the Western world, the rate of culture growth has become overwhelming.


[B]Cultural Lag[/B]

The role played by material inventions, that is, by technology, in social change probably received most emphasis in the work of William F. Ogburn. It was Ogburn, also, who was chiefly responsible for the idea that the rate of invention within society is a function of the size of the existing culture base. He saw the rate of material invention as increasing with the passage of time.Ogburn believed that material and non-material cultures change in different ways. Change in material culture is believed to have a marked directional or progressive character. This is because there are agreed-upon standards of efficiency that are used to evaluate material inventions. To use air-planes, as an example, we keep working to develop planes that will fly, higher and faster, and carry more payloads on a lower unit cost. Because airplanes can be measured against these standards, inventions in this area appear rapidly and predictably.

In the area of non-material culture, on the other hand there often are no such generally accepted standards. Whether one prefers a Hussain, a Picasso, or a Gainsborough, for example, is a matter of taste, and styles of painting fluctuate unevenly. Similarly, in institutions such as government and the economic system there are competing forms of styles, Governments may be dictatorships, oligarchies, republics or democracies. Economic system includes communist, socialist, feudal, and capitalist ones. As far as can be told, there is no regular progression from one form of government or economic system to another. The obvious directional character of change in material culture is lacking in many areas of non-material culture.

[B]Basic Concept[/B]



In addition to the difference in the directional character of change, Ogburn and others believe that material culture tends to change faster than non-material culture. Certainly one of the imperative aspects of modern American life is the tremendous development of technology. Within this century, life has been transformed by invention of the radio, TV, automobiles, airplanes, rockets, transistors, and computers and so on. While this has been happening in material culture, change in government, economic system, family life, education, and religion seems to have been much slower

This difference in rates of cultural change led Ogburn to formulate the concept of culture lag. Material inventions, he believed bring changes that require adjustments in various areas of non-material culture.Invention of the automobile, for instance, freed young people from direct parental observation, made it possible for them to work at distances from their homes, and, among other things, facilitated crime by making escape easier. Half a century earlier, families still were structured as they were in the era of the family farm when young people were under continuous observation and worked right on the homestead.

Culture lag is defined as the time between the appearance of a new material invention and the making of appropriate adjustments in corresponding area of non-material culture. This time is often long. It was over fifty years, for example, after the typewriter was invented before it was used systematically in offices. Even today, we may have a family system better adapted to a farm economy than to an urban industrial one, and nuclear weapons exist in a diplomatic atmosphere attuned to the nineteenth century. As the discussion implies, the concept of culture lag is associated with the definition of social problems. Scholars envision some balance or adjustment existing between material and non-material cultures. That balance is upset by the appearance of raw material objects. The resulting imbalance is defined as a social problem until non-material culture changes in adjustment to the new technology.

[B]Cultural Relativism[/B]

This is a method whereby different societies or cultures are analyzed objectively without using the values of one culture to judge the worth of another. We cannot possibly understand the actions of other groups if we analyze them in terms of our motives and values. We must interpret their behavior in the light of their motives, habits and values if we are to understand them. Cultural relativism means that the function and meaning of a trait are relative to its cultural setting. A trait is neither good nor bad in itself. It is good or bad only with reference to the culture in which it is to function. Fur clothing is good in the Arctic but not in the tropics. In some hunting societies which occasionally face long periods of hunger to be fat is good; it has real survival value and fat people are admired. In our society to be fat is not only unnecessary but is known to be unhealthful and fat people are not admired.

The concept of cultural relativism does not mean that all customs are equally valuable, nor does it imply that no customs are harmful. Some patterns of behavior may be injurious everywhere, but even such patterns serve some purpose in the culture and the society will suffer unless a substitute is provided. The central point in cultural relativism is that in a particular cultural setting certain traits are right because they work well in that setting while other traits are wrong because they would clash painfully with parts of that culture.

[B]Ethnocentrism[/B]



Closely related to the concept of cultural relativity is the concept of ethnocentrism. The world ethno comes from Greek and refers to a people, nation, or cultural grouping, while centric comes from Latin and refers, of course to the centre. The term ethnocentrism then refers to the tendency for each society to place its own culture patterns at the centre of things.

Ethnocentrism is the practice of comparing other cultural practices with those of one's own and automatically finding those other cultural practices to be inferior. It is the habit of each group taking for granted the superiority of its culture. It makes our culture into a yardstick with which to measure all other cultures as good or bad, high or low, right or queer in proportion as they resemble ours.

Ethnocentrism is a universal human reaction found in all known societies, in all groups and in practically all individuals. Everyone learns ethnocentrism while growing up. The possessiveness of the small child quickly translates "into my toys are better than your toys" Parents; unless they are quite crude, outwardly discourage their children from verbalizing such beliefs. But in private, they may reassure their off springs that their possessions are indeed very nice. Much of the learning of ethnocentrism is indirect and unintended, but some of it is deliberate. History for example, is often taught to glorify the achievements of one's own nation, and religious, civic and other groups disparage their competitors openly. Among adults, ethnocentrism is simply a fact of life.

Once one becomes conscious of ethnocentrism, the temptation is strong to evaluate it in moral terms; to label it with epithets such as bigoted chauvinistic, and so on, and to imply that one who has not discovered and compensated for his or her ethnocentric biases is not worthy. This incidentally, is another form of ethnocentrism. The important point, however, is that ethnocentrism is one of the features of culture and , like the rest of culture , it needs to be evaluated in terms of its contribution to the maintenance of social order and the promotion of social change.


The functions of ethnocentrism in maintaining order are more apparent than those which promote social change. First, ethnocentrism encourages the solidarity of the group. Believing that one's own ways are the best, encourages a "we" feeling with associates and strengthens the idea that loyalty to comrades and preservation of the basis for superiority are important values. Positively, ethnocentrism promotes continuance of the status quo negatively, it discourages change.



Ethnocentrism

Second, ethnocentrism hinders the under standing of the cooperation with other groups. If the ways of one's own group are best, there is little incentive to interact with inferior groups. In fact, attitudes of suspicion, disdain and hostility are likely to be engendered
Extreme ethnocentrism is likely to promote conflict, as the records of past wars, and religious and racial conflicts reveal.

Conflict, of course often leads to social change and in that sense ethnocentrism becomes a vehicle for the promotion of social change. It does so, however, through encouragement of its peaceful evolution. There is little doubt that most social scientists are biased in favor of peaceful social change and are opposed to conflict. Consequently, they tend even if subtly, to denigrate ethnocentrisms and to imply that students must rid themselves of it if they are to learn effectively.

In so doing, sociologists operate implicitly from a combination of evolutionary and functionalist models. Recent years have seen this stance called into question. The revolutionary efforts of groups who see themselves as downtrodden blacks, the poor, women, and young people have included deliberate efforts to foster ethnocentrism as a means of strengthening themselves. Slogans such as' "black power" conflict model of society from which they operate.

[B]Acculturation[/B]

This term is used to describe both the process of contacts between different cultures and also the customs of such contacts. As the process of contact between cultures, acculturation may involve either direct social interaction or exposure to other cultures by means of the mass media of communication. As the outcome of such contact, acculturation refers to the assimilation by one group of the culture of another which modifies the existing culture and so changes group identity. There may be a tension between old and new cultures which leads to the adapting of the new as well as the old.

From a purely sociological perspective, the terms "culture" and "acculturation" do not carry the negative connotations they often have in sectarian theological discourse. Culture refers to the total way of life of a human group or society, including its material products (tools, dwellings, clothing, etc.) and its nonmaterial products (language, ceremonies, beliefs, etc.). Every group, including the original group of Christ's disciples, has a culture, or subculture, e.g., the way the disciple group rooted its kingdom lifestyle in its Jewish heritage.


[B]Social Groups[/B]


A social group consists of two or more people who interact with one another and who recognize themselves as a distinct social unit. The definition is simple enough, but it has significant implications. Frequent interaction leads people to share values and beliefs. This similarity and the interaction cause them to identify with one another. Identification and attachment, in turn, stimulate more frequent and intense interaction. Each group maintains solidarity with all to other groups and other types of social systems.




Groups are among the most stable and enduring of social units. They are important both to their members and to the society at large. Through encouraging regular and predictable behavior, groups form the foundation upon which society rests. Thus, a family, a village, a political party a trade union is all social groups. These, it should be noted are different from social classes, status groups or crowds, which not only lack structure but whose members are less aware or even unaware of the existence of the group. These have been called quasi-groups or groupings. Nevertheless, the distinction between social groups and quasi-groups is fluid and variable since quasi-groups very often give rise to social groups, as for example, social classes give rise to political parties.
It is categorized into three groups:

Primary Groups
Secondary Groups
Reference Groups

[B]Primary Groups[/B]

If all groups are important to their members and to society, some groups are more important than others. Early in the twentieth century, Charles H. Cooley gave the name, primary groups, to those groups that he said are characterized by intimate face-to-face association and those are fundamental in the development and continued adjustment of their members. He identified three basic primary groups, the family, the child's play group, and the neighborhoods or community among adults. These groups, he said, are almost universal in all societies; they give to people their earliest and most complete experiences of social unity; they are instrumental in the development of the social life; and they promote the integration of their members in the larger society.

Since Cooley wrote, over 65 years ago, life in the United States has become much more urban, complex, and impersonal, and the family play group and neighborhood have become less dominant features of the social order. Secondary groups, characterized by anonymous, impersonal, and instrumental relationships, have become much more numerous. People move frequently, often from one section of the country to another and they change from established relationships and promoting widespread loneliness. Young people, particularly, turn to drugs, seek communal living groups and adopt deviant lifestyles in attempts to find meaningful primary-group relationships. The social context has changed so much so that primary group relationship today is not as simple as they were in Cooley's time.

[B]Secondary groups[/B]


An understanding of the modern industrial society requires an understanding of the secondary groups. The social groups other than those of primary groups may be termed as secondary groups. They are a residual category. They are often called special interest groups.Maclver and Page refers to them as great associations.


They are of the opinion that secondary groups have become almost inevitable today. Their appearance is mainly due to the growing cultural complexity. Primary groups are found predominantly in societies where life is relatively simple. With the expansion in population and territory of a society however interests become diversified and other types of relationships which can be called secondary or impersonal become necessary. Interests become differentiated. The services of experts are required. The new range of the interests demands a complex organization. Especially selected persons act on behalf of all and hence arises a hierarchy of officials called bureaucracy. These features characterize the rise of the modern state, the great corporation, the factory, the labor union, a university or a nationwide political party and so on. These are secondary groups.Ogburn and Nimkoff defines secondary groups as groups which provide experience lacking in intimacy. Frank D. Watson writes that the secondary group is larger and more formal ,is specialized and direct in its contacts and relies more for unity and continuance upon the stability of its social organization than does the primary group.


[B]Characteristics of secondary group: [/B]



[B]Dominance of secondary relations[/B]: Secondary groups are characterized by indirect, impersonal, contractual and non-inclusive relations. Relations are indirect because secondary groups are bigger in size and members may not stay together. Relations are contractual in the sense they are oriented towards certain interests

[B]Largeness of the size[/B]: Secondary groups are relatively larger in size. City, nation, political parties, trade unions and corporations, international associations are bigger in size. They may have thousands and lakhs of members. There may not be any limit to the membership in the case of some secondary groups. Membership: Membership in the case of secondary groups is mainly voluntary. Individuals are at liberty to join or to go away from the groups. However there are some secondary groups like the state whose membership is almost involuntary.

[B]No physical basis[/B]: Secondary groups are not characterized by physical proximity. Many secondary groups are not limited to any definite area. There are some secondary groups like the Rotary Club and Lions Club which are international in character. The members of such groups are scattered over a vast area.

[B]Secondary groups[/B]



[B]Specific ends or interest[/B]: Secondary groups are formed for the realization of some specific interests or ends. They are called special interest groups. Members are interested in the groups because they have specific ends to aim at. Indirect communication: Contacts and communications in the case of secondary groups are mostly indirect. Mass media of communication such as radio, telephone, television, newspaper, movies, magazines and post and telegraph are resorted to by the members to have communication.

Communication may not be quick and effective even. Impersonal nature of social relationships in secondary groups is both the cause and the effect of indirect communication.

[B]Nature of group control[/B]: Informal means of social control are less effective in regulating the relations of members. Moral control is only secondary. Formal means of social control such as law, legislation, police, court etc are made of to control the behavior of members. The behavior of the people is largely influenced and controlled by public opinion, propaganda, rule of law and political ideologies.

[B]Group structure:[/B] The secondary group has a formal structure. A formal authority is set up with designated powers and a clear-cut division of labor in which the function of each is specified in relation to the function of all. Secondary groups are mostly organized groups. Different statuses and roles that the members assume are specified. Distinctions based on caste, colour, religion, class, language etc are less rigid and there is greater tolerance towards other people or groups.

[B]Limited influence on personality[/B]: Secondary groups are specialized in character. People involvement in them is also of limited significance.Members's attachment to them is also very much limited. Further people spend most of their time in primary groups than in secondary groups. Hence secondary groups have very limited influence on the personality of the members.

[B]Reference Groups[/B]

According to Merton reference groups are those groups which are the referring points of the individuals, towards which he is oriented and which influences his opinion, tendency and behaviour.The individual is surrounded by countless reference groups. Both the memberships and inner groups and non memberships and outer groups may be reference groups.

[B]Social System [/B]

A social system basically consists of two or more individuals interacting directly or indirectly in a bounded situation. There may be physical or territorial boundaries, but the fundamental sociological point of reference is that the individuals are oriented, in a whole sense, to a common focus or inter-related foci. Thus it is appropriate to regard such diverse sets of relationships as small groups, political parties and whole societies as social systems.

Social systems are open systems, exchanging information with, frequently acting with reference to other systems. Modern conceptions of the term can be traced to the leading social analysts of the nineteenth century, notably Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim; each of whom elaborated in some form or other conceptions of the major units of social systems (mainly societies) and the relationships between such units- even though the expression social system was not a key one.

Thus, in Marx's theory, the major units or components of the capitalist societies with which he was principally concerned were socio-economic classes, and the major relationships between classes involved economic and political power. The most influential conceptualization of the term has been that of Talcott Parsons. Parsons' devotion to this issue has two main aspects. First, what is called the problem of social order; i.e. the nature of the forces giving rise to relatively stable forms of social interaction and organization, and promoting orderly change. Parsons took Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, 1651, as his point of departure in this part of his analysis. Hobbes had maintained that man's fundamental motivation was the craving for power and that men were always basically in conflict with each other. Thus order could only exist in strong government.

To counter this Parsons invoked the work of Max Weber and, in particular, Durkheim, who had placed considerable emphasis on the functions of normative, factors in social life, such as ideals and values. Factors of this kind came to constitute the mainspring in Parsons Delineation of a social system. Thus in his major theoretical work, The Social system, 1951, he defines a social system as consisting in a plurality of individual actors interacting with each other in a situation which has at least a physical or environmental aspect, actors, who are motivated in terms of a tendency to the optimization of gratification and whose relations to their situations, including each other, is defined and mediated in terms of a system of culturally structured and shared symbols. The major units of a social system are said to be collectivities and roles (i.e. not individuals as such); and the major patterns or relationships linking these units are values (ends or broad guides to action) and norms (rules governing role performance in the context of system values).


Social System
Parsons second major interest has been to make sociology more scientific and systematic, by developing abstract conceptions of the social system; one of this points being that even though Weber placed much emphasis upon normative factors as guiding action, there was in Weber's sociology no elaboration of a theoretically integrated total system of action.



Hence the attempt to combine in one framework both a conception of actors in social situations and an overall, highly abstract, outside view of the major factors involved in a social system as a going concern. Various points in Parsons' formulation have been criticized. Notably, objections have been made to the emphasis upon normative regulation, and it has been alleged that Parsons neglected social conflict under the pressure of his systematic perspective; i.e. pre-occupation with system ness and analytical elegance which blinds the sociologist to disconsensus in real life and spurs him to stress integrative phenomena in his analyses. However, it is widely agreed that sociologists should operate with some clearly defined conception of what constitutes a social system. Thus, for many sociologists the term social system is not by any means restricted to those situations where there is binding normative regulation; but in order to qualify as social system it must involve a common focus, or set of foci, or orientations and a shared mode of communication among a majority of actors. Thus, on this basis there can be a system of conflict.


[B]Social Distance[/B]

Bogardus developed the concept of social distance to measure the degree of closeness or acceptance we feel toward other groups. While most often used with reference to racial groups social distance refers to closeness between groups of all kinds. Social distance is measured either by direct observation of people interacting or more often by questionnaires in which people are asked what kind of people they would accept in particular relationships. In these questionnaires a number of groups may be listed and the informants asked to check whether they would accept a member of each group as a neighbor, as a fellow worker as a marriage partner and so on through a series of relationships. The social distance questionnaires may not accurately measure what people actually would do if a member of another group sought to become a friend or neighbour.The social distance scale is only an attempt to measure one's feeling of unwillingness to associate equally with a group. What a person will actually do in a situation also depends upon the circumstances of the situation.




[B]Social Norms[/B]

Social norms grow out of social value and both serve to differentiate human social behavior from that of other species. The significance of learning in behavior varies from species to species and is closely linked to processes of communication. Only human beings are capable of elaborate symbolic communication and of structuring their behavior in terms of abstract preferences that we have called values. Norms are the means through which values are expressed in behavior.

Norms generally are the rules and regulations that groups live by. Or perhaps because the words, rules and regulations, call to mind some kind of formal listing, we might refer to norms as the standards of behavior of a group. For while some of the appropriate standards of behavior in most societies are written down, many of them are not that formal. Many are learned, informally, in interaction with other people and are passed "that way from generation to generation.

The term "norms" covers an exceedingly wide range of behaviour. So that the whole range of that behaviour may be included. Sociologists have offered the following definition. Social norms are rules developed by a group of people that specify how people must, should, may, should not, and must not behave in various situations. Some norms are defined by individual and societies as crucial to the society. For example, all members of the group are required to wear clothing and to bury their dead. Such "musts" are often labeled "mores", a term coined by the American sociologist William Graham Sumner.

Many social norms are concerned with "should "; that is, there is some pressure on the individual to conform but there is some leeway permitted also. The 'should behaviors' are what Sumner called "folk-ways"; that is, conventional ways of doing things that are not defined as crucial to the survival of either the individual or the society. The 'should behaviors' in our own society include the prescriptions that people's clothes should be clean, and that death should be recognized with public funerals. A complete list of the should behaviors in a complex society would be virtually without end.

The word "May" in the definition of norms indicates that, in most groups, there is a wide range of behaviors in which the individual is given considerable choice. To continue the illustration, in Western countries girls may select to wear dresses or halters and jeans. Funerals may be held with or without flowers, with the casket open or closed, with or without religious participation, and so on. We have confined our examples to just two areas, but students should be able to construct their own examples from all areas of life.



[B]Social Norms[/B]

The remainder of the definition, including the 'should-not' and the 'must-not' behaviours, probably does not require lengthy illustration because such examples are implicit in what has already been said. One should not belch in public, dump garbage in the street, run stop signs, or tell lies. One must not kill another person or have sexual intercourse with one's sister or brother.

Social norms cover almost every conceivable situation, and they vary from standards where almost complete conformity is demanded to those where there is great freedom of choice. Norms also vary in the kinds of sanctions that are attached to violation of the norms. Since norms derive from values, and since complex societies have multiple and conflicting value systems, it follows that norms frequently are in conflict also.

Taking the illustration of American sex norms, two proscriptive norms prohibit premarital intercourse and extramarital intercourse. But many boys also have been taught that sex is good and that they should seek to "score" with girls whenever possible. Somewhat similarly, girls have been taught that promiscuous intercourse before marriage is bad; but they have also been taught that sex is acceptable within true love relationships. Members of both sexes, then, find themselves faced with conflicting demands for participation in sex and for abstinence from it. They also discover that there are sanctions associated with either course of action.

Normative conflict is also deeply involved in social change. As statistical norms come to differ too blatantly from existing prescriptive norms, new prescriptive norms give sanction to formerly prohibited behaviour and even extend it. Recent changes in the sex norms of teenage and young adult groups provide examples. The change is more apparent in communal living groups where sometimes there is an explicit ideology of sexual freedom and the assumption that sexual activities will be shared with all members of the group. In less dramatic fashion, the change is evident among couples who simply begin to live together without the formality of a marriage ceremony.

[B]Status and Role[/B]

The term has two sociological uses:

1. R. Linton (1936) defined status simply as a position in a social system, such as child or parent. Status refers to what a person is, whereas the closely linked notion of role refers to the behaviour expected of people in a status.

2. Status is also used as a synonym for honor or prestige, when social status denotes the relative position of a person on a publicly recognized scale or hierarchy of social worth. (See 'Social Stratification').

It is the first meaning of the term status, status as position, which we are going to refer to in the following paragraphs. Status as honour or prestige is a part of the study of social stratification.

A status is simply a rank or position that one holds in a group. One occupies the status of son or daughter, playmate, pupil, radical, militant and so on. Eventually one occupies the statuses of husband, mother bread-winner, cricket fan, and so on, one has as many statuses as there are groups of which one is a member. For analytical purposes, statuses are divided into two basic types:

• Ascribed and
• Achieved.


[B]Ascribed Statuses[/B]

Ascribed statuses are those which are fixed for an individual at birth. Ascribed statuses that exist in all societies include those based upon sex, age, race ethnic group and family background.

Similarly, power, prestige, privileges, and obligations always are differentially distributed in societies by the age of the participants. This has often been said about the youth culture in the U.S. because of the high value Americans attach to being young. Pre-modern China, by contrast, attached the highest value to old age and required extreme subordination of children. The perquisites and obligations accompany age change over the individual's lifetime, but the individual proceeds inexorably through these changes with no freedom of choice.

As the discussion implies, the number and rigidity of ascribed statuses vary from one society to another. Those societies in which many statuses are rigidly prescribed and relatively unchangeable are called caste societies, or at least, caste like. Among major nations, India is a caste society. In addition to the ascribed statuses already discussed, occupation and the choice of marriage partners in traditional India are strongly circumscribed by accident of birth. Such ascribed statuses stand in contrast to achieved statuses.


[B]Achieved Statuses[/B]

Achieved statuses are those which the individual acquires during his or her lifetime as a result of the exercise of knowledge, ability, skill and/or perseverance. Occupation provides an example of status that may be either ascribed or achieved, and which serves to differentiate caste-like societies from modern ones. Societies vary in both the number of statuses that are ascribed and achieved and in the rigidity with which such definitions are held. Both ascribed and achieved statuses exist in all societies. However, an understanding of a specific society requires that the interplay among these be fully understood. For Weber class is a creation of the market situation. Class operates in society independently of any valuations. As Weber did not believe in the economic phenomena determining human ideals, he distinguishes status situation from class situation.

According to Linton, status is associated with distinctive beliefs about the expectations of those having status, as for example, the status of children. Other common bases for status are age, sex, birth, genealogy and other biological constitutional characteristics. However, status, according to Linton, is only a phenomenon, not the intrinsic characteristic of man but of social organization. What matters is not what you really are, but what people believe you to be. At times, some confuse the two terms, status and role. Status defines who a person is, as for example, he is a child or a Negro, or a doctor; whereas, role defines what such a person is expected to do, as for example, he is too young to work, he should care about parents etc.

A common method of identifying the statuses in a social system is to discover the list of status-designators, as for example, kinship status typically begins with a list of kin terms and their usage. One other characteristic feature of status, as understood today, is that any person can have more than one status. Generally, no status in any social situation encompasses one person. Also, it has to be kept in mind those statuses and persons are not only distinct concepts but also at distinct levels of analysis. Besides, in sociology it is status, rather than person, which is more useful as a tool of analysis.

Why we should treat these two terms as separate can be argued on various grounds. First, two persons having quite different characters may possess similar observable conduct if they have the same status, as for example, very acquisitive and very altruistic doctors may behave in much the same way. Secondly, two persons having the same character, very often, have different observable conduct because of having two different statuses.

Achieved Statuses
Thirdly, even two persons having similar characters but having two different statuses show very often different observable conduct, as for example, a docile son and a kind father.
Thus, in society, which in reality is a social system where interaction occurs between actors, status but not person in important. If we treat person as the unit of such a system we must discover a basic personality structure which is an impossible task. On the other hand, it is easy to comprehend status although it is an abstract concept. Status is the most elementary component of the social system which is equally abstract.

Interaction between two actors occurs not as persons but as two having statuses. A social position is always defined in relation to a counter position, as for example, a doctor to a patient, to a nurse, and to the hospital administrator. In other words, the basic unit of analysis for social system is not status itself but the relation of two statuses. The first writer to do considerable work in this field was Merton in 1957. According to him, there are three aspects of status. To illustrate, Mr. Pandey is a doctor must have social relations with nurses, patients, other doctors, hospital administrators, and so on, that is, a role set. If Mr. Pandey is also a husband, a father, a member of Hare-Krishna cult and a municipal councilor, it is a status set. And the process, by which Mr. Pandey became a doctor, required that he first be a medical student, then an intern and then a resident, that is, a status sequence. Since what is known as status is related to other statuses, the interaction of statuses is a very crucial one. Stable interaction systems depend on the emergence of normative expectations. Once it emerges, such expectations are not created anew every time. Two new actors encounter each other. The idea underlying this statement is that every actor is sensitive to the attitudes others will have towards him. Every actor, therefore, tends to feel tense and upset if he is unable to define the social situation in such a way that the behaviour of the other is predictable.

A more dynamic feature of this series of social interactions is the idea that each action implies a status and each status action. Therein each actor reveals how he defines a situation by the way he behaves, and thus provides other actors with cues to their own statuses in the situation.

Although the interaction of statuses is normally satisfactory, at times, confusion might arise because of status ambiguity. If, however, an actor has more than one status, the attitudes of any two statuses may be either compatible or incompatible with their demands on the person. If two statuses that are activated in the same situation are incompatible it would be difficult for each status occupant to know how to interact with the other, because it will be difficult for him to know which status is the basis of their interaction. Such ambiguities are a source of strain and discomfort and people either get out of such situations or wish that they be changed.

[B]Achieved Statuses[/B]

The importance of role was recognized from 1936 when Linton presented the first systematic statement identifying role as a segment of culture. He also held the view that role was related to social status. Much work has been done after Linton in the form of experimental study. Many studies have shown that lack of clarity and consensus in role conceptions is a contributory factor in reducing organizational effectiveness and morale.

Since the concept is being extensively used, some differences appear in its usage. Some writers treat role and actual behavior of an individual to be one and the same. Most of the writers treat role as expected behavior and role behavior as an enactment. Another interpretation is that role is a specific behavior or conditioned response. Finally, some treat role as a part to be learnt and played.

Despite these differences, all sociologists agree to the following characteristics of role. It is believed that when roles are stabilized, the role structure persists regardless of changes in the actors. In some families when the parents become disorganized and become childish, a child suddenly blossoms into responsibility and helps to supply the family leadership. As the roles get stabilized, an individual adopts a given role; and if he fails to fulfill the role expectation, he will be regarded as a violator of the terms of interaction.

The above functioning of the role is determined, to some extent, by the organizational setting which supplies both direction and constraint to the working of the as for said processes. If the role structure is incorporated in an organizational setting, the latter's goals tend to become the crucial criteria for role differentiation, legitimacy of expectation, and judgments of adequacy.

Secondly, depending on the level of integration with the organizational setting, roles get linked with statuses in the organization.

Thirdly, depending on the extent to which the roles are incorporated with an organizational setting, each tends to develop a pattern of adaptation to incorporate other roles. A teacher in a public school must incorporate within his role pattern, his role adaptations to pupils, parents, other teachers and the principal. Merton describes several mechanisms that are employed to minimize conflict in the role-set.


Achieved Statuses
Fourthly, when roles are incorporated with the organisational setting they persist as tradition and formalization. Finally, the place of role is determined by society itself; for, society is based on accommodation among many organizations. Society introduces multiple organisational references for roles, and multiplies roles for the actor.


A view from society's perspective shows that roles in different contexts tend to become merged. One example is our tendency to speak of male and female roles of heroic and unheroic roles while seeking meaning and order in simple human interactions. Viewed from the perspective of society, differentiation of roles gets linked with social values. If the societies and the individuals' assigned roles are consistent with each other the roles tend to get merged with social values. A glaring example is our tendency to use age, sex and occupation as qualifying criteria for the allocation of other roles.

In the end we have to say that it is actor who faces the strain; for, the dynamic hinges on his management of the several roles in his repertoire. This may come about through failure of role cues, gross lack of consensus and so forth. This situation results in an individual adopting his own repertoire of role relationship as a framework for his own behaviour, and as a perspective for the interpretation of the behaviour of others. When the individual forms a self-conception by selective identification of certain roles as his own to be held in his repertoire, the individual is said to develop a sense of personal prestige, which is likely to be reflected in his bearing, his self-assurance and other aspects of his interpersonal relations.

In general, the concept of role is crucial in all sociological analyses which attempt to link the functioning of the social orders with the characteristics and behaviour of the individuals who belong to that order. A study of roles provides a comprehensive pattern of social behaviour and attitudes. It constitutes a strategy for coping with a recurrent type of situation. It is socially identified as an entity. It can be played recognizably by different individuals, and it supplies a major basis for identifying and placing persons in a society.

[B]Conflict[/B]

Conflict is goal-oriented, just as cooperation and competition are, but, there is a difference, in conflict, one seeks deliberately to harm and/ or destroy one's antagonists. The rules of competition always include restrictions upon the injury that may be done to a foe. But in conflict these rules break down; one seeks to win at any cost. In talking about conflict, the notion of a continuum or scale is again useful.


It is useful in at least two ways: in differentiating conflict from competition; and in differentiating personal form group and organizational conflict. If we have the data with which to do it, all rival situations probably could be ranged along a continuum defined at one end by pure competition and at the other end by pure conflict. There might be a few situations that would be located near to each end of the continuum, but many would prove to be mixed types and would cluster near the centre. Conflict also tends to be more or less personal, just as is the case with cooperation and competition. First, fights and 'shoot-out' illustrate highly personal conflicts. The conflicts within football games generally are a little less personal, and the conflict between students and campus police at a sit-in or rally is personal. Yet, when two labor unions or two corporations set out to destroy each other, personal conflict may be almost completely submerged in organizational struggle. Perhaps the most impersonal of all conflicts is war between nations, where the enemy is perceived to be almost faceless. Again, rather than being discrete types of personal and impersonal conflicts, conflicts probably range almost imperceptibly along a continuum from the purely personal to the completely impersonal.

Probably the most striking thing about conflict is its destructive potential. The word 'conflict' itself often conjures up images of heads being broken, of buildings burning, and of deaths and destruction. Moreover, the destructiveness that accompanies conflicts quickly cumulates. In a confrontation between police and students, for example, things may be orderly until the first blow is struck. Once that happens, however, a frenzy of skull cracking, shootings, burning, and destroying may follow. Because the immediate results of conflict often are so horrible, there is a tendency to see it, not as a normal and universal process of social interaction, but as pathological process. It is very difficult for the unsophisticated not to imply value judgments in discussing these social processes because our society as a whole tends to do so. Cooperation and competition are more often perceived to be socially useful; but conflict, to be harmful.

The situation, however, it is not that simple. Few would defend the cooperation of a group of men in the rape of a woman. And the school drop-out problem is hardly a beneficial effect of competition. Thus, competition and cooperation, which otherwise receive a good deal of social approval, also have untoward effects. So it is, also with conflict. Conflict is an abnormal and universal form of social interaction as are any of the others. Analysis of conflict needs to describe both the ways in which it is harmful and destructive and the way in which it is useful and socially integrative


[B]Harmful Effects of Conflict[/B]

The harmful effects probably are easier to see. We have already indicated that conflict tends to cumulate rapidly. This snowballing tendency may lead to complete breakdown before the self-limiting features of most inter-personal exchanges have a chance to operate. Before people can decide that the pain is not worth it, people may have been killed and property destroyed. Establishments may be closed or they may find themselves in chaos. Similarly, a company of soldiers may shoot down women and children in an orgy of destruction.

A second negative feature of conflict, closely related to the first, is that it is often extremely costly. War probably provides the best example, for nothing else in human experience exacts such a toll. The third negative feature has to do with social costs. Conflict is inherently divisive. It sets person against person and group against group in ways that threaten to destroy organized social life. United States has seen conflict so widespread as to raise questions whether anarchy might prevail. Youth against the establishment, blacks against whites, the poor against the affluent, and Jews against Arabs represent something of the range of conflicts. In such situations, the question becomes not simply how many people will be killed, how much property destroyed, or who will win; it becomes one of the societal survival. Can race wars be avoided? Can the police maintain order? Can universities operate? And can presidents keep the support of the populace? Whatever else they may be, these are real questions. And the answers are by no means obvious. Conflict threatens the existence of society itself.


[B]Useful Functions of Conflict[/B]

The explosiveness, the outward costs, and the divisiveness of conflict are so great that it is often difficult to see the ways in which conflict fulfils socially useful functions. Yet it does at least the following three things. First, it promotes loyalty within the group. Second, it signals the needs for and helps promote short-run social change. And third, it appears intimately involved in moving societies towards new levels of social integration. If conflict pits groups and organizations against one another, it also tends to promote unity within each of the conflicting groups. The necessity to work together against a common foe submerges rivalries within the group and people, who otherwise are competitors, to work together in harmony. Competing football halfbacks flock for each other, rival student leaders work together to win concessions from the administration, and union leaders join forces against management. Nations that are torn by dissent in peacetime rally together when they are attacked by other countries. Thus, conflict is not simply divisive, it works to unify groups.

A second positive function of conflict is that it serves to notify the society that serious problems exist that is not being handled by the traditional social organization. It forces the recognition of those problems and encourages the development of new solutions to them.

The third general positive function of conflict is closely related to the second. And it is much more problematic. One view of human history tends to focus upon conflict particularly upon war - as a primary mechanism through which nations have developed. In other words, war was the mechanism that permitted the consolidation of scattered, weak societies into large, powerful ones. Similar arguments have been advanced that war was necessary during the early modern period in Europe to permit the formation of nations as we know them.