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Turner, Jonathan. (1997). The Institutional Order. New York: Longman.

Social Institutions

· A complex of positions, roles, norms and values

· lodged in particular types of social structures and

· organising relatively stable patterns of human activity

· with respect to fundamental problems

· in producing life-sustaining resources,

· in reproducing individuals, and

· in sustaining viable societal structures within a given environment.

Social Institutions

· Sociologyguide.com: “A social institution is a complex, integrated set of social norms organized around the preservation of a basic societal value.”

· Five primary social institutions in every society and the values that they regulate:

· Economy/Work: regulation of money and goods (exchange)

· Family/friends: regulation of kinship and connection

· Government: regulation of power

· Religion: regulation of the supernatural

· Education: regulation of knowledge

Marriage as an Institution

· A complex of positions, roles, norms and values

· lodged in particular types of social structures and

· organising relatively stable patterns of human activity

· with respect to fundamental problems

· in producing life-sustaining resources,

· in reproducing individuals, and

· In sustaining viable societal structures within a given environment.

Social Institution: Economy/Work

· Marx and other Conflict Theorists studied class differences and exploitation- sociologists still use this framework for understanding some avenues of employment

· Poverty (causes and consequences, perceptions)

· Racial biases in hiring practices (we’re reading an article for the next Module)

· Gender experiences in the workplace (Gender capital, sexual harassment and the #metoo movement)

· LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace (does the Civil Rights Act cover LGBTQ protections?)

Social Institution: Family

· Role of the family in socialization and identity development (George Herbert Mead- family is the first “generalized other”)

· “Institution of marriage”- multiple institutions exist within these broad categories; some of them are more abstract

· This secondary institution has evolved over time

· “The Second Shift” The intersection of work and economics with the family and intimacy

Social Institution: Family

· The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home (Arlie Hochschild, 1989)

· The “Second Shift”- the extra shift of “housework” that working women have to take on at home

· Found that despite their entrance into the workforce, women still performed the majority of the housework and child rearing; this often caused conflict in the marriage and the household

· However, while it wasn’t common, she did observe couples that functioned in a more egalitarian way- split the second shift work

Social Institution: Family

· The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home (Arlie Hochschild, 1989)

· The revolution towards gender equality was stalled due to 3 reasons:

· Women were doing the majority of the “second shift” work

· Workplaces were not accommodating towards working women with families

· A lack of public benefits that supported families (paid parental leave)

Social Institution: Family

· Blair-Loy et al. (2015) “Stability and transformation in gender, work, and family: insights from the second shift for the next quarter century”

· Update on the original work of Arlie Hochschild (25 years later)

· Examines the ways that the gender structure has remained stable

· Examines areas of transformation

Social Institution: Government/Politics

· Criminal justice system

· Primary focus of the field of criminology

· Large focus on mass incarceration and police/community relations (esp. police violence against civilians); school violence and mass shootings (and gun control)

· Civic Engagement

· Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Robert Putnam, 2000)

· Based on “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital"

Social Institution: Government/Politics

· “the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions are indeed powerfully influenced by norms and networks of civic engagement” (Putnam Reading, 1)

· Argues that the American public has seen a decrease in civic engagement since the 1950s, particularly in the 1970s and later

· Major drop in voter participation

· Increase in distrust of the government

· Extends “civic engagement” beyond just political engagement

· Drop in Church attendance, union membership, PTA participation, and volunteering

· Increase in total number of bowlers in the U.S., but decrease in bowling in leagues (hence, “Bowling Alone”)

Social Institution: Government/Politics

· Counterpoint (presented by Putnam): membership in these traditional forms of civic engagement are being replaced by “mass-membership” organizations

· “In America, at least, there is reason to suspect that this democratic disarray may be linked to a broad and continuing erosion of civic engagement that began a quarter-century ago. High on the nation's agenda should be the question of how to reverse these adverse trends in social connectedness, thus restoring civic engagement and civic trust.”

Social Institution: Government/Politics

· Change in voting participation of UD students

· Increase in UD voting rate: 15% in 2014 to 42% in 2018

· Increase in voter registration rate 66% in 2014 to 84% in 2018

· UD (Center for Political Communication) made a strong effort before the 2018 election to increase civic engagement and engagement with the “Make It Count” campaign

Social Institution: Religion

· Weber- religion as the cause for the rise of capitalism

· Durkheim- the role that religion plays on social integration and regulation (Suicide)

· Contemporary: Perceptions of non-Western religions (terrorism in a post-9/11 world; massive rise in violence and discrimination against anyone that looks middle eastern, not just Muslims)

Social Institution: Education

· School to Prison Pipeline

· Criminalizing childhood deviance; replacing informal control (detentions, suspension, time-out) over school-related deviance (such as starting fights, missing class, throwing tantrums, etc.) with formal, legal sanctions

· Student loan debt- major topic in sociology of education, political science, and economics

· “The Cult of Rich Kid Sports”

· The institution of sports- this one crosses into many of the broad categories (education, family, work)

· Information Technological Revolution: a fundamental shift in the way that we share information

Social Institutions

· All of these institutions can be studied through each of the 3 theoretical perspectives

· E.g., Technology as a secondary institution

· Structural Functionalism: Society is a complex system of interrelated parts who come together to achieve stability

· Conflict Theory: Society is made up of groups competing for limited resources

· Symbolic Interactionism: Society is composed of symbols that people use to establish meaning, develop their views of the world, and communicate with others

Technology as an Institution

· One of my participants (Dorothy, 90s) explaining why she does not currently use a computer”

· “No. I never took the time to do that. I never had the time, frankly, and at this point in my life, I’m not going to worry about a computer. I can figure it out myself [laughter].”