10:46 PM
mr.vam
1. Social structure
- 1. Institutions
- patterns of social relationships
- Family, media, religion, etc.
- 2. Social groups
- Members have common identity
- Primary and secondary
- 3. Statuses:
Social Organization
• Social organization refers to the network of relationships among a society’s members.
• These relationships make it possible for members to satisfy both their individual needs and the needs of society as a whole.
• When we think of social organization we must think of it as a product of the interaction of culture and people itself consisting of 5 elements:
– (1) individuals,
– (2) social positions, roles & statuses,
– (3) groups,
– (4) classes, and
– (5) stratification.
Social Positions, Roles, & Statuses
• Individuals who occupy positions in a social structure are expected to fulfill a number of social roles.
• These roles emerge and develop in response to recurring needs and problems in societies.
• Roles in societies, like roles in theaters, have distinctive behavioral expectations and requirements attached to them.
The behavior requirements and expectations that are attached to real life roles are the norms discussed earlier. It is important to recognize that roles differ greatly with respect to the prestige or social honor accorded them
Classes
Inequality is a fact of life in every human society. Some individuals always control more of the society’s resources than other do and enjoy more than their share of benefits. Human societies differ greatly, however, in the amount of inequality present among their members.
Social institutions and institutional systems are the last of the 5 basic components of human societies.
• The combinations of the other four components to bring together population, culture, the material products of culture, and social organization.
• Sociologist are interested less in specific social institutions than in institutional systems. Institutional systems are systems of interrelated institutions. 5 such systems are of major importance:
• (1) kinship, (2) economy, (3) polity, (4) religion, and (5) education.
2. Culture
What is culture?
l Culture = the meanings and ways of life that characterize a society
l 1. Beliefs: what is assumed to be true
l 2. Values: agreements about good and bad
l 3. Norms: socially defined rules of behaviour
l Folkways, laws, mores
l Symbols: language, gestures, and objects
l The meaning commonly understood by group members
l They form communication
Culture includes tools, weapons, fire, agriculture, animal domestication, writing, glasses, airplanes, computers, penicillin, nuclear power, video games, jeans, religion, political systems, subsistence patterns, science, sports and social organization.
• Culture includes all aspects of human activity, from the fine arts to popular entertainment, from everyday behavior to the development of sophisticated technology. Culture contains the plans, rules, techniques, design, and policies for living.
• Culture is a shared way of life that includes values, beliefs, and norms transmitted within a particular society from generation to generation through symbolic learning and language.
• Culture is the historical accumulation of symbolic knowledge that is shared by a society.
• Culture is based on shared meanings that are beyond the mind of any individual; culture is also within the mind of individuals.
What is human?
• All humans have the same basic needs.
• Members of every society have the same basic physiological resources for satisfying their needs and desires.
• Humans are motivated to optimize pleasurable experiences and minimize painful and unpleasant experiences.
• Humans economize most of the time, seeing the optimal return for their expenditure of resources.
• Humans have an immense capacity for learning and modifying their behavior in response to what they learn.
• Humans develop a variety of derivative needs and desires that reflect their experiences as members of society.
• Humans have the capacity to create and use symbol systems and to develop cultures.
• Our species’ heritage includes powerful emotions and appetites inherited from distant prehuman ancestors.
• Humans have a highly developed sense of self and are powerfully motivated to put their own needs and desires ahead of those of others, especially when the stakes are high.
Human Diversity
• Explain the differences between people or groups of people, and the biological bases involving sex, intelligence, and race. race
• nationality , culture/ethnicity/subculture , gender
• class (or wealth/poverty) , age
• (dis)ability
• sexual preference
• religion
• political party
3. Social problems
What Is a Social Problem?
l A condition (e.g., poverty)
l A pattern of behaviour (e.g., violence)
that people believe warrants public concern and collective action to bring about change
l Social problems are conditions that:
l affect the quality of life of a large number of people
l affect cherished values
l Social problems can also be discrepancies between ideals and achievement
Why Study Social Problems?
l To understand social forces that shape our lives on personal and societal levels
l To gain new insights into ourselves and connections between our world and that of other people, and
l To make more effective decisions about these concerns
l Social Problems
l Poverty and Economic Inequality
l Crime and Violence
l Drugs and Alcohol Abuse
l Racial and Ethnic Relations
l Sexism and Gender Inequality
l Sexual Orientation and Homophobia
l Aging and Ageism
l Family
l Work and Unemployment
l Health and Health Care
l Population, Urbanization, and Environment
l War and Terrorism
4. Social networking
Social networking is the practice of expanding the number of one's business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals. While social networking has gone on almost as long as societies themselves have existed, the unparalleled potential of the Internet to promote such connections is only now being fully recognized and exploited, through Web-based groups established for that purpose.
Web sites dedicated to social networking include Friendster, Linkedin, Spoke, and Tribe Networks. IBM and Microsoft are among organizations said to be considering entering this market.
A network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts: Strong social networks can encourage healthy behavior
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of actors (such as individuals or organizations) and the dyadic ties between these actors (such as relationships, connections, or interactions). A social network perspective is employed to model the structure of a social group, how this structure influences other variables, or how structures change over time.[1] The study of these structures uses methods in social network analysis to identify influential nodes, local and global structures, and network dynamics. Social networks are distinct from information, biological, or electrical networks, but theories and methods generalizing to all of these complex networks are studied in the field of network science. 5. Social movement
In addition to such personal implications, which are more or less familiar to us from traditional Buddhist teachings, this relationship between dukkha and sense-of-self also has very important consequences for the way we understand larger social issues. The more carefully we examine them, the more we see that intractable social problems too can usually be traced back to a deluded sense of self -- in this case, to a collective sense of self, or «wego,» such as one’s own race, class, gender, nation (the primary secular god of the modern world), religion, or some combination thereof (e.g., in the Middle East, where nationalism and religion have become almost indistinguishable). The important point is that, in each case, a collective identity is established by discriminating one’s own group from another group. Again, the «inside» is opposed to the other «outside,» which makes conflict inevitable – not only because of competition with other groups, but because the socially constructed nature of all group identity means one’s own group can never feel secure enough.
Struggling first of all with ourselves leads naturally to this second social principle. A non-violent approach is implied by our nonduality with all «others,» including those we find ourselves struggling against. Buddhist emphasis on impermanence implies another way to express that nonduality -- the inseparability of means and ends.
Arise in Buddha’s Noble Eight-fold Path or the middle path is projected into all our day-to-day human relationships, together with the exercise of Patience, Tolerance and Understanding. It will be observed that the word “Right” is contained in all the eight injunctions. Hence, if we follow the Eight-fold Path, it will be the right path that we are taking to achieve peace and tranquility.
The Eight-fold Path is :-
Right Understanding
Right Thought
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
Closely associated with the Noble Eight-fold Path, are the Five Precepts which are normally observed by all the Buddhist devotees in any religious meeting. They are:-
a) To abstain from killing
b) To abstain from stealing
c) To abstain from adultery
d) To abstain from lying and loose speech
e) To abstain from intoxicants and drugs
These precepts are simple in their presentation and are likely, at times, to be taken for granted by devotees, without giving deep thought to the serious impact on our daily lives and to the peace and harmony of our society and country.
Social Movements and Social Change in Solving Social Problems
Collective behavior:
l Voluntary
l Often spontaneous
l Engaged in by large number of people
l Typically violates group norms and values
l Civil disobedience:
l Non-violent action that seeks to change a policy or law by refusing to comply with it
l Reform movements: Seek to change some aspect of the social structure
l Revolutionary movements: Seek to bring about a total change in society
l Religious movements: Seek to renovate people through “inner change”
l Alternative movements: Seek limited change in some aspects of behavior
l Resistance movements: Seek to prevent or undo change
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