We explain what the social structure is, the origin of the concept and the four central elements in the functioning of society.
What is the social structure?
In the language of the sociology, the social structure is called the ordering or the way in which the social relationships between the individuals of a community determined. This organization is changeable and adaptable, just like the individuals in the community, and operates in the manner of a system, with its rules, its mechanisms and its processes, as well as their values and contents.
The social structure is omnipresent, that is, it encompasses the entire societyBut it is not something tangible, but an order that individuals assume as natural, their own or spontaneous. In this sense, disciplines such as sociology, social psychology, social anthropology and others social Sciences Similar, they are concerned with making it visible and understanding its scope, its characteristics and its consequences.
Thus, four central elements are derived from the social structure in the functioning of society:
- Normative interactions, that is, the accepted or correct way of doing things in a given society, according to the habit and to the laws Y protocols that regulate social interaction according to moral values, politicians, etc.
- The structures of inequality, like the social classes, castes and other forms of discrimination based on economic, racial, gender, etc., which empower some and demand submission on the part of others.
- The institutions social, which are the modes of organization that society reinforces in each generation and values above others, such as family (and certain types of families or family conformations), political parties, and so on.
- The aspects demographic Y environmental, that is, the ways in which society regulates its population growth and deal with their environment. Urban dynamics, processes of migration, the concerns of public health, for example, they respond to this element of the social structure to some extent.
The concept of social structure appeared for the first time at the end of the 19th century, as a result of the studies of the German philosophers and sociologists Georg Simmel (1858-1918) and Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936), to explain how, in the same community, two individuals strangers and without any contact can be socially related.
Since then, this concept has been controversial within the discipline, insofar as there has been much debate regarding its true existence, especially on the part of some sociological currents that deny the possibility of conceiving a social structure that encompasses society in your set.