SOCIETY = an organized group of people/community that is guided by a set of rules or

regulations, shares some common history and goals [the improvised in class
definition];

= aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community;

= the community of people living in a particular country or region and having

shared customs, laws and organizations.

 Social norms are very important to the society because they help maintaining solidarity.

 There is a various set of social institutions placed inside the society.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE = the arrangements and relations between parts or elements of

something complex;

= the organization of society or other group and the relations between the
members determining its working.

 A social institution is an organized pattern of social behaviour and we use them as concepts
whenever we want to explain something.

 Which is more important? The individual or the social structure?

The emphasis is placed on the individual that creates the world among him.

 The methodological individualism approach came as a reaction to the one put forward
initially by Émile Durkheim. According to him, social facts exist independently to the
individuals. Society predetermines the type of behaviour that one is supposed to adapt to.

 Ethnomethodology (people’s methods) – Erving Goffman & Harold Garfinkel

 The social construction of reality – Thomas Luckman & Peter Berser – there is a
dialectical process in which the meaning given by the individuals to the world becomes a
part of the ……?

An institution = a set social practices that are repeated and that are also continuous;

= a society or an organization founded for a religious, educational, social or

similar purpose;

= an established official organization having an important role in the life of a

country such as a bank, a church or the parliament;
 = an established law, practice or custom.

Conventional categories

1. Economic institutions;

2. Political institutions = regulate the use of power;

3. Stratification institution = distribution of power of positions and resources;

4. The kinship institution;

5. The cultural institutions;

STRATIFICATION INSTITUTIONS

Criteria for setting differences between people:

- wealth;

- education;
Occupatio
- gender; n, Prestige Education
Wealth
- RELIGION;
- + +
- ethnicity; + + -
- occupation; + - +
- + -
- power;

- prestige;

- influence;

- legitimacy;

There is no society without stratification and this is necessary and essential.

Talcott Parsons – one of the most important representatives of functionalism. In order to make
society function you need high rewards. This cannot be done without speaking of a system of
shared values.
SOCIAL NETWORKS

- originate from urbanism – dots connected to each other;

- level of information in the sense of resource;