SYNOPSIS OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

INTRODUCTION The Society is the largest social group. Members have multiple needs and society establishes institutions to meet them. Since human needs are numerous, the institutions created by the society are also numerous. To enhance uniformity and reduce duplication, Sociologists classify the institutions into broad groups. For contemporary classifications, Sociologists recognized only six (6) institutions. Each of these is presented in details in this unit. OBJECTIVES On completion of this unit, learners should be able to: · Understand the input of Sociologists to the basic classifications of institutions · Know the contemporary classification of institutions · Understand the basic functions of identified contemporary social institutions. The Range of Institutions Since institutions come into existence to mold ever human desire, they are as numerous as our many needs and interests. Institutions establish conformity for activities, which are as diverse as democracy, the money economy, education and fundamentalism. Sociologists have, however, made attempt to arrive at some basic classifications of institutions. The classifications include; (a) Sumner’s Crescive and Enacted Institutions i. Crescive (or Primary) Institutions: - Are those which grow in a “natural” instinctive way out of customs and mores. Economy, family, marriage and religion are examples. ii. Enacted Institutions: - Are those which develop through rational invention and intention. Examples are banks, stock exchange, joint stock companies and courts. (b) Spencer’s Principal Institutions Herbert Spencer classify principal institutions as i. Maintaining and Sustaining Institutions: Examples are marriage and family. ii. Producing and Distributing Institutions: - The economy is an example of these. iii. Regulating and Restraining Institutions: - These include ceremony, religion and politics. (c) Chapin’s Diffused (cultural) and Nucleated Institutions i. Diffused or Cultural Institutions: - They stabilize social behaviour patterns in such areas as language and art. ii. Nucleated Institutions: - They structure behaviour in the family, church, government and business. (d) Parson’s Relational, Regulative and Cultural Institutions i. Relational Institutions: - These are viewed as the basis of the social system. They prescribe (recommend) reciprocal role expectations. E.g. economic and family institutions. ii. Regulative Institutions: - Our interests are controlled by regulative institutions, which inform us of the socially sanctioned means to be used in our striving toward certain ends. E.g. family and political institutions. iii. Cultural Institutions: - These provide for the needed organization of our cultural orientations. Family and religious institutions. (e) Don Matindale Social and Cultural Institutions i. Social Institutions: - These are institutions organizing the attainment of instrumental values, which are means to an end. Educational, political and family institutions are examples of these. ii. Cultural Institutions: - These are institutions, which help in realizing intrinsic values, or goals set in the society. Educational, family and religious institutions are examples. Contemporary Classification of Institutions Spencer’s classification of institutions (crescive and enacted) is quite similar to that accepted by many contemporary sociologists. The following list contains fundamental or primary institutions, which are elemental and spontaneous in their origin and development and expressive of basic human needs. i. Marriage ii. The family iii. Education iv. The economy v. Religion vi Government Marriage: Obviously forms of marriage are different in different societies. But the purpose of marriage is the same: a man and a woman, or various combinations of men and men live together in a sexual union for the purpose f reproducing and establishing a family. This definition is the traditional one; today it needs o be amended as increasingly men and women marry to obtain affection and companionship, and choose to remain childless. The two broad subdivisions in forms of marriage are monogamy and polygamy. Monogamy is the union of one and with one woman. Polygamy is plural marriage, which can be subdivided into polyandry, the union of one woman with several men; polygyny, the union of one man with several women; and group marriage, involving several men with several women. Every society regulates its members’ choice of mates by specifying whom they may marry and whom they may not. All societies, for instance, require that marriage occurs outside a particular group, whether it is family, clan, tribe or village. People must not marry close blood relatives such as parents, sisters, brothers and in some societies, cousins. This procedure is called “exogamy”, or marriage outside the group. Societies also require that people marry within other specified groups. In simple societies, members must choose their mates from among members of their clan, tribe, or village. In such instance people may be encouraged to marry within their own race, religion, and social class. This process is called “endogamy” or marriage within the group. Another limitation on marriage – is the universal incest taboo: prohibition of sexual relations between mother and son, father and daughter, and sister and brother. The Family The family may be defined as a social group that has the following features: i. It originates in marriage; ii. It consists of husband, wife and children born of the union; iii. In some forms of family, other relatives are included; iv. The people making up the family are joined by legal bonds, as well as by economic and religious bonds and by other duties and privileges; v. Family members are also bound by a network of sexual privileges and prohibitions, as well as by varying degree of such emotion as love, respect, affection, and so on. The family has existed in two main forms (a) The Extended or Consanguine Family: - This refers to blood relationships. The extended family includes a large or small number of blood relatives who live together with their marriage partners and children. (b) The Nuclear or Conjugal Family: - This consists of the nucleus of father, mother and their children. For children such family is consanguine because they are related to their parents by blood ties. For the parents, such a family is one of procreation, because their relationship does not depend on blood ties but on having produced them. In different societies, families are organized in different ways. Families in which authority is vested in the oldest living males are called “patriarchal”. In patriarchal families the father holds great power over wife and children. Less common are matriarchal families, in which the source of authority is the mother. A variation of this form, referred to as matrifocal families, is found among the lowest socio-economic classes of many societies. These families are without a male head of household because the man has left the family or were unable to provide a living. The egalitarian family is one in which husband and wife has equal authority. Historically, families differ in ways in which they trace descent for the purpose of passing along the family name and determining inheritance. In patrilineal arrangement, family name inheritance, and other obligations are passed through the male line, or the father’s ancestors. In a matrilineal arrangement, the opposite is true, and descent is traced through mother’s ancestors. In bilateral arrangement, both parents’ lines determine descent and inheritance patterns. The residence of newly married couples also varies according to family organization. In patrilocal kind of organization, the couples stay in the residence of the husband’s parents. In the matrilocal kind, the couples reside with the wife’s parents. The current trend is toward neolocal arrangements, in which the married couple lives away from both sets of parents. The universal functions of the family include: i. Regulation of Sex: - Although the basis for marriage in many societies appears to be more economic than sexual, no society leaves the regulation of the sex drive to change. All societies attempt to channel the sex drive, so sexual relationships take place between persons who have legitimate access to each other. Most societies encourage marriage and give high status to married people. ii. Reproduction: - Ensuring the reproduction of the species has been a fundamental function of the family institution. In many societies, an individual does not reach the status of an adult until he or she has produced a child. Other societies attach no stigma to children born out of wedlock and provide for their incorporation into the family structure. However, in no society has the reproductive function been approved outside of the family institution. iii. Socialization: - Most societies depend on the family to socialize their young. In almost all societies, socialization within the family is the most important factor in the formation of personality. Parents play an especially crucial role in socialization. The chance is good that the child will develop into a fairly complete human being and will fit easily into the roles that society imposes on him if his parents offer successful models for him to imitate. iv. Affection and Companionship: - The need for affection and companionship appear to be a fundamental human need. Lack of affection in individual’s background may cause delinquency and criminality. Children who are given care in a faultless physical environment but who lack affection often become ill or even die. For many reasons, partners in marriage are not always able to sustain an affectionate relationship. And when such a relationship is lacking, there is not much left to hold the family together. v. Status: - The family’s function of providing the new member of society with his first statuses has remained practically unchanged. The newly born individual acquires the ascribed statuses of sex, age and order of birth, as well as the social, racial, religious, and economic statuses of his parents. The child begins life by inheriting the social class of his family. vi. Protection: - The protective function has traditionally been much more pronounced in extended families than it has in nuclear ones. For instance, in an extended family, each member is offered whatever help is necessary against whatever threatens him. vii. Economy: - The family in the traditional non-industrial society is the fundamental economic unit. It both produces and consumes the goods and services essential to its survival. According to an accepted division of labour, different members of the family till the soil, plant and harvest, build shelter etc. In urban industrial societies, these functions have been assumed by numerous other institutions that make up the economy. The change from a productive unit to a consuming unit resulted in a vastly improved standard of living. viii. Other Functions: - Among the other functions that were much more a part of the traditional extended family than they are of the modern nuclear one are recreation, religion and education. Religion Religion is a system of beliefs and rituals dealing with the sacred. Certain features of the human personality and some conditions of human social reality keep the need for religion alive. Science, which was thought capable of displacing religion, has so far proved incapable of doing so. People continue to reach out for something beyond life, and beyond science. Religion is functional in human society because it fulfills expressive needs such as the need to express ones feelings, to respond to objects and to feelings of others, to adapt, master and control physical environment in order to survive. (a) Specific Individual and Social Functions of Religion Religion provides a view of the beyond. It is systems that clarify and make human deprivation and suffering meaningful. On individual level, it provides emotional support in the face of human uncertainty. It offers consolation for human physical suffering, it furnishes a channel through which humans can search for ultimate meanings. It helps people overcome their fears and anxiety. Religion is functional to the society in the following ways. i. Establishment of Identity: - Religion contributes to an individual’s recognition of his identity not only in relation to the universe but also in a more limited sense, within his own society. Membership in a religious organization, in which people share in the same ritual, helps the individual to define for himself who and what he is. ii. Clarification of the World: - Religion clarifies the physical world, making it comprehensible, familiar and meaningful. In teaching beliefs and values, it offers individual a point of reference for his society’s normative system – for what is considered good and what is considered evil. iii. Support of Societal Norms and Values: - Because socialization is never perfect, deviance from social norms is frequent. Religion supports the norms and values of established society by making them divine laws. Religion is thus a supporter of the process of socialization. The deviant when breaking a norm is made to believe that he faces not only the anger of his fellow humans, but that he can also be punished by a supernatural, all powerful being. iv. Relief of Guilt: - Religion also provides a means of relieving the deviant’s guilt, as well as a way for him to become reestablished in society as a law-abiding member. Most religious organizations provide some kind of ritual for the forgiveness of sins. v. Legitimization of Power: - The supportive function of religion is vital to social control and to the maintenance of status quo. Every society is faced with the necessity of distributing power, for which purpose political institutions emerge. In legitimizing these institutions, the society has to justify the use of physical violence, which underlies power. Here again, religion mystifies the human institution by giving it extra-human qualities. vi. Subvertion of the Status Quo: - Religion may, conversely, subvert rather than support the status quo. The prophetic function of religion causes the beliefs and values of society to be considered inferior to the laws of God. Because of its subversive function, religion often leads to protests movements and to eventual social change. In modern times, the abolition of slavery and the passage of humanitarian law for the disadvantaged were caused, in part, by the influence of religion. vii. Feeling of Power: - Religion creates opportunity for feeling of power that members of a religions group derive from their special relationship with a superior being. viii. Aid in the Critical Stages of Life: - Religion offers the individual the needed support in critical stages of his growth and maturation. As individual develops through progressive stages, he/she is faced with new problems. Religion seems to help him to accept the new roles forced on him. It does this through rites of passage. The rituals have been established around critical times, such as birth, puberty, marriage and death. Some of the tensions the individual feels as he approaches a new stage of life are lessened by his involvement with the ritual. Common Features of Religion Although religions expression vary greatly from society to society, in their institutionalized form religions have some elements in common. (a) Beliefs: - In almost all known societies there exist religious beliefs, often spelled out in doctrines, or articles of faith. Beliefs probably appear after other aspects of religion have become established. Their function is to explain and justify the sacred and the ritual attaching to it. Within religions today, the role of religious beliefs has grown stronger. (b) Ritual: - Ritualized behaviour follows the creation of sacredness, and is an important mechanism for maintaining it. Any kind of behaviour may become ritualized: dancing, gathering in a specific spot, drinking from a specific container, or eating a particular food. Once something becomes ritualized, the behaviour and the objects involved are set apart and considered sacred in their own right. Ritual becomes a very important practice because it is considered to be the correct form of behaviour toward the sacred. It eases some of the dread connected with the sacred. By behaving in the prescribed way toward the sacred, people think that they are protecting themselves against supernatural wrath. (c) Organization: - The institutionalization of any societal function requires that it becomes organized. If religion is to remain effective, leaders must be recruited to make sure that there is always a place available for worship, that ritual is conducted in the proper manner, and that followers treat the sacred with the proper respect. (d) Additional Features: - All religions also have specific emotions, symbols and propitiatory behaviour. The emotions most commonly associated with religion as humbleness, reverence, and awe, although in some people religion awakens feelings of ecstasy and terror. Symbols, such as the cross of Christians, express the meaning of the sacred power. Church and temple attendance, prayer, confession, and obedience to the injunctions of one’s religion are additional symbols of religious adherence. 3.2.4 Education This is the formal aspect of socialization in which a specific body of knowledge and skills is deliberately transmitted by a crop of specialists. Humans lack a highly developed instinctual system. Consequently, they do not automatically know how to build the most effective shelter or how to find the best tasting plants. But humans do have the unique ability to engage in symbolic interaction. As they accidentally learn how to do certain things necessary for survival, they tell others of their group who may think of even better techniques. The accumulated knowledge becomes the essence of human culture, and every generation transmits this culture for the next generation. (a) Goals and Functions of Education What is called education is the institution that fundamentally functions to transmit the accumulated culture of a society from one generation to the next. The primary vehicle through which this function is accomplished is learned: the new generation must learn from the old, learning a process that has several components. The first component is change. Something must happen to the student as a result of the learning experience. The student should be a different person after the learning experience than he or she was before. The second component is interaction between the learner and the instructor. The instructor may be a teacher, or another student, or even a teaching device. In any case, the learning experience takes place in a social setting, or within a social system in which people play roles according to the expectations accompanying their statuses. Successful learning therefore depends on a satisfactory social system. The third component is substance. People learn or do not learn “something”. The something may be categorized as: (i) information and (ii) skills, such as reading or using tools. An additional category is the capacity to think clearly or to act upon a rational analysis of a problem. This should be viewed as a combination of the other two categories (information and skills). Learning takes place throughout our lives, in every circumstance. We even learn how to become human. Education in today’s society is considered to be formal learning that takes place in schools, or other specialized organizations. Society through the proper authorities must choose what to teach. What its children will learn. There is general consensus on the following categories of goals for education: i. Cognitive Goals: - The school must teach, and students must learn, basic information and skills. ii. Moral and Values Goals: - The schools should teach, and the students learn, how to be good citizens who hold the proper values for living and participating in a democracy. iii. Socialization Goals: - The school should make of its students well adjusted individuals who function well in interpersonal relations. iv. Social Mobility Goals: - The school should act as a potential vehicle for upward mobility, compensating for the disadvantages of poverty, minority, status, or unsatisfactory family background in those instances where the individuals were willing to work hard toward the goal. (b) Manifest or Obvious Functions of Education: These generalized goals represent the good intentions of a majority of society. The educational institution performs the following intended or manifest functions. i. Transmission of Culture: - By exposing students to the history and literature of their society, the schools help preserve the cultural heritage of the nation. ii. Recruitment and Preparation for Roles: - Schools function to help select, guide, and prepare students for the social and occupational roles they will eventually hold in society. iii. Cultural Integration: - In the society, schools have traditionally reinforced the values and norms of the majority. iv. Innovation: - In addition to preserving and disseminating past and present cultural knowledge, schools also function to generate new knowledge. This function consists of searching for new ideas and new methods of research, for innovative techniques and for inventions designed to solve problems and facilitate life. c. Hidden or Latent Functions of Education In addition to obvious functions of schools, there are other latent functions, which are unintended consequences of the process of education. i. Schools reinforce stratification (class) system of the society: - Students are sorted into different categories theoretically according to ability, and are then channeled into courses that prepare them for different job opportunities. ii. Schools perform custodial functions: - They act as babysitters of the day. They also ensure that children (under 16) will not enter job market in competition with adults. iii. The school helps to form youth sub-cultures: The fact that students are brought together for long periods of time results into formation of these. Some of these subcultures become deviant or counter-cultural. iv. Education affects attitudes: - There is ample evidence that education affects positively such values as egalitarianism, democratic principles, and tolerance of opposition view. The Economy The economic institution functions to tell each generation how to produce distribute and consume the scarce and finite resources of the society so that they can be used most efficiently by the members. It is a system of behaviour through which individuals in society make decisions and choices aimed at satisfying their needs and combating the problem of society. The study of the structure, functions, and general working of the economy is the task of economics. The term economy is an abstract concept that in reality represents specific relationships among people and group of people. (a) Basic Economic Principles and Terminology The fundamental economic problem of every society is that all human needs cannot be easily satisfied because of the problem of scarcity of resources. In the face of this perpetual problem of scarcity, each society is confronted with the following problems: · What commodities should we produce and in what quantities? · How shall we produce these commodities with the greatest efficiency? · For whom should we produce these commodities? People in different societies solve these problems in several different ways. · Some societies solve all their problems by relying only on custom and tradition. · Other societies allow these decisions to be made by command of their rulers or elected representatives. · In some societies these decisions are made as a result of the functioning of a market dependent on supply and demand, on price, profits and losses. Very few economies are based entirely on only one of the systems above. The goods and services that are produced in each society derive from the resources that exist naturally in that society. These natural resources are usually scarce. Resources are al those things that are necessary for the production of goods and services. Resources include the material things and the human energy used in producing goods and services. The human energy expended in production is called labour. Material things can be natural – land, minerals, water. These are called land. Man made material things – machinery, factories, shoes, and pencils are referred to as capital. Land, labour and capital are called factors of production because they are basic elements that must be combined in the production of goods and services. (b) Three Economic Systems Economic institutions are both cultural and social systems. They are social systems because people hold specific statuses and play the roles corresponding to these statuses. They are cultural systems because patterns of behaviour, values and expectations emerge around a system of production. These patterns are them made legitimate by a philosophy or ideology that the people accept as valid. The economic systems are: i. Capitalism The economic system came into being in Western Europe along with the industrial revolution. In this system of economic production, wealth came to be considered chiefly as the private property of the state or of a society as a whole. The principle of capitalism was that an individual invested his property with expectation of accumulating more property through his own work and enterprise. ii. Socialism Some societies have developed economic systems whose premises differ from those of capitalism. Socialism is one of such system. Its basic premise is the preoccupation with the welfare of the collectivity, with the whole society, rather than with the individual. All individuals are believed to be entitled to the necessity of life. They are not left to compete for survival, as under capitalism. In socialist societies, government levies high income taxes that help redistribute the society’s wealth more equitably. Individuals may own property, but only if the ownership does not deprive other members of a society in any way. Essential industries are owned and operated by the government in the name of the people, and the government controls and directs the economy in general. iii. Communism Like socialism, total government control and total income redistribution are the goals of communist nations. Such nations are theoretically determined to stamp out the profit motive entirely, as well as economic individualism of any sort. Individuals are encouraged to think and labour for the collectivity and work toward the even distribution of society’s resources, so that eventually a classless society may be attained. All the three economic systems lie at different points of an ideal option (continuum). What differentiates them is the extent to which the government intervenes in the economy. The Political Institution We experience political institutions in various ways. Politics is the process of acquiring and using power, and government is the ultimate source of legitimate power in society. The political institution includes a system of norms, values, laws and general patterns of behaviour that legitimize the acquisition and exercise of power. The institution also defines the relationship between government and membership of society. Political sociologists generally inquire into three areas. First, they want to find out about the social foundations of the political order-how and to what extent political arrangements depend on cultural values and social organization. Second, sociologist wants to know why and how individuals vote, why they hold specific political opinions, why they belong or fail to belongto political organizations, and why and to what extent they supported political parties and movements. This pertains to political behaviour. Third, sociological inquiry is also concerned with the social aspects of the political process. Sociologists want to know what type of groups people form for political purposes and what their patterns of interaction are. (a) Government Government is the institution that develops as a consequence of the need to maintain social order in the society. Government is a process that includes the group of people who exercise political power. The state, on the other hand, is the abstract embodiment of the political institution. The state is an institution that incorporates the institution of government. Government is the working, active arm of the state. Although individuals and groups that make up the government change with time and with administration, the state goes on. (b) Political Ideology Political ideology is a system of beliefs that explains, interprets, andrationalizes why a particular kind of political order is best for the society. Political ideology is graphically defined as concepts that: i. deals with the questions: who will be rulers? How will the ruler be selected? By what principles will they govern? ii. constitute an argument; that is, they are intended to persuade and to counter opposing views; iii. integrally affect some of the major values of life; iv. embrace a programme for the defence or reform or abolition of important social institutions; v. are, in part, rationalizations of group interest – but not necessarily the interest of all groups espousing them; vi. are normative, ethical, moral in tone and content vii. are (inevitably) torn from their context in a broader belief system, and share the structural and stylistic properties of that system. Those who advance a political ideology expect their followers to become totally committed to it and act on it. In other words, political, ideology is expected to result in political behaviour, its ideas translated into action. Political parties, social movements, interest groups and political system itself are all motivated by ideology. CONCLUSION Social institutions keep the society stable and goal directed, the society without the family and marriage, religion, education, economy and political institution in unimaginable. It should be noted that the problems and crisis these institutions’ experience will also be reflected on the society. The indispensability of social institutions for the society cannot be overemphasized SUMMARY In this unit, the ranges of institutions developed from basic classifications suggested by Sociologists were considered. Also, six (6) contemporary institutions as presented by Herbert Spencer were considered. Lastly, each of the contemporary social institutions wasexhaustively discussed.