1. A Look Ahead What determines a person’s status in society?
How do our social roles affect our social interactions?
What is the place of the family, religion, and government in our social structure?
How can we better understand and manage large organizations?

2. Review of Social Interaction and Reality
Reality is shaped by perceptions, evaluations, and definitions
Nature of social interaction and what constitutes reality varies across cultures
Ability to define social reality reflects group’s power within a society
Important aspect of the process of social change involves redefining or reconstructing social reality

3. Elements of Social Structure: Statuses
any of the full range of socially defined positions within a large group or society
Person can hold more than one at same time

4. How do people obtain statuses?
Ascribed Status
status one is born with
Ex: race, caste, religion
Achieved Status
Status one earns
Ex: Education, prestige

5. Do some statuses matter more?
Master Status
Status that dominates other statuses and determines a person’s general position in society
These can be positive or negative
Race and gender can function as master statuses
family name

6. Source: Developed by author.6

7. Social Roles What Are Social Roles? Role Conflict Role strain
Social role: set of expectations for people who occupy a given status
Role Conflict
When incompatible expectations arise from two or more social positions held by same person
Role strain
Difficulties that arise when same social position imposes conflicting demands and expectations

8. Social Roles
Role Exit
Process of disengagement from a role that is central to one’s identity to establish a new role
Ex: Retirement

9. Role exit Ebaugh’s four stages: Doubt Search for alternatives
Action or departure stage
Creation of a new identity

10. Social Institutions
Social institution: organized pattern of beliefs and behavior centered on basic social needs
Major Social institutions include
Family
Education
Religion
Economy
Government
You may think about businesses
The sociologist thinks about social structures
Each of these elements continues as people come and go, they are not dependent on singular people
How do each of these continue from one generation to the next?

11. Functions of Social Institutions
The major functions of social institutions include:
Simplify social behavior for the individual person
Provide ready-made forms of social relations and social roles for individuals.
Act as agencies of coordination and stability
Control behavior.

12. Social Institutions Functionalist Perspective Five major tasks:
Replacing personnel
Teaching new recruits
Producing and distributing goods and services
Preserving order
Providing and maintaining a sense of purpose

13. Social Institutions Conflict Perspective
Major institutions help maintain privileges of most powerful individuals and groups within society
Social institutions such as education have inherently conservative natures.
Social institutions operate in gendered and racist environments.
Conservative:
Nature occurrence following societal interactions
Progressive
Artificial creations that need to be redesigned if they are going to help society

14. Social Institutions Interactionist Perspective
Social institutions affect everyday behavior
Social behavior conditioned by roles and statuses we accept

15. Table 5-2: Sociological Perspectives on Social Institutions15

16. Understanding Organizations
Formal organizations and bureaucracies
Characteristics of a bureaucracy
Bureaucracy and organizational culture

17. Formal Organizations and Bureaucracies
Formal organization: group designed for special purpose and structured for maximum efficiency
In our society, formal organizations fulfill enormous variety of personal and societal needs
Ascribed statuses can influence how we see ourselves within formal organizations 17

18. Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy: component of formal organization that uses rules and hierarchical ranking to achieve efficiency
Ideal type: a construct or model for evaluating specific cases (Weber)
Weber emphasized basic similarity of structure and process found in dissimilar enterprises of religion, government, education, and business 18

19. Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
Characteristics of Weber’s ideal bureaucracy:
Division of labor
Hierarchy of authority
Written rules and regulations
Impersonality
Employment based on technical qualifications 19

20. Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
With a division of labor, specialized experts perform specific tasks
Fragmentation of work can remove connection workers have to overall objective of the bureaucracy
Alienation: condition of estrangement or dissociation from the surrounding society
Trained incapacity: workers become so specialized that they develop blind spots and fail to notice obvious problems 20

21. Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
A hierarchy of authority means each position is under supervision
Written rules and regulations ensure uniform performance of every task
Provide continuity
Goal displacement: when rules and regulations overshadow larger goals of organization and become dysfunctional 21

22. Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
Impersonality a key characteristic
Bureaucratic norms dictate that officials perform duties without personal consideration to people as individuals 22

23. Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
Employment based on technical qualifications: ideally, performance measured against specific standards
Peter principle: every employee within a hierarchy tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence (Peter and Hull 1969)
Bureaucracy pervades modern life; through McDonaldization, it has reached new heights 23

24. Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
Bureaucratization as a Process
Bureaucratization: process by which group, organization, or social movement becomes increasingly bureaucratic
Can take place within small group settings
Oligarchy: Rule by a Few
Iron law of oligarchy: even a democratic organization eventually develops into a bureaucracy ruled by a few 24

25. Bureaucracy and Organizational Culture
Classical theory or scientific management approach: workers motivated almost entirely by economic rewards
Human relations approach: role of people, communication, and participation within a bureaucracy emphasized 25

26. Table 5-3: Characteristics of a Bureaucracy26

27. Social Structure in Global Perspective
Modern societies are complex
Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity
Tönnies’s Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
Lenski’s sociocultural evolution approach

28. Durkheim’s Mechanical and Organic Solidarity
Division of Labor ([1893] 1933)
Mechanical solidarity: collective consciousness that emphasizes group solidarity, implying all individuals perform the same tasks
Organic solidarity: collective consciousness resting on the need society’s members have for one another

29. Tönnies’s Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
Gemeinschaft (guh-MINE-shoft): small community in which people have similar backgrounds and life experiences
Gesellschaft (guh-ZELL-shoft): large community in which people are strangers and feel little in common with other community residents

30. Table 5-4: Comparison of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft30

31. Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach
Human societies undergo process of change characterized by dominant pattern known as sociocultural evolution
Level of technology critical
Technology: “cultural information about the ways in which the material resources of the environment may be used to satisfy human needs and desires” (Nolan and Lenski 2009:357)

32. Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach
Preindustrial Societies
Hunting-and-gathering society: people rely on whatever foods and fibers are readily available
Horticultural societies: people plant seeds and crops
Agrarian societies: people are primarily engaged in production of food; more specialized than horticultural society

33. Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach
Industrial Societies
Societies that depend on mechanization to produce its goods and services
People depend on mechanization to produce goods and services
People rely on inventions and energy sources
People move away from family as a self-sufficient production unit

34. Lenski’s Sociocultural Evolution Approach
Postindustrial and Postmodern Societies
Postindustrial society: economic system engaged primarily in processing and controlling information
Postmodern society: technologically sophisticated society preoccupied with consumer goods and media images

35. Table 5-5: Stages of Sociocultural Evolution35

36. Social Policy and Organizations: The State of the Unions Worldwide
Looking at the Issue
Labor unions consist of organized workers who share either the same skill or the same employer
Labor union practices were historically discriminatory, but today some actually ensure equal pay for minorities
Labor union power varies greatly from country to country 36

37. Figure 5-2: Labor Union Membership Worldwide
Sources: New Unionism Network 2011; Trottman and Maher 2013; Visser 2006:45. 37

38. Social Policy and Organizations: The State of the Unions Worldwide
Reasons for ongoing decline in labor union membership:
Changes in the type of industry
Growth in part-time jobs
The legal system
Globalization
Employer offensives 38

39. Social Policy and Organizations: The State of the Unions Worldwide
Applying Sociology
Marxists and functionalists view union development as logical response to organizational growth
Sociologists have linked decline in union membership to widening gap between hourly workers’ wages and managerial and executive compensation 39

40. Social Policy and Organizations: The State of the Unions Worldwide
Initiating Policy
U.S. is unique among industrial democracies in allowing employers to oppose union development
European labor unions play a major role in politics
Unions are a global force, but form and function vary from country to country 40

41. Research Today
5-1: Disability as a Master Status
Does your campus present barriers to disabled students? If so, what kinds of barriers—physical, attitudinal, or both? Describe some of them.
Why do you think nondisabled people see disability as the most important characteristic of a disabled person? What can be done to help people see beyond the wheelchair and the Seeing Eye dog?

42. Research Today
5-2: Social Networks and Obesity
Have you ever tried to lose weight, and if so, did your cluster of friends and family help or hinder you? In your experience, do people who are overweight tend to cluster in separate groups from those of normal weight?
Besides public health campaigns, what applications can you think of for research on social networking?

43. Sociology in the Global Community
5-3: McDonald’s and the Worldwide Bureaucratization of Society
What features of fast-food restaurants do you appreciate? Do you have any complaints about them?
Analyze life at your college using Weber’s model of bureaucracy. What elements of McDonaldization do you see? Do you wish life were less McDonaldized?

44. Sociology in the Global Community
5-4: Disney World: A Postmodern Theme Park
In just the last 24 hours, what evidence of hyperconsumerism have you witnessed?
How often do you find yourself moving seamlessly across time or space, in one way or another? 44

45. Taking Sociology to Work
Sarah Levy, Owner, S. Levy Foods
Have you ever thought of starting your own business? If so, what do you think the key to your success might be?
Would business have been a more practical major for Sarah? Why or why not?