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Book No. – 002 (Sociology)
Book Name – Sociology (C.N. Shankar Rao)
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1. SOCIAL STRUCTURE
1.1. Definitions of Social Structure
1.2. Toward An Understanding of the Terms ‘Structure’ and ‘Social Structure
1.3. The Example of University as Having a Structure
1.4. The Necessity and Universality of Social Structures
2. ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE
3. SOCIAL STRUCTURE: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
4. THE CONCEPT OF FUNCTION
5. FUNCTIONALISM OR FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
6. FUNCTIONAL PRE-REQUISITES
7. SOCIAL FUNCTIONS AND DYSFUNCTIONS
8. LATENT AND MANIFEST FUNCTIONS
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Social Structure and Function
Sociology – C.N. Shankar Rao
Chapter – 11
- The twin concepts of ‘structure’ and ‘function’ are crucial in modern sociological literature.
- These concepts are complementary, and understanding one depends on understanding the other.
- Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim inspired the application of structure and function in sociology.
- Spencer compared societies to living organisms, where an organism has a structure with interrelated parts, each having a function.
- Similarly, Spencer argued that a society has a structure consisting of interrelated parts, such as the family, religion, and state.
- Each component of society has a function contributing to the overall stability of the social system.
- Modern sociologists do not emphasize the analogy between society and organism but retain the idea of society as a system of interrelated systems.
- Each system in society has its own structure and function.
- This idea has been emphasized by functionalists in sociology.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
- Several sciences study structure to understand the characteristics of structures in their respective fields.
- Atomic physics studies the structure of atoms, chemistry studies the structure of molecules, crystallography and colloidal chemistry study the structure of crystals and colloids, while anatomy and physiology focus on the structure of organisms.
- In sociology and social anthropology, the concept of social structure is important for discovering the characteristics of social structures whose components are human beings.
- Social Structure is a key concept in sociology but has been used inconsistently and ambiguously.
- After World War II, the concept of social structure became widely used in social anthropology and could be applied to any ordered arrangement of social phenomena.
- The term structure originally referred to building construction, arrangement of parts, or organization, but by the 16th century, it was used to describe interrelations between the component parts of a whole.
- Herbert Spencer popularized the term social structure in sociology, applying biological analogies (organic structure and evolution) to analyze society.
- Durkheim, Morgan, and Marx also contributed their interpretations of social structure.
- George Murdock (USA), A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (Britain), and Claude Lévi-Strauss (France) extensively used and popularized the concept of social structure.
- Murdock’s use of structure relates to the building analogy or a dead organic model.
- Radcliffe-Brown likened society to a living organism or a working mechanism, asserting that society has its own life, not just an object.
- The study of structure is linked to the study of function, as it involves understanding how the components of a system interact and work together.