Social Role
Social roles refer to the set of behaviors that are expected of individuals within social institutions. Society is like a stage and individuals are like actors within a society whereby, they have to play different roles within different social institutions. Each individual hold different status within distinct institutions of society. Roles are positions in a social group. Father, mother, son, daughter, are examples of roles within the family
A role is a comprehensive pattern of behaviour that is socially recognized, providing a means of identifying and placing an individual in a society.
Role conflict occurs when members of the group have different definitions or expectations of someone occupying a role. Role conflict can occur, for example, when a parent coaches a cricket team that includes that parent’s son. The role of the parent can conflict with the role of the coach who needs to be objective when determining the positions and batting lineup, for example, along with the need to interact with all the children equally.
Role strain
When individual is stressed out due to excessive responsibilities associated with his statuses within different instructions of society is called role strain.
Social Status
In all of the many social groups that we as individuals belong to, we have a status and a role to fulfill.
Status is our relative social position within a group, while a role is the part our society expects us to play in a given status.
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of status, achieved status and ascribed status.
Achieved Status
An achieved status is one that is acquired on the basis of merit; it is a position that is earned or chosen and reflects a person’s skills, abilities, and efforts. Being a professional athlete, for example, is an achieved status, as is being a lawyer, college professor, or even a criminal.
Ascribed Status
An ascribed status, on the other hand, is beyond an individual’s control. It is not earned, but rather is something people are either born with or had no control over. Examples of ascribed status include sex, race, and age. Children usually have more ascribed statuses than adults, since they do not usually have a choice in most matters.
Social Status : Indian caste system
In India, ascribed, rather than achieved, social status has been strongly reinforced for more than 3,000 years and permeates most areas of life even today. As a result, social mobility has been very difficult to achieve until recent generations. Even now, it is limited for those at the bottom of society. At the heart of the Indian ascription system are castes These are carefully ranked, rigidly hereditary social divisions of society.
INDIAN CASTES TRADITIONAL ROLE IN SOCIETY
1. Brahman priests and teachers
2. Kshatriya rulers, warriors, and landowners
3. Vaishya farmers, merchants and artisans
4. Shudra serfs or laborers
5. Scheduled castes (Harijan ,Dalit ) “polluted” laborers
Class and Caste
Class
The society is stratified in various class groups-by sex, age, race, ethnicity, primitive and modern, rich and poor. Such stratifications are spontaneous formation expressive of social attitudes based on social or financial status. Status is a symbol which stands for the elite and the masses, the rich and the poor. the ruler and the ruled. the educated and the uneducated.
Caste
Whereas, a caste is a closed class or social group. There are no purely free-entry classes, nor purely closed castes. Thus there is some mobility within a caste- structured society. Members of inferior castes always seek to move upwards. Membership of caste is compulsory arid it is not matter of choice
Social Interaction
Social interaction is the process of reciprocal influence exercised by individuals over one another during social encounters. Usually it refers to face-to-face encounters in which people are physically present with one another for a specified duration.
Society is created by humans and human interaction, which they call habitualization. Habitualization describes how “any action that is repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be … performed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort”
Social interaction is in crucial respects symbolic interaction–interaction which is mediated by the exchange and interpretation of symbols.
In symbolic interaction, people contrive to reach a mutual understanding of each other and of the tasks at hand through the exchange and interpretation of symbols. Only on this basis can a coordinated action be accomplished.
The process of communication is the central quality of the human social environment.
Social interaction depends on communication.
Social System
Social System is dynamic complexity of various group and institution.
A social system is an interdependent set of cultural and structural elements that can be thought of as a unit.
A social system may be defined as a plurality of individuals interacting with each other according to shared cultural norms and meanings.
Structure of Social System
Durkheim says “ we may consider social norms and values as ‘things’ and hence parts of the social structure”.
Radcliffe-Brown has defined social structure :
“The components of social structure are human beings, the structure itself being an arrangement of persons in relationship institutionally defined and regulated”.
Functions of Social System:
1. Adaptation:
The problems of adapting the social system to its physical and social environments. The most important problems in this respect are procuring resources needed for its activities, providing for protection against physical and social threats, and developing information relating to these.
2. Goal Attainment:
The organisational problem of effecting co-ordination in any collective tasks directed outside the system itself.
3. Integration:
The internal problem of maintaining satisfying relations among the interacting, members and avoiding disrupting conflicts. For small groups, this concerns inter-personal relations. For larger organisation, it concerns inter-group relations.
4. Latent Pattern Maintenance:
The internal organisational problem of ordering activity patterns of the system, and also of adjusting the role demands on members, so that these are compatible with their other role commitments.
Social Structure
Elements of social structure
In social structure the human beings organize themselves into associating of pursuit of some object or objects. This can be fulfilled if the social structure is based on some principles.
(i)Normative System : This presents the society with ideals and values. The people attach emotional importance to these norms. The institutions and associations are interrelated according to these norms. The individuals perform their roles in accordance with the accepted norms of society.
ii)Position system : this refer to the status and roles of the individuals. The desires, aspirations and expectations of individuals are varied, multiple and unlimited. So, theses can be fulfilled only by if the members of society are assigned different role according to their capacities and capabilities.
iii)Sanction system : The integration and coordination of different parts of social structure depend upon conformity of social norms. The non-conformists are punished by the society. The effectiveness of social structure depends on effectiveness of its sanction system.
(iv)The system of anticipated responses : The anticipated response system calls upon the individuals to participate in the social system. His preparation sets the social structure in motion.
V). Action system : It is the object or goal to be arrived at by social structure. The whole social structure revolves around it. The action is the root cause which weaves the web social relationships and sets the social structure in motion.
Types of social structure :
Talcott Parsons has described 4 principal types of social structure.
1. The universalistic achievement pattern : This is combination of value patterns which sometimes are opposed to the value of social structure built mostly about kinship, community , class and race. The choice of goal by the individual must be accordance with the universalistic values. His pursuits are defined by universalistic moral norms. Such a system is dynamically developing norms. Such a system is dynamically developing system with an encouragement for initiative.
2. Universalistic ascriptions pattern-under this type of social structure the elements of value-orientation are dominated by the elements of ascription. Therefore in such a social structure strong emphasis is laid on the status of the individual rather than on his specific achievements. The emphasis is on what an individual is rather than on what he has done. Status is ascribed to the group rather than to the individuals. The individual derives his status from his group. In this type of social structure all resources are mobilized in the interest of the collective ideal.
3. Particularistic-Achievement Pattern-This type combines achievement values with particularim. The primary criterion of valued achievement is found not in universalistic terms such as conformity to a generalized ideal or efficiency but these are focussed on certain points of reference within the relational system itself or are inherent in the situation. The emphasis on achievement leads to the conception of a proper pattern of adaption which is a product of human achievement and which are maintained by continuous efforts.
4. Particularistic-Ascriptive pattern- In this type also the social structure is organized around the relational reference points notably those of kinship and local community but it differs from the particularistic achievement type in as much as the relational values are taken as given and passively adapted to rather than make for an actively organized system. The structure tends to be traditionalistic and emphasis is laid on its stability.
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