SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND ROLES

INTRODUCTION With the society individuals, groups as well as groups and individuals are bound to interact. While social groups are considered social system within which interdependence relationship take place. There are established guides fro behaviour and product of interaction. This results in social organization. Social interaction occurs within social organization at different levels. The fundamental elements of social organization are norms, roles and statuses. Each of these concepts are explained further in this unit. Social Organization Interaction in terms of the social processes is thought to occur within the framework of a social system. A social system is an imaginary model, or sociologist’s conceptualization, of how social relationships work. Every social group is considered a social system, within which each part interdependent and inter connect to the other parts and to the whole. The elements of this system are individual group members relating to one another to attain a specific goal. In their effort to reach their goal, the members of the social system are guided both by actual behaviour and by shared pattern and recurrent expectations of behaviour. These guides form the “social structure”. The network of patterned behaviour that both guides and is the product of interaction is called “social organization”. In other words, it is defined as the patterned and recurring manner in which individuals and groups interact. It is a dynamic process in which stable and predictable patterns are continually redefined and changed to fit the changing conditions of the social and physical environment. Levels of Social Organization Social interaction occurs on three levels of social organization. First Level: Interpersonal or social relationship level Relationship at this level occurs when two persons occupy definite positions in relation to each other: husband to wife, father to son, teacher to student, girlfriend to boyfriend, and so on. These relationships constitute the basic elements of social structure and underlie all other social relationships. Second Level: Group, Inter-group, or Organization level Relationship at this level occurs within and between organized groups. Sociologists are particularly concerned with the process and structure of inter-group relationships. Third Level: Social Reality Level This emerges as a result of the features that groups develop as they become organized. The social reality is external to the individual and is not merely a total or interpersonal relationship. In other words, even though the relationship at the interpersonal level is the basic unit of social structure, additional group laws, actions, and patterns or organization develop in relationships at the group and society level. These laws, actions, and patterns are independent of those emerging at the interpersonal level. Groups, in short, are not simply individuals multiplied by numbers: they become something more than the sum of their parts. Roles and Status The fundamental elements of social organization are norms, roles and statuses. Role and status are different aspects of the same idea. In its simplest definition, a status is a position in a social group (teacher, banker, senator, plumber, and so on). It generally implies ranking (high or low), or value rating according to the prevailing values of the group or society. A role is the carrying out of the status, its dynamic aspect (what the teacher, banker, senator or plumber does). Role guides the occupant of a status in behaviour befitting that status. Each society is faced with an immense number of functions that must be performed if the society is to operate effectively. Efficiency improves when specific tasks, rather than being performed haphazardly by everyone, are allocated to particular individuals. The allocation of task leads to division of labour, which in turn, creates statuses. As way of behaviour begins to cluster around allocated tasks and become crystallized, transmittable, and to a great extent predictable, roles are developed. Statuses and the roles that grow up around them are not static. They are continually subject to change, growth and replacement by the individuals involved in them. In addition, social change and daily interaction constantly serve to redefine roles. (a) Ascribed and Achieved Status: Some statuses and their salient roles are ours by birth; we cannot avoid occupying them. A newborn child is either a male or a female, it belongs to an ethnic group; and its family already occupies the status of banker, farmer, etc. Such statuses are called ascribed because they are not attained through any individual effort or merit. The family group makes sure that the child behaves in accordance with his/her status – in other words, that he/she fulfills his role. Ascribed statuses are involuntary and depend on gender, age, race, ethnic group, and to an extent, on the social position of one’s family. But there are also statuses that are achieved through individual effort and choice. For example, the statuses of husband and wife are achieved statuses, so are those of father and mother, and certainly those of teacher and plumber. The categories of ascribed and achieved status are not rigid. They may be thought as the two poles of a continuum represented by the availability of choice. (b) The Multiplicity of Statuses and Roles: Each person occupies a large number of statuses in society and is expected to perform the roles associated with them. The managing director of a big company occupies not only a high status in the company, but probably also occupies the status of son, brother, husband, and father. He may be a trustee on the board of a University, a member of a club, an elder in a church, and occasionally a patient in a hospital. These statuses are not equally important, and in our society, the company managing director will be best known for his status. His status may also vary, according to the group that is ranking him. He may be on a very low status in his family. No one performs all his roles equally well. A company managing director must be good at playing the role attached to his main status, but as a husband he may not be doing so well in his role as expected. Finally, people select the roles they consider important. In other words, there is a relationship between a person’s self-image and the role he or she chooses to play. (c) Role Conflict A person performs one role better than another partly because certain facets of his personality affect him and partly because he may have learned his role imperfectly. Role conflict may also contribute to the problem. Frequently, our society prepares us for roles that in real life we do not have opportunity to play. The young are often taught ideal, rather than real patterns of behaviour. This disparity leads to role conflict and disillusionment. All societies have such inner ideal patterns and they are not always hypocritical. Ideal patterns function as brake on real behaviour patterns and practices that may decline to an undesirable level without the example of the ideal societal goals. We are also often expected to play several demanding roles simultaneously. For example, the managing director is expected to spend lots of time promoting the goal of the company. At the same time, he is expected to stay with his wife and children for a long time as a role model in the family. Sometimes role conflict exists within the limits of a single role. Anyone in a position of leadership faces such a conflict. A leader can uphold discipline and increase the chances that the group will reach its goals. But in the process he may become so disliked by his subordinates that the group has difficulty following him. A leader must constantly weigh possible behaviour in terms of the role of leading. (d) Role Confusion and Role Performance Role confusion often follows a change of status. A man who has spent most of his life behind a desk and is suddenly faced with retirement at age sixty five may find that he cannot fill the leisure hours at his disposal. He does not know what his new role should be. Another example is that of a young educated woman who has started a promising career at work and who is suddenly confronted with motherhood, housekeeping, and school run. She is not well prepared for her new roles. She may not therefore be able to decode which role should predominate. Faulty role performance is another problem, which can result in mental illness, maladjustment, or general frustration. For many reasons, people fail in the roles for which they have been prepared. Sometimes they never achieve the status of the role, and do not have the chance to even try the role. In highly competitive economic system, people frequently fail in their businesses and professions. However, many people who seem to fail in one role may actually be fulfilling a conflicting role very well. Many people are dissatisfied with the roles they are expected to perform. The current generation seems determined to break the bonds that have for so long held people so rigidly to their roles. Women are rebelling against their status as second-class citizens. CONCLUSION Central to the concept of social organization is the interaction between individuals and groups. For interaction to be meaningful there are expectations between individuals and/or groups in interaction. Although levels of interaction may differ in norms, roles and statuses are fundamental elements. Roles and status are so related that one cannot exist without another. The dynamics of social interaction and the relationship between role and status have been discussed in this unit. SUMMARY In this unit, emphasis has been placed on the explanation of social organization. Furthermore, the relationship between roles and status has been stressed. Other derivation of roles – multiple, conflicting, confusion and performance were also discussed. Social organization cannot be realized without norms, roles and status.