Social Structure, Social Change and Globalization - Essay Example

I. Definition and Significance of Social Structure The idea of social structure has constantly been regarded as one of the core concepts in the discipline of sociology. Certainly, it has turn out to be something of an ordinary to view the primary arguments of modern sociology as categorized around the dualism of ‘structure’ and ‘function.’ As there have been several discourses of the character and implication of social action, there have been merely a handful of definitional assumptions on social structure (Coser 1975: 17). Undoubtedly, social structure is normally treated as an unimportant notion that does not require any clear definition or premise. Concrete applications of the concept, though, are noticeably vague and varied. Consequently, there is little agreement over the definition of the concept, and it is exceptionally simple for sociologists to be discussing at cross objectives since they depend on various, and commonly understood, ideas of social structure. This unusual condition, that one of the core concepts of the discipline is strikingly misinterpreted, is obvious from the definitions of social structure in key dictionaries of sociology. Social structure is basically defined by sociologists as “a term loosely applied to any recurring pattern of social behaviour; or, more specifically, to the ordered interrelationships between the different elements of a social system or society” (Lopez & Scott 2000: 1). Having provided this obviously broad description, the dictionary immediately confirms: “However, there is no generally agreed meaning, and attempts at providing succinct definitions have proved singularly successful” (Lopez & Scott 2000: 1). Nevertheless, social structure should be understood as a network of social relationships among various groups of people, as well as a set of collective relations that unite people together. These binding relationships organise the activities of the individuals so attached as well as their purposes and opportunities for fulfilling them. The notion of a social agency indicates the fact that individuals behave with purpose in their socially controlled settings to realise their socially organised interests. In the duration of their purposive quests individuals modify the structures that unite them (Nadel 1957). It is important to understand social structure for the reason that there is no existing community devoid of social structure, and a human community will be impossible without culture. Humanity’s social structures are significantly more unpredictable than those of other genus, yet not as unpredictable as its culture. This implies that structural realities are reasonably open to scrutiny, and offers hope for concrete assumptions. Try to envision a community of all leaders and no subordinates or of all subordinates and no leaders. The analysis of social structure should explain why none of these conditions has dominated, why the condition of humanity is indivisible from structure, and where the boundaries of fairness, equality and of liberty rest. It is time to unite the pieces together. The final rung in this analysis of social structure have demonstrated it to be a theoretical means both more and less influential than is frequently understood. In a final note, its weakness appears significantly to offset its strength, the foremost weakness being its tapered breadth and, as a result, the disintegration it forces on our realm of discourse. It is indeed impossible to talk about social structure in isolation. Word Count: 528 II. Functionalist Approach to Social Structure The concepts ‘functionalism’ and ‘structural-functionalism’ are at present fairly established in their definitions and significance. Before exploring the theories, it is important to have a brief look at the evolving tones of the concepts. ‘Functionalism’ is a wide-ranging concept. In its broadest sense, it encompasses both functionalism and structural functionalism. It is the perspective which involves individual actions, the constraints obliged by social structures and institutions on individual, as well as the relations between individual needs and the gratification of those needs through social and cultural structures. Structural-functionalism has a tendency to focus less on individual needs or actions, and to focus more on the position of individuals in the social hierarchy, or certainly with the establishment of the social order itself (Smelser 1967). Structural functionalist studies frequently put emphasis on the individual, normally with the intention to demonstrate how human behaviour is influenced by larger social factors. Structural functionalists have a tendency to refer to individuals as decision makers, even though a number of thinkers have proposed that structural functionalist thinkers are, in fact, perceiving individual actors as dummies, whose decisions are an expected outcome of their position in the social structure as well as of the customs and expectations they have adopted, or at times as virtual captives of the evident social control methods society enforces (Smelser 1967). In any case, structural functionalists have a tendency to focus less on the means in which individual actors can determine their own fate than with the means in which the constraints obliged by society make the behaviour of individual actors practically knowable. The focus on scientific method results into the assumption that one can examine the social world through the methods used in studying the physical world. Hence, structural functionalist view the social world as collectively factual, as discernible with such methods as social interviews. Moreover, their positivistic assumption of social science believes that investigation of the social world can be free from biases or value-free, specifically, in that the values of the researcher will not essentially intervene with the objective pursuit for social laws controlling social system behaviour. One of the sociologists commonly associated to structural functionalism in Emile Durkheim whose works form the foundation for structural functionalist theory. He was also one of the earliest sociologists who applied scientific and quantitative methods in sociological research (Willis 1999). Another structural functionalist is Robert Merton who suggested some important characteristics to avoid possible shortcomings and explain vagueness in the core perspective. Primarily, he differentiates between manifest and latent functions, in that correspondingly, those which are identified and anticipated by individual actors in the social structure and thus could stand for intentions of their decisions, and those which are implicit, hence, unplanned by the individual actors. Furthermore, he grants that the specific social structures which fulfil functional societal needs are not necessary, yet that structural alternatives could be present which can as well fulfil the same functional requirements (Willis 1999). Structural functionalism at present, as some scholars claim, is inapplicable in the modern world. Yet, this claim is quite overstated indeed. Word Count: 510 III. Social Structure and Social Change Social structures set the framework for behaviours of individuals and group and are intended to furnish the resources for individual survival. How individuals decide, act and subsist is influenced primarily to some extent by these social structures in which they are situated. Social justice is partly an issue of guaranteeing that these social structures do actually gratify the basic needs of humanity. In several instances, though, the social structures of a society are characterised by domination, political isolation, and unequal opportunities and access to basic resources. These social structural factors frequently generate a classification of winners and losers within which individuals become ensnared in a social situation. Structural hostility frequently leads to, in the guise of power imbalance, poverty and the violation of human rights. Individual needs are not satisfied, and groups endure from unequal access to basic resources and segregation from structural processes of decision making. Unfair structural factors and distributions worsen discrimination, illiteracy, and unequal employment opportunities (Alexander et al. 2004). It is improbable that mechanisms within the social structure can be successful in addressing the unfairness and inequality that emerge out of the social structure defect. Since these mechanisms are intended to sustain the present structure, conflict that originate from unaddressed individual needs could be controlled by the present structure but are not likely to be decided upon or even resolved. There will be extended disagreement until there are social reforms or changes initiated to these fundamental social structures. And in numerous instances, if social changes in social structures are not initiated, later on change will take place through violent means (Alexander et al. 2004). Because establishing basic social structural changes are exceptionally complicated and demanding, these structural difficulties are frequently a chief cause of extended, stubborn conflict. Conflict in social structure is probable to lead to whenever organised social networks fall short to gratify basic human needs or assure essential human interests. Every society that aims to address the basic needs of its members, take care of critical social problems and prevent hostile disagreement should deal with these concerns (Park 1974). Social structural changes are a central fragment of shifting to peace, in addition to dealing with injustice and inequality that could have triggered conflict and social problem in the first place. Definitely, contemporary sociological thinking on social structure emphasises that peace-building should engage into structural change that cultivates the creation and maintenance of a fresh social reality. A central part of lessening hostile conflict is reforming those structures and mechanisms that dominate social as well as political relations, and also access to social resources such as power and physical resources as well. These types of structural changes ordinarily entail institutional or policy reforms, and also the formation of new social structures to address the basic socioeconomic and political requirements. These social structural adjustments intend to mitigate several of the fundamental causes and circumstances and reorganise the system of social networks that has disintegrated (Braybrooke 1995). Furthermore, social structural change is imperative in pre-empting further extended conflict. Dealing with injustice and inequality before it aggravates conflict frequently needs extensive reforms in the present social structures and institutions of a particular society. If these social structural changes were initiated, this could guarantee that every member of the society had adequate opportunities for social cohesion and individual growth and development, and hence mitigate the structural circumstances that add to the presence of social problems. Word Count: 566 IV. Globalisation and Contemporary Social Changes Globalisation sums up modern day transformations, or more specifically economic and social relations all over the world. Humanity and geography are becoming more and more interconnected through the institution of employment, the flow of products and services and the interaction of knowledge or ideas. Despite that the modern world is typified by diversity rather than homogeneity and broadening rather than thinning inequality and injustice but the spatial trend remains multifaceted; even as several people and places are drawn in vastly dynamic global networks several others are mainly prohibited, generating new and strengthening traditional patterns of unequal progress (Dragsbaek 2000). In spite of the tremendous developments in human inventiveness and technology that have generated unprecedented wealth and an increasingly integrated world, economic, social and territorial boundaries are expanding. Globalisation was a concept initially applied towards the concluding phases of the last century. In definition, globalisation “refers to the growing interconnectedness are interdependencies between countries on a global scale as in the World Bank’s definition: Globalisation can be summarised as the global circulation of goods, services and capital but also of information, ideas and people” (Perrons 2004: 1). These particular definitions mean that the world has turn out to be progressively more interlinked encouraging several scholars, yet a handful of geographers, to propose that geography by now have become unimportant. Spatial realities have been condensed by swift means of communication which then made the flow of resources, money, goods and services and ideas all over the globe possible. Money can be transmitted quickly from one country to another country provoking financial difficulties with real impacts on the lives of the people. Goods are produced and marketed between arrays of societies with equally various employment opportunities in various locations. People have as well become more and more mobile; travelling in different parts of the globe is common for individuals in prosperous societies and legal and illegal migrations are momentous (Alfino et al. 1998). Likewise ideas, movies, music and news flow straight away from one location to another location generating world spectators for occasions such as movie premieres, rock concerts and sports competition. Moreover, subsequent to the transformation in Eastern Europe, the immense bulk of countries at present pledge to some adaptation of market economics and political democracy (Perrons 2004). In several ways these international exchanges have created a particular uniformity of cultures, knowledge and ideas, economic and political systems, and the visualization of the global village “where tribes people in remote rain forests tap away on lap top computes, Sicilian grandmothers conduct e-business, and global teens share a world wide style of culture has a certain resonance even through such iconic instances of globalisation are realised only by a minority” (Lewellen 2002: 22). Essential variations are sustained between places in order that geography becomes important as these variations are frequently developed to raise corporate productiveness strengthening and generating new trends of unequal development. Global trade has consistently developed world context variations to strengthen the array of products available in specific places but the advancement of international supply chains has resulted into complex trends of manufacturing and distribution to guarantee the repeated year round accumulating of specific goods such as UK’s seedless grapes in global supermarkets (Lewellen 2002). Various wage sectors have been exploited to lessen the costs of manufactured products and at present various time and wage sectors are used to lessen expenditures in the service sector. In spite of this flexibility, though, all activities have to occur someplace and numerous activities benefit from geographical proximity resulting into sets of activity in several places as others are avoided (Dragsbaek 2000). Technical advancements in communication and transportation and the swift dissemination of information as well as communication technologies, most importantly, the Internet, have fostered these flows yet the causes of boosted integration are located in economic, political and social changes, specifically the increasing power of capitalism as an economic and social system regulation. Apparently, the social science works on globalisation has concentrated limitedly on economic factors and on the manner global trade, the exchange of goods and services, the movements of global corporations and financial speculation have cultivated far more common interactions and exchanges and an increasing interdependence between the countries of the globe. Even though this emphasis prevails, social science works have been scrutinised for ignoring the other aspects of culture such as communications and transportations, migrations and the exchanges of culture. Opportunely, a more inclusive strategy to globalisation has surfaced and several features of the mechanisms accompanying globalisation have by now studied (Alfino et al. 1998). One of these involves the manner globalisation has influenced individual behaviours and attitudes, belief systems and values. Several sociologists have stressed the manner a global consciousness has surfaced among individuals throughout the globe and how their daily lives are influenced and altered by global events. Charles Lemert builds upon this issue through exploring the connections between individualism and globalisation. He argues that the concept of individualism was developed by de Tocqueville in the mid-nineteenth century to distinguish mainstream lifestyles in the Western world. From then on, individualism has attributed highly in sociological analysis and, as sociologists argue, three versions of individualism have surfaced (Journals of Sociology and Social Welfare 2007). The first demonstrates the concept that individual identity has been formed and influenced by capitalism, consumer society, and the media. The second stresses the alienated and secluded realms of individual presence, whereas the third perceives individualism in a more dynamic, spontaneous way, emphasising the role of individual actor in settling the ambiguities and hazards of modern life. It is this latter perspective of individualism that is largely related to the globalisation debate (Journals of Sociology and Social Welfare 2007). The power and influences of globalisation are unstable, reliant and unclear and it is merely through instinctively dealing with this lethal world that people can survive. The concept of globalisation, similar to that of the concept of secularisation, is charged to various meanings which, though perhaps not conflicting, also do not essentially signify each other. Globalisation, hence, should be clarified at the very beginning since various people make use of the word in various ways. Word Count: 1,018 References Alexander, J. C. et al. (2004), Self, Social Structure and Beliefs: Explorations in Sociology, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Alfino, M. et al. (1998), McDonaldization Revisited: Critical Essays on Consumer Culture, Westport, CT: Praeger. Atkinson, P. (1985), Language, Structure, and Reproduction: An Introduction to the Sociology of Basil Bernstein, London: Methuen. Braybrooke, D. et al. (1995), Logic on the Track of Social Change, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Charles Lemert and Anthony Elliott, Deadly Worlds: The Emotional Costs of Globalization, (2007), Journals of Sociology and Social Welfare, 190+. Coser, L. A. (1975), The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Dragsbaek, J. et al. (2000), Globalization and Social Change, London: Routledge. Hart, H. 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