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Extended summary of The Social Structure of Western Societies - passed with an 8
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Extended summary of all lectures of the course 'The Social Structure of Western Societies' written in English.
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The Social Structure of Western SocietiesLecture 1: Introduction into social structures
The social structure in western societies
What is a ‘social structure’?
A social structure is patterned social relationships between (groups of) individuals. Both
limiting and enabling individual choices and actions.
Features of social structures:
● Socially embodied (actions and beliefs of individuals): you can see in the actions
and beliefs of people, how they behave/talk/interact in a certain visible way, that there is
a pattern.
● Coercive (normative system): there are norms underlying the social structure, people
expect you to behave in a certain way. It is possible to opt out but there will be sanctions
/ consequences if you don’t follow these norms.
● Assignment of statuses and roles (position system): a social structure assigns a
status or role to someone. It places individuals in a certain position in society → role
(makes it very predictable). Who is doing what?
● Distributive consequences (social outcomes)
● Leads both to stability and change: these social structures and all the things
accompanying that, make society work, it can function, but that doesn't mean things
can’t change. But if there develops a new social structure in the end, then that is stable.
Examples of social structures
● The family:
○ Socially embodied? If you look outside, can you see a family? Yes
○ Coercive? Parents, children, husband, wife, ideas about the status, the parent
has more power then a child, everyone should act in a certain way, if parents are
very old, there is a norm that children take care of them,
○ Assignment of statuses and roles? If you don't behave to these rules/norms,
there are sanctions. If you are abusing your child, the police will come.
○ Stability and change? these norms, these roles, these statuses, because of this,
family works. Functions: economic functions, educational functions, emotional
functions (there are a lot of function that makes it for society easy to work
because family is there. But family can also create their own values.
○ Distributive consequence
In teachers view: family is a social structure
Maybe in exam: you get something and you discuss why it is or isn't a social structure. Teacher
wants you to think about this and not necessarily agree with this.
Most sociologist agree that family is a social structure.
● Social class
○ Stability and change? it gives stability (because of certain roles and statuses) but
it can also change over the long term
○ Assignment of statuses and roles? Social class gives positions in society
, ○ Socially embodied: you can see it in what kind of car people drive or what office
they have or which clothes they wear, their houses.
○ Distributive outcomes: working class has different kind or resources then higher
class
○ Coercive: people expect you to behave in a certain way, for example if you have
a low function in a company, it is not appropriate to walk in the CEO office and sit
with your legs on the table
○ In some societies it is easier to move to other classes
● Ethnicity
Intersection of social structures. Almost no one fits in one category, structures are often
combined. Social class and family for example.
Social institutions
= organisation of patterned social relationships
Examples of institutions:
● Economic: to produce and distribute goods (markets)
● Legal: to enforce norms (law)
● Political: for collective decision making and protection (democracy)
● Educational: to train children into the way of life of society (schools)
● Normative: to provide meaning (religion/church)
→ social institutions shape social structure, they shape conditions in which the social structures
act out
→ social institutions are on a higher, societal level (macro), social structures are more on the
micro level. For example; social institution is not the individual school but the educational
system.
History and cultural traditions: these institutions have developed over time, the way that there
are here today, it is how they developed over time.
Overarching trend 1: Modernization
Modernization = Transformation process from traditional (agrarian) to modern (industrial) or
post-modern (service) society.
It all starts with changes in technology.
● Technological changes: production process
● Economic changes: more wealth
● Political changes: democracy
● Spatial (social) changes: urbanisation
○ Patterns change in where people live → that changes the interaction between
(groups of) people
● Cultural changes: modern values
Piramide van maslow
,Overarching trend 2: Globalisation
What is globalisation? = A set of processes of social change, among which deterritorialization
- Territories have less meaning, there are things happening beyond the territories
(covid-19, rampen etc). There is loss of territories in a certain way.
Human activities and relationships:
● Extension across the world: connected to even more parts of the world then we were
before, goes to every part the world (more arrows)
● Intensification: magnitude of relationships, people have more relationships, because of
what is happening in one place of the world, have impact on other places of the world,
there are more and more relationships (arrows become thicker)
● Increasing velocity: speed of relationships is increasing, flows of goods becomes faster
● Interconnectedness: not only dependent on each other, some sort of equality, but this
means that we are all connected but that doesn't necessarily mean equal outcomes, it
brings about inequalities, we have relationships, there are more connected, they have
more content. Who is profiting from this globalisation? Rich countries. Who is exploited?
Countries in the south
● Reflexivity: not only are the connections there, but we are aware, we feel connected
Globalization is not a new phenomenon but its impact has grown.
Sociological imagination (Mills, 1959)
Importance of seeing the connections between social structure and individual experience and
agency. → Seeing the connection between troubles and issues.
Theoretical framework
Micro-macro perspective (Coleman, 2002)
To determine macro outcomes we need to look at the effect of macro effects on micro effects
and these determine macro outcomes.
, We as sociologist are interested in social outcomes (phenoment), then look at what is going on
in society (social facts), we should look at how individuals behave and that gives us a clue on
social outcomes
You need both levels; if you only look at individual level, this individual behaviour is
influenced by social institutions. You need to combine them.
Coleman (2002) had kritiek op het macro perspectief, wat veelal zonder individueel gedrag werd
bekeken. Coleman stelt dat om tot een macroperspectief te komen, er gefocust moet worden op
de micro-perspectieven. Belangrijk is wel dat de transitie van micro naar macro ernstig
gegeneraliseerd wordt en dat is problematisch. In het bootje gaat het om de transitie van
individual action (3) naar social outcomes. Je kunt niet elk individueel gedrag generaliseren
naar grotere groepen.
→ Where to put social structure? → conditions of individual action.
Which arrow is problematic according to coleman?
Arrow 3 is problematic, it doesn't necessarily is a problem, but you need to know how to
generalize to individual action.
● People vote, add up all the vote, aggregation. How you aggregate, it depends on the
system that you have. Winner takes it all. In US you can win the election without the
majority of the votes of the whole countries, because it is about the majority in certain
regions.
How to generalize, it doesn't have to be problematic but most sociologist don't think about this.
Some sort of organisation needed to add up all the individual actions,
Coleman: heel erg gericht op rationeel gedrag, als er brand en paniek is, ren je
A is iets wat bv op landelijk niveau is geregeld (institutie is iets groters, population)
B kan dan bv ethnicity background zijn
C kan dan bv gezondheid zijn
D kan dan bv publieke gezondheid zijn of gezondheids ongelijkheid
Tussen B en C kunnen er meerdere mechanismen zijn die deze relatie kunnen veroorzaken
There are also non rational elements that are important
Coleman only wants to say that we have to think about it.
- You need both level macro and micro level
- Stratification model is only micro level
- If you do so, you need to take into account that the third arrow needs more attention
- In coleman view: arrow 4 is non existence theoretically if we observe correlation between
two macro levels, if is because of arrow 1, 2 and 3.
Contributions of sociology
● Personal troubles vs social issues (what is the problem)
● Causes and consequences (why: mechanisms)
● Context (macro-micro)
● Heterogeneity (moderation and cross-level interactions)
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