SOCY101: SOCIOLOGY
Lecture-22
Topic: Social Institutions (Family, Religion, Education)
Instructor: Muhammad Adeel Irshad
Email: [email protected]
Lahore Garrison University, Lahore
Social Institution
a group of social positions, connected by social
relations, performing a social role, e.g.
universities, government, families.
Characteristics of an Institution
Institutions are purposive.
They are relatively permanent in their
content.
Institutions are structured.
Institutions are a unified structure.
Institutions are necessarily value-laden
Functions of Social Institution
Institutions simplify social behavior for the individual
person. The social institutions provide every child with all
the needed social and cultural mechanisms through which
he can grow socially.
Institutions provide ready-made forms of social relations
and social roles for the individual. The principal roles are
not invented by the individuals, they are provided by the
institutions.
Institutions also act as agencies of coordination and
stability for total culture. The ways of thinking and
behaving that are institutionalized “make sense” to
people.
Functions of Social Institution
Institutions tend to control behavior. They contain
the systematic expectations of the society.
Social Institutions can take many forms,
depending on a social context.
It may be a family, religion, educational, or
political institution.
Major Social Institutions
Family
Education
Religion
Politics
Economy
Family
The family is the smallest social institution with
the unique function or producing and rearing the
young. It is the basic unit of Philippine society and
the educational system.
Characteristics of the Family
– closely knit and has strong family ties
– has a strong loyalty among members
– individual interests are sacrificed over the welfare of
the group
– kinship ties are extended to sponsors
Functions of the Family
Reproduction of the race and rearing the young
Cultural transmission or enculturation
Socialization of the child
Providing affection and a sense of security
Providing the environment for personality
development and the growth of self concept
Providing social status
Kinds of Family Patterns
Conjugal or Nuclear Family - Husband, wife and children
Consanguine or extended Family - Married couple, their parents,
siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins
Polyandry - One woman married to two or more men
Polygamy - One man married to two or more women
Cenogamy - Two or more men mate with two or more women in
group marriage
Patrilineal - Descent is recognized through the father’s line
Matrilineal - Descent is recognized through the mother’s line
Bilineal - Descent is recognized through both the father’s and
mother’s line
Kinds of Family Patterns
Patrilocal - Married couple lives with the parents of the husband
Matrilocal - Married couple lives with the parents of the wife
Neolocal - Married couple maintains a separate household and live
by themselves
Patriarchal - Father is considered the head and plays a dominant
role
Matriarchal - Mother is considered the head and makes the major
decisions
Equalitarian - Both the mother and father share in making
decisions and are equal in authority
Education
Multiple Functions of Schools
– Technical/economic - refers to the contributions of the school to the
technical or economic development and needs of the individual, the
institution, the local community, the society and the international
community.
– Human/social - refers to the contributions of the school to human
development and social relationships at different levels of society.
– Political - refers to the contributions of the school to the political
development at different levels of society.
– Cultural - refers to the contributions of the school to the cultural
transmission and development at different levels of society.
– Education - refers to the contributions of the school to the
development and maintenance of education at the different levels of
society.
Manifest & Latent Functions of Education
Manifest functions of education are defined as the
open and intended goals or consequences of
activities within an organization or institution.
– Socialization
– Social control
– Social placement
– Transmitting culture
– Promoting social and political integration
– Agent of change
Functions of Education
The primary function is to move young people in the
mainstream of society.
The school is the place for the contemplation of reality,
and our task as teachers, in the simplest terms, is to
show this reality to our students, who are naturally eager
about them.
At home we teach reality to children in a profoundly
personal, informal, and unstructured way.
There are also teachers who facilitate learning, who teach
children and youth certain types of acceptable behavior,
and sees to it that children develop aspects: physically,
emotionally, socially and academically.
Functions of Education
The intellectual purposes of schooling include the
following:
– to teach basic cognitive skills such as reading writing, and
mathematics; to transmit specific knowledge.
Political
– to inculcate allegiance to the existing political order (patriotism).
To teach children the basic laws of society.
Social
– socialize children into the various roles, behaviors, and values of
the society.
– The key ingredient in the stability of any society. • Economic
– To prepare students for their later occupational roles and select,
train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
Functions of Schools by Calderon (1998)
Conservation function
Instructional function
Research function
Social service function
Religion
Religion is the socially defined patterns
of beliefs concerning ultimate meaning
of life’ it assumes the existence of the
supernatural.
Stark
Characteristics of Religion
Belief in a deity or in a power beyond the
individual
A doctrine (accepted teaching) of salvation
A code of conduct
The use of sacred stories
Religious rituals (acts and ceremonies)
Functions of Religion
Religion serves as a means of social control.
It exerts a great influence upon personality
development.
Religion always fear the unknown.
Religion explains events or situations which are
beyond the comprehension of man.
It gives man comfort, strength and hope in times
of crisis and despair.
Functions of Religion
It preserves and transmits knowledge, skills,
spiritual and cultural values and practices
It serves as an instrument of change.
It promotes closeness, love, cooperation,
friendliness and helpfulness.
Religion alleviates sufferings from major
calamities.
It provides hope for a blissful life after death.
Mosque, Sects and Cults
Mosque - tends to be large, with inclusive membership, in
low tension with surrounding society and tends toward
greater intellectual examination and interpretation of the
tenants of religion.
Sect – has a small, exclusive membership, high tension
with society. It tends toward the emotional, mystic,
stress faith, feeling, conversion experience, to be “born
again”.
Cult – the more innovative institutions and are formed
when people create new religious beliefs and practices.
There are three types: audience cults, client cults and
cult movements.
Elements of Religion
Sacred - refers to phenomena that are regarded as
extraordinary, transcendent, and outside the everyday
course of events - that is, supernatural.
Legitimation of norms – Religious sanctions and beliefs
reinforce the legitimacy of many rules and norms in the
community.
Rituals – are formal patterns of activity that express
symbolically a set of shared meanings.
Religious Community – Religions establishes a code of
behavior for the members, who belong and who does not.
