...partaking in a social system every day. Once we take the time to analyze the relationship between the social systems in our lives and the individuals in it, we will begin to understand social life and how we participate in it. This paper will evaluate this relationship of social systems influencing individuals by means of paths of least resistance and socialization, while the individual shapes the system by interaction....
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...Response Social structure theory or social science refer to recurrent patterned arrangement in society, which influence or limit the choices, opportunities available, and determinant of action of the individual. What we know about as our social existence is largely determine by our overall structure of society. Social structure reflected the various levels of analysis within differing sub-fields of sociology. Sociology is the scientific study of society which is also a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human society activity. One example of social structure is the idea of social stratification, which is the concept involving the classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions; a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions, refers to the idea that society is separated into different levels, guided by the underlying structures in the social system. This approach has been important in the academic literature with the rise of various forms of structuralism. It is important in the modern study of organizations, because an organization's structure may determine its flexibility, capacity to change, and many other factors. Therefore, structure is an important issue for management. Social structure such as family, religion, law, economy, and class may be seen to influence important social systems including the...
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...In sociology, the iron cage is a term coined by Max Weber for the increased rationalization inherent in social life, particularly in Western capitalist societies. The "iron cage" thus traps individuals in systems based purely on teleological efficiency, rational calculation and control. Weber also described the bureaucratization of social order as "the polar night of icy darkness".[1] The original German term is stahlhartes Gehäuse; this was translated into "iron cage", an expression made familiar to English language speakers by Talcott Parsons in his 1930 translation of Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[2] This translation has recently been questioned by certain sociologists and interpreted instead as the "shell as hard as steel".[2][3] Weber wrote: “ | In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the 'saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.' But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage."[4] | ” | Weber became concerned with social actions and the subjective meaning that humans attach to their actions and interaction within specific social contexts. He also believed in idealism, which is the belief that we only know things because of the meanings that we apply to them. This led to his interest in power and authority in terms of bureaucracy and rationalization. Rationalization and bureaucracy[edit] Weber states, “the course of development involves… the bringing in of calculation...
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...ancient India and China are both rich in culture and history. The Chinese culture emphasized family structure and philosophy while undergoing various changes through its classical period. Culture in India was most influenced by religion. Although both civilizations shared patriarchal views and were agriculture based societies, the difference in moral perceptions is what created two distinctly diverse societies. India’s Caste system is a complex social system with its foundations rooted in the belief of a people who became dominant in north India with the decline of the aboriginal civilization of the Harrappans. The social and religious attitudes of these people were illustrated through a collection of hymns, religious texts and philosophical treatises once orally transmitted before being composed as what are called Vedas. The earliest of the texts, the Rig Veda portrays the...
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...discuss the key features of both Functionalist and Marxist theories. [25 Marks] Functionalist and Marxist are macro sociological theories that give a better understanding of the society. Functionalist theory is referred to as the consensus whilst the Marxist theory is known as the conflict theory. Key features of both theories are going to be identified and discussed. According to Haralambos and Holborn (2008), a theory is a set of ideas which attempts to explain how something works. Functionalism is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology which explains how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable. Marxism is a theoretical perspective that emphasizes the role of coercion and power in producing social order and is derived from the works of Karl Max. Functionalism has its origins in the works of Durkheim, E who was especially interested in how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable. Functionalist theory has got its main features and other theories have different views towards it. Value consensus is one of the key features of functionalist theory. Value consensus forms the fundamental integrating principle in society. The functionalist subscribes that the majority of the people in a community share common goals and only a few deviants oppose. This is supported by Haralambos and Holborn (2008) that if members of society are committed to the same values, they will tend to share a common identity, which...
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...Response Social structure theory or social science refer to recurrent patterned arrangement in society, which influence or limit the choices, opportunities available, and determinant of action of the individual. What we know about as our social existence is largely determine by our overall structure of society. Social structure reflected the various levels of analysis within differing sub-fields of sociology. Sociology is the scientific study of society which is also a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human society activity. One example of social structure is the idea of social stratification, which is the concept involving the classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions; a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions, refers to the idea that society is separated into different levels, guided by the underlying structures in the social system. This approach has been important in the academic literature with the rise of various forms of structuralism. It is important in the modern study of organizations, because an organization's structure may determine its flexibility, capacity to change, and many other factors. Therefore, structure is an important issue for management. Social structure such as family, religion, law, economy, and class may be seen to influence important social systems including the...
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...Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2009 A Conceptual and Operational Definition of ‘Social Role’ in Online Community Eric Gleave University of Washington egleave@u.washington.edu Howard T. Welser Ohio University welser@ohio.edu Abstract Both online and off, people frequently perform particular social roles. These roles organize behavior and give structure to positions in local networks. As more of social life becomes embedded in online systems, the concept of social role becomes increasingly valuable as a tool for simplifying patterns of action, recognizing distinct user types, and cultivating and managing communities. This paper standardizes the usage of the term ‘social role’ in online community as a combination of social psychological, social structural, and behavioral attributes. Beyond the conceptual definition, we describe measurement and analysis strategies for identifying social roles in online community. We demonstrate this process in two domains, Usenet and Wikipedia, identifying key social roles in each domain. We conclude with directions for future research, with a particular focus on the analysis of communities as role ecologies. 1. INTRODUCTION Social life has moved online. From discussion boards, to wikis, to social networking sites, people do things together through digital communication. Those interactions leave behind complex records of who did what, when, under what context,...
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...Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2009 A Conceptual and Operational Definition of ‘Social Role’ in Online Community Eric Gleave University of Washington egleave@u.washington.edu Howard T. Welser Ohio University welser@ohio.edu Abstract Both online and off, people frequently perform particular social roles. These roles organize behavior and give structure to positions in local networks. As more of social life becomes embedded in online systems, the concept of social role becomes increasingly valuable as a tool for simplifying patterns of action, recognizing distinct user types, and cultivating and managing communities. This paper standardizes the usage of the term ‘social role’ in online community as a combination of social psychological, social structural, and behavioral attributes. Beyond the conceptual definition, we describe measurement and analysis strategies for identifying social roles in online community. We demonstrate this process in two domains, Usenet and Wikipedia, identifying key social roles in each domain. We conclude with directions for future research, with a particular focus on the analysis of communities as role ecologies. 1. INTRODUCTION Social life has moved online. From discussion boards, to wikis, to social networking sites, people do things together through digital communication. Those interactions leave behind complex records of who did what, when, under what context,...
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...the ability to form the overall vigor but it fails to have the corresponding improvement in the social life. As an important part in the society, the social trust has had a crisis. To solve this problem, the basic way is to use a more fair system arrangement and social guarantee to reduce and eliminate the behavior of its own security and interest security. Social trust and social credit as an important social capital and social resources focus on it for the role of social intercourse activities. Realistic experience shows people that mutual trust plays a significant role in the communication of social exchange activities. The society is a community of people and its existence need certain trust. This can be investigated from two dimensions; the first one is the transverse dimension of the plane dimension. Society is made up by numbers of people, if the society is lack of trust of the confidence is too low, it will be very difficult to communicate among people. Generally, there is a certain amount of trust existing in any society; the difference is the extent of the trust and level. The second one is the vertical of longitudinal dimension. Because of the social division of labor, there is a certain class or grade difference between different people. Society needs a specific management, and the right to manage requires a particular level of structure, which means a hierarchical social order arrangement is needed. Some economists believe that China has serious trust crisis,...
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...discuss the key features of both Functionalist and Marxist theories. [25 Marks] Functionalist and Marxist are macro sociological theories that give a better understanding of the society. Functionalist theory is referred to as the consensus whilst the Marxist theory is known as the conflict theory. Key features of both theories are going to be identified and discussed. According to Haralambos and Holborn (2008), a theory is a set of ideas which attempts to explain how something works. Functionalism is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology which explains how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable. Marxism is a theoretical perspective that emphasizes the role of coercion and power in producing social order and is derived from the works of Karl Max. Functionalism has its origins in the works of Durkheim, E who was especially interested in how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable. Functionalist theory has got its main features and other theories have different views towards it. Value consensus is one of the key features of functionalist theory. Value consensus forms the fundamental integrating principle in society. The functionalist subscribes that the majority of the people in a community share common goals and only a few deviants oppose. This is supported by Haralambos and Holborn (2008) that if members of society are committed to the same values, they will tend to share a common identity, which...
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...similarities and differences between the two authors’ definitions of religion and offer my own perspective on each. Both anthropologists provide definitions that share the emphasis on religion as specific to a people, and also share the acknowledgement of rituals or practices within religion. However, Durkheim and Geertz have different fundamental, explicit concepts of religion, and in turn emphasize different aspects of religion and its social function. Many critiques on both definitions have provided a number of pros and cons to each, which in turn have led to my preference of one over the other. In examining the similarities between Durkheim and Geertz’s definitions of religion, one must observe that both authors conceptualize religion as specific to the group of people that it is present in, with limited applications outside of the group. At the heart of Emile Durkheim’s definition of religion is the concept that religion is central to society and that “religion is an eminently social thing” (DURKHEIM 2008: 39). Embedded in this idea of religion as a social entity is the concept of religion as socially-specific; as applicable only to the specific group it exists in. He goes on to claim that beliefs and rites composing a religion are “always shared by a definite group that professes them” (43). In defining religion, Clifford Geertz also makes the claim that religion is specific to a particular group, though his definition is based on the idea of cultural specificity. Geertz says that...
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...(DiMaggio/Powell 1991, Scott 2008) which embody certain structures of relational positions (Powell et al 2005), i.e. structures of inequality sui generis. Organizational hierarchies, positions in organizational networks, or organizational status do have an impact on, say, the capacities of organizations to engage in institutional work successfully, their internal promotion system, or more generally their ability to affect their own chances as well as chances in the lives of individuals for good or worse. If it is true that individual outcomes depend on organizational structures and those structures are strongly influenced by the social context they are embedded in, that implies not only to treat certain individual outcomes as dependent on organizational factors but ultimately as a function of the relational and relative position organizations find themselves in. Social inequality must therefore be understood and analytically fashioned as a multilevel-phenomenon. Despite that, inter-organizational inequality has been neglected in the study of social inequality and stratification. Studies that reproduce this blind spot firstly may overlook to mechanisms and their underlying institutions that may seriously interfere with the predominant models of ascriptive, variable-centered analysis, secondly they lose track of important processes which cause social inequality in modern societies, and thirdly they under-theorize the social world. As Levy argues: “What we need is an enlargement...
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...* SOCIAL STRATIFICATION Meaning, Nature, and Importance of Stratification * Stratification is an institutionalizes pattern of inequality in which social categories are ranked on the basis of their access to scarce resources * Social Stratification is the hierarchical arrangement and establishment of social categories that evolve into social group together with status and their corresponding roles. * Meaning, Nature, and Importance of Stratification * Social Stratification is a system whereby people rank and evaluate each other as superior and, on the basis of such evaluations, inequality rewarded one another with wealth authority, power and prestige. One result of each differentiation is the creation of a number of levels within society. Meaning, Nature, and Importance of Stratification * Different Views for Social Stratification: * Social Structure – status, social roles into ranked orders * Social Problem – discontentment and social justice * Importance of Stratification * Through S.S., men all over, dispels discrimination, stereotyping and prejudice. * Man will exert great effort in competing with others. * Knowledge of S.S. may enable man to adapt to the social environment * Improvement of man’s standard of living * Effect economic development in a society. * Attainment of a harmonious and stable society. * Types of Stratification System * Caste System * Brahmins...
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...A Theory-Based Approach to the Relationship between Social Capital and Communities of Practice El-Sayed Abou-Zeid John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada el-sayed@jmsb.concordia.ca Abstract: There is almost a consensus that tacit component of organisational knowledge is of critical strategic importance because, unlike explicit knowledge, it is both inimitable and appropriable. Because of its characteristics, organisational tacit knowledge is usually created and shared through highly interactive conversation and shared experience, i.e., through a socialisation process. At the firm’s level, the effectiveness of the socialisation process depends on the firm’s social capital. At group level, it has been argued that communities of practice form the basis of a firm's ability to create and share tacit knowledge. Therefore, investigating the relationship between social capital, communities of practice and individual human action is crucial in understanding the dynamic of cross level knowledge creation and utilisation and in understanding organisational learning process. In order to study this relationship Giddens’ theory of structuration is used as it provides an integrating meta-theory that recognises social reality as constituted by both subjective human actors and by objective institutional properties and attempts to articulate a process-oriented approach that relates the realm of human action and institutional realm. Based on Giddens’ theory a model...
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...http://anthropology.ua.edu/cultures/cultures.php?culture=Functionalism http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2004/functionalism.htm INTRODUCTION Functionalism was a major paradigm shift in the history of American psychology. As an outgrowth of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, the functionalist approach focused on the examination of the function and purpose of mind and behavior. Rather than the structures of the mind, functionalism was interested in mental processes and their relation to behavior. Through his work at Harvard as a professor teaching psychology courses and his writings related to the philosophy of pragmatism and functionalism, William James became known as spokesman of this burgeoning approach to psychology. His influence was exponentially increased through the inspiration he gave to his students. G. Stanley Hall, Mary Calkins, and Edward Thorndike are among those who spread functionalist psychology to other universities. DARWIN AND FUNCTIONALISM Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection was tremendously influential on the establishment of functionalism. After his famous voyage on The HMS Beagle, Darwin labored many years to produce the book responsible for a dramatic paradigm shift: The Origin of Species. Darwin’s argued that the environment forces a natural selection upon its inhabitants and favors those inhabitants that have adaptive characteristics. The members within a species who have adaptive characteristics pass on this survival...
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