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Course: MCAT > Unit 14
Lesson 1: Social structures- Understanding social structures questions
- Macrosociology vs microsociology
- Social institutions
- Social institutions - education, family, and religion
- Social institutions - government, economy, health and medicine
- Functionalism
- Conflict theory
- Social constructionism
- Symbolic interactionism
- Rational choice-exchange theory
- Social theories overview (part 1)
- Social theories overview (part 2)
- Relating social theories to medicine
- What are social groups and social networks?
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Social institutions
Institutions are structures within society, such as police stations, schools, and businesses, that provide order and stability. While individuals rely on these institutions, the institutions themselves generally do not depend on any one person. People may view institutions differently: conservatives tend to see them as natural and positive, while progressives may argue they need regulation in order to benefit society. Created by Sydney Brown.
Want to join the conversation?
- I don't quite understand what a progressive institute is and the difference between it and a Conservative one. Can someone explain?(16 votes)
- A progressive view on institutions is the view that insitutions are man-made and artificial, and thus need reparing and reformatting to continue to function and fufill their place in society. The conservitive view of institutions is that they are not man-made and are natural, and thus do not need to be recallibrated to fulfill their role in society. Hope this helps!(42 votes)
- Is media considered to be a social institution ?(2 votes)
- The definition here is that it'll continue long after the individuals in the media pass away -- so yes, I believe the media would be considered an institution!(5 votes)
- In easy words, what does social institutions mean?(4 votes)
- So a example of a social institution could be a school or a hospital. If I wanted to get specific could I say the school I attend is a social institution?(2 votes)
- Yes, the school you attend would be a social institution.(4 votes)
- Is Social Media considered an institution?(3 votes)
- In a previous video, schools were mentioned as being part of microsociology . In this video, at, they include schools as institutions which are part of macrosociology. Found this confusing... which one is it? 0:08(1 vote)
- pretty sure school can be both micro and macro sociology. the idea is that in micro sociology, school is a small group and you are looking at how it affects the society in general. macro sociology is the opposite where you're looking at it as a large group an studying the effects it has on an individual(1 vote)
- so if media is a social institution then is social media in itself, without the rest of mass media, a social institution as well?(1 vote)
- can social beliefs be social institutions if they are subconsciously imposed and affect our everyday life?(0 votes)
- macrosociology and microsociology(0 votes)
Video transcript
Institutions are essential
parts of any society. Think about it. Police stations,
schools, hospitals, businesses like Walmart
and Trader Joe's are all core parts
of the community. In a sense, they
impose structure on how individuals behave. For example, if all the laws
that exist in our community disappeared, would I
still have a normal day? Probably not. People would be speeding
down the street, looting my neighborhood
coffee shop, and perhaps a stranger would
be sleeping on my living room couch. All the things that I'm used to
would be completely disrupted. Maybe a more
reasonable example is, let's say all the schools
had a new rule of no classes on Fridays. Then parents would
have to figure out childcare for that day. Institutions and their rules
definitively guide what we do. You may be thinking that
you don't have a kid and maybe you don't need
child care services. But in general, individuals
are reliant on the institutions in their community. But is the reverse true? Do institutions
need individuals? In general, they
need lots of folks to contribute to allow
them to function. But they don't typically need
any one random individual. So there's a bit of an
imbalance between institutions and individuals, if
that makes sense. While they need
individuals and are created by groups
of individuals, they will continue even
after the individual is gone. The concept of institutions
may seem like a daunting idea. But try thinking of them as
just a form fulfilling a need. Institutions meet
the needs of society by filling expected
roles and behaviors. For example, in order for
a society to continue, it needs people year
after year after year. The family
institution makes sure that there will be people to
carry on the next generation. We know society needs a
way to keep people healthy. So you have the
medical institution. And society even needs a
way to encourage innovation and progress, so you
have universities. There are two views
of institutions-- a conservative view
and a progressive view. The conservative view
sees institutions as being natural positive
byproducts of human nature. For example, the
institution of hospitals forms naturally from
the activities of humans and naturally benefits them. The progressive view
takes the standpoint that institutions are
artificial creations that need to be redesigned if they
are to be helpful to humanity. So perhaps you
could see businesses as potentially harming society
if they aren't reined in. Now unfortunately,
institution is one of those words that has
a very different meaning to a sociologist than it
does to the average person. We average people might think of
just a business or corporation when we hear the
word institution. A sociologist, on
the other hand, thinks of social structures when
they hear the word institution. They think of governments,
families, hospitals, schools, the legal system, religion,
as well as businesses. Each of those parts of society
continues on without regard to any individual. Governments continue even
after the people within them turn over. Families continue from one
generation to the next. Laws continue on
after the people who wrote them are
long dead and buried. Hospitals, schools,
businesses-- all continue past the time
span of any individual and are not dependent on
any one individual, either.