Institutionalized Social Orders

The great strong standing United States of America is known today as one of the most power houses in the world. The principles she was founded on included on freedom and prosperity for some. In the founding years of an entity the most work is done in laying down the foundation. America chose to complete the task of building a beautiful nation of freedom and prosperity through the exploitation of slaves. Today, blacks in America are still healing from the scars that slavery in America has written on African American DNA. The fruits of slavery produced the internalization of negative: mentalities, inferiority of identity, and images in black media.

Hierarchy, a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. In the United States, hierarchy is not uncommon. In Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ifemelu an African immigrant from Nigeria experiences the reality of what the “American Dream” truly is like for an immigrant. Adichie uses her character's life as to show how race affects her in America. Ifemelu moved to the United States with the illustration that she would easily be able to get a job, go to school, find love and be able to send money home in Nigeria. Instead, she was faced with many obstacles like racism. Racism is one of the major social issues of the modern world. It affects millions of people worldwide and is one of the deepest social problems in the United States.

To come to understand why people act with deviant behavior, we must comprehend how society brings about the

This phenomena would be explained by an order theorist by focusing on the deviants themselves. An order theorist would look at their social and psychological backgrounds and with whom they associate themselves with. If an individual is part of a gang or grew up in an environment that has conflicting value systems, those are key aspects that could point to their imprisonment. In the eyes of an order theorist, those who are imprisoned are there because they did not follow the social norms and values. The solution to this is to rehabilitate deviants so that they will conform to the societal norms.

Deviance, behavior that is outside of what is deemed socially acceptable, is necessary for stability and social order in society—this according to functionalist theorist Emile Durkheim (MindEdge, Inc., 2016). Historically, society has generally been successful in providing motivation for individuals to aspire to goals of some sort, whether through wealth, prestige or, perceived power (Henslin, 2011). However, from a functionalist perspective, theories have been developed by identifying when lawful and equal access is not afforded to certain individuals in the process of obtaining such goals. This restriction and inequality to opportunity for access in the quest to achieve success is what is now referred to as structural strain theory, which was developed by sociologist Robert Merton (Henslin, 2011). According to Merton, structural strain theory describes the resulting outcome or motivations demonstrated through deviant behaviors, that arise when individuals are unable to reach these goals through lawfully acceptable means (Alsamaloty & El Bouayadi-van de Wetering, 2012).

Social structure is a reference to infinite social facts: on social/economic/political context in which action occurs that an individual does not have much control of and cannot end it (Orru, Haferkamp and Smelser, 1994). The reason being is that a person is either born into these social situations and they will carry on until the person dies or because through an achieved status a person becomes part of it. Religion, culture, class, gender, ethnicity, social status, race, family are all structural scopes of a person’s life which is inevitable and are examples of social facts.

In chapter 7 of our text, Sociology, A Brief Introduction by Richard Schaefer, social control is discussed. According to the text, “Social control is defined as techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behavior in any society (Schaefer, 159).” An example used in the text to explain this concept was “informal norms” such as dress codes introduced by peer groups in order to, “govern the behavior of their members (Schaefer, 159).” Within society, a term that is commonly known as deviance stems from social control. Deviance is “exhibiting behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society (Schaefer. 165).” Deviant behavior goes against the social norms of society.

This week we read: Race, Class, and Gender, Unit III A: The Structure of Social Institutions: Work and Economic Transformation; Race, Class, gender, and Women’s Works; Seeing in 3D: A Race, Class, and Gender Lens on Economic Downturn; Racism in Toyland; Are Emily and Gregg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?; Gender Matters, So Do Race and Class: Experiences of Gendered racism on the Wal-Mart Shop Floor. In these articles the authors are examining the interrelationship of work and the economic system and its interrelationship with other institutions, families, the state, education, and cultural through the intersecting dynamics of race, class, and gender.

Deviance and crime are wide-ranging terms used by sociologists to refer to behavior that varies, in some way, from a social norm. Cultural Norms are society's propensity towards certain ideals; their aversion from others; and their standard, ritualistic practices. Essentially the 'norm' is a summation of typical activities and beliefs of group of people. This essay will evaluate the sociological theories associated with crime and deviance and to compare and contrast these main theories. And find links between these theories to today’s society. There are various Sociological deviance theories, including Structuralist: why do some people break the rules? ,

Social Stratification is considered to be a hierarchy of positions concerning economic production which influences the social rewards to those in the positions (Social Stratification, Definition Social Stratification, n.d.). There are two commonly known theories when it comes to social stratification, the functional theory, and the conflict theory. The functionalist believes that stratification is needed for society to enhance stability and motivate members of the society to work hard. According to the functional theory, inequality ensures that the most functionally important jobs are filled by the individual who has the best skills for the job.

I have viewed social order to be dependent to a degree of how much money, or the ability to access certain needs that you are born into. For example I believe that it is harder for someone who is born into a very poor family, living in the streets, to move out of the social order. I also have always thought that someone who was born into a very wealthy family was given more opportunities than the person who lived on the streets. Regardless, I have always envisioned the social order to be dependent on the ability to access certain means, and that could be on a sliding scale for anyone. I can see how my thoughts can relate similarity to social integration and how people may feel tied to their social class however in comparison, there are so

For my final project I will be focusing on the group behaviors associated with working in a highly regulated industry and its impact on corporate policies. I am currently employed by the Westinghouse Electric Company. Westinghouse’s main business is to construct, maintain and repair nuclear power plants around the world. The nuclear industry is highly regulated by government entities around the world. This regulation can often times impact the culture for companies and project teams alike. To help aid in this discussion on group dynamics in the nuclear industry I will provide examples of the impact on a global company. I will discuss the concept of institutional constancy including the positive and negative impacts on the group and cultural

Social structures are the most important aspects of human society. Social structure is the foundation upon which human society is created from. Therefore, it is necessary that we understand what social structures actually are. These structures are what organize the social relationships and institutions within a society, making it possible for the existence of a society. As a result, the question of how and why social structures matter are important in understanding how social structures work. Therefore, social structures are important because they force us to take on new perspectives in the analysis of everyday experiences, produce the social structures and institutions that control us, analyze the manifest and latent functions they serve, observe the objectivity of social reality and finally they allow for an intimate evaluation of ones self and social position. Consequently, social structure is relevant in my daily life because it has forced me to change how I look at myself and my own experiences and more importantly the power that the historical context and its social structures exert on my personal consciousness. As a result, Mills makes the argument that we are falsely led to believe that our current social position in society is due to our own effort and doing. This argument reflects social reality and it is the result of the social structures that are present in society, and the interplay between societal history and biography. According to Mills, the ability to

For as long as humans have existed there has always been a divide amongst us, now even more so. With the rise of politics and social classes, the gap has simultaneously increased.

Social stratification defines any structure of inequality that persists in a society across generations. Social strata are groups of people — who belong to the same social class or have the same social level. Social strata are organised in a vertical hierarchy. In the early societies people shared a common social standing. In the hunting and gathering societies there was little stratification: men hunted for meat while women gathered edible plants. The general welfare of the society depended on the mutual sharing of goods between all members and no group emerged as better off than the others.