SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Kinship
• A family is a group of persons directly linked by kin connections, the adult
members of which assume responsibility for caring for children.
• Kinship ties are connections between individuals, established either through
marriage or through the lines of descent that connect blood relatives
(mothers, fathers, siblings, offspring, etc.)
• When two people marry, they become kin to one another. The marriage
bond also, however, connects together a wider range of people. Parents,
brothers, sisters and other blood relatives become relatives of the partner
through marriage.
• The family of birth is called family of orientation and the family in which a
person is married is called the family of procreation.
• The kin who are related through “blood” are called consanguinal kin while
the kin who are related through marriage are called affines.
 Work And Economic Life
• Work, whether paid or unpaid, as the carrying out of tasks requiring
the expenditure of mental and physical effort, which has as its
objective the production of goods and services that cater to human
needs.
• ‘Many types of work do not conform to the idea of paid
employment. Much of the work done in the informal economy, for
example, is not recorded in any direct way in the official
employment statistics.
• The term informal economy refers to transactions outside the
sphere of regular employment, sometimes involving the exchange
of cash for services provided, but also often involving the direct
exchange of goods or services.
• In pre-modern forms of society most people worked in the field or
cared for the livestock. In the industrially developed society only a
tiny proportion of the population works in agriculture, and farming
itself has become industrialised —it is carried on largely by means
of machines rather than by human hand.
• In a country like India, the larger share of the population continues
to be rural and agricultural or involved in other rural based
economic activities but there is a rapid expansion of service sector
in India.
 Labour in Modern Societies
• One of the most distinctive characteristics of the economic system of
modern societies is the existence of a highly complex division of
labour. Work has been divided into an enormous number of different
occupations in which people specialise.
• One of the main features of modern societies is an enormous
expansion of economic interdependence. We are all dependent on an
immense number of other workers-stretching right across the world-
for the products and services that sustain our lives.
• With few exceptions, the vast majority of people in modern societies
do not produce the food they eat, the houses they live in or the
material goods they consume.
 Politics
• Political institutions are concerned with the distribution of power in
society.
• Two concepts, which are critical to the understanding of political
institutions, are power and authority.
• Power is the ability of individuals or groups to carry out their will even
when opposed by others. It implies that those who hold power do so at
the cost of others.
• In other words, an individual or group does not hold power in isolation,
they hold it in relation to others.
• Power is exercised through authority. Authority is that form of power,
which is accepted as legitimate, that is, as right and just. It is
institutionalised because it is based on legitimacy. People in general
accept the power of those in authority as they consider their control to
be fair and justified.
 Modern State
• The modern state has a fixed structure and formal procedures. A state exists
where there is a political apparatus of government (institutions like a
parliament or congress, plus civil service officials) ruling over a given
territory.
• Government authority is backed by a legal system and by the capacity to use
military force to implement its policies. Modern states are very different
from traditional states.
• These states are defined by sovereignty, citizenship and, most often, ideas of
nationalism. Sovereignty refers to the undisputed political rule of a state
over a given territorial area.
• The sovereign state was not, at first, one in which citizenship carried with it
rights of political participation. These were achieved largely through
struggles, which limited the power of monarchs, or actively overthrew them.
The French Revolution and our own Indian independence struggle are two
instances of such movements.
 Rights of Citizen
• Citizenship rights include civil, political and social rights.
• Civil rights involve the freedom of individuals to live
where they choose; freedom of speech and religion; the
right to own property; and the right to equal justice
before the law.
• Political rights include the right to participate in elections
and to stand for public office. In most countries
governments were reluctant to admit the principle of
universal franchise. In the early years not only women,
but a large section of the male population was excluded
as holding a certain amount of property was an eligibility
criterion. Women had to wait longer for the vote.
• Social rights is the prerogative of every individual to enjoy a
certain minimum standard of economic welfare and security.
They include such rights as health benefits, unemployment
allowance, setting of minimum level of wages.
• The broadening of social or welfare rights led to the welfare
state, which was established in Western societies since the
Second World War. States of the erstwhile socialist countries
had far-reaching provision in this sector. In most developing
countries, this was virtually non-existent. All over the world
today these social rights are being attacked as liabilities on
the state and hindrances to economic growth.
• Nationalism can be defined as a set of symbols and beliefs
providing the sense of being part of a single political
community. Thus, individuals feel a sense of pride and
belonging, in being ‘British’, ‘Indian’, ‘Indonesian’ or
‘French’.
• Probably people have always felt some kind of identity with
social groups of one form or another — for example, their
family, clan or religious community. Nationalism, however,
only made its appearance with the development of the
modern state. Contemporary world is marked both by a
rapid expansion of the global market as well as intense
nationalist feelings and conflicts.
 Religion
• Religion exists in all known societies, although religious beliefs and
practices vary from culture to culture. Characteristics that all religions
seem to share are: set of symbols, invoking feelings of reverence or awe;
rituals or ceremonies; a community of believers.
• The rituals associated with religion are very diverse. Ritual acts may
include praying, chanting, singing, eating certain kinds of food (or
refraining from doing so), fasting on certain days, and so on. Since ritual
acts are oriented towards religious symbols, they are usually seen as
quite distinct from the habits and procedures of ordinary life.
• Sociologists like Emile Durkheim, are interested in understanding this
sacred realm which every society distinguishes from the profane. In most
cases, the sacred includes an element of the supernatural. Often the
sacred quality of a tree or a temple comes with the belief that it is sacred
precisely because there is some supernatural force behind it.
• Religion has had a very close relationship with power and politics. For instance,
periodically in history there have been religious movements for social change,
like various anti-caste movements or movements against gender discrimination.
• German sociologist and political economist Max Weber believed it was a
precipitator of social change. He examined the effects of religion on economic
activities and noticed that heavily Protestant societies—such as those in the
Netherlands, England, Scotland, and Germany—were the most highly developed
capitalist societies and that their most successful business leaders were
Protestant.
• German philosopher, journalist, and revolutionary socialist Karl Marx also studied
the social impact of religion. He believed religion reflects the social stratification
of society and that it maintains inequality and perpetuates the status quo. For
him, religion was just an extension of working-class (proletariat) economic
suffering. He famously argued that religion “is the opium of the people” (1844).
 Education
• Education is a life–long process, involving both formal and informal institutions
of learning.
• Schools in modern societies are designed to promote uniformity, standardised
aspirations and universalistic values.
• For Emile Durkheim, no society can survive without a ‘common base – a certain
number of ideas, sentiments and practices which education must inculcate in
all children indiscriminately, to whatever social category they belong’. Education
should prepare the child for a special occupation, and enable the child to
internalise the core values of society.
• The functionalist sociologist thus speaks in terms of general social needs and
social norms. For the functionalists, education maintains and renews the social
structure, transmits and develops culture.
• In 2002 a constitutional amendment in India made free and
compulsory education a fundamental right for children aged 6-14.
Yet, universal access to elementary education remains elusive and
quality of provision erratic.
• Schooling provision favours those better off, and disadvantaged
groups (including poor children, girls, children from Scheduled
Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Class (OBC)
groups) have less access and access to poorer quality education.