"In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals."
The patterned relationships and organization of social institutions, such as family, education, or government, and how they shape individual behavior and attitudes.
Social Hierarchies: The ranking of individuals or groups based on social status, power, or influence.
Social Class: The social and economic status of individuals or groups within a society, often determined by income, education, and occupation.
Social Stratification: A system of structured inequality where individuals or groups are placed into different levels based on factors such as age, gender, race, and ethnicity.
Social Mobility: The movement of individuals or groups between social classes or positions in the social hierarchy.
Social Networks: A set of relationships or connections between individuals or groups that can impact access to resources or opportunities.
Social Institutions: The major systems or structures within a society that organize and regulate social behavior, such as the family, education, government, and religion.
Gender Roles and Expectations: Socially constructed ideas about femininity and masculinity that shape behaviors, expectations, and opportunities.
Race and Ethnicity: The categorization of individuals based on physical characteristics or cultural practices that can impact access to resources, opportunities, and social status.
Socialization: The process of learning societal norms and values that shape behavior, beliefs, and attitudes towards oneself and others.
Deviance and Conformity: The study of behaviors that are outside of societal norms and expectations, and how individuals or groups respond to them.
Power and Authority: The ability to influence or control others, often associated with political or economic positions.
Social Change: The study of societal transformation, including the causes and consequences of changes in social structures, institutions, and norms.
Social Movements: Collective actions taken by groups of individuals to promote social change or challenge societal structures, norms, or policies.
Social Problems: An analysis of societal issues such as poverty, inequality, crime, and discrimination, and ways to address them.
Globalization: The study of how increasing interconnectedness and interdependence between different parts of the world impact social structures and institutions.
Kinship Structure: The system of social relationships that trace descent, inheritance, and marriage within a family and across generations.
Stratification Structure: The division of a society into hierarchical layers based on social status, wealth, and power.
Economic Structure: Refers to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in a society.
Political Structure: The framework of law, government, and authority that governs the activities of individuals and groups in a society.
Religious Structure: The organization of religious institutions, beliefs, and practices within a society.
Cultural Structure: The shared values, beliefs, customs, and practices that define a particular group or society.
Educational Structure: The formal and informal systems of education within a society, including schools, universities, and vocational training.
Occupational Structure: The distribution of job roles and professions within a society.
Gender Structure: The socially constructed roles, behaviors, and expectations associated with different genders in a society.
Ethnic Structure: The ways in which race and ethnicity shape social relationships and societal arrangements within a given society.
"Society is believed to be grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meanings, or purposes."
"Examples of social structure include family, religion, law, economy, and class."
"It contrasts with 'social system', which refers to the parent structure in which these various structures are embedded."
"Social structures significantly influence larger systems, such as economic systems, legal systems, political systems, cultural systems, etc."
"It determines the norms and patterns of relations between the various institutions of the society."
"Since the 1920s, the term has been in general use in social science."
"...especially as a variable whose sub-components needed to be distinguished in relationship to other sociological variables, as well as in academic literature, as a result of the rising influence of structuralism."
"The concept of 'social stratification', for instance, uses the idea of social structure to explain that most societies are separated into different strata (levels), guided (if only partially) by the underlying structures in the social system."
"...an organization's structure may determine its flexibility, capacity to change, etc. In this sense, structure is an important issue for management."
"On the macro scale, social structure pertains to the system of socioeconomic stratification (most notably the class structure), social institutions, or other patterned relations between large social groups."
"On the meso scale, it concerns the structure of social networks between individuals or organizations."
"'Social structure' includes the ways in which 'norms' shape the behavior of individuals within the social system."
"John Levi Martin has theorized that certain macro-scale structures are the emergent properties of micro-scale cultural institutions."
"...a recent study describes how indigenous social structure in the Republic of Panama changed macro social structures and impeded a planned Panama Canal expansion."
"Marxist sociology has also historically mixed different meanings of social structure, though doing so by simply treating the cultural aspects of social structure as phenomenal of its economic aspects."
"Social norms are believed to influence social structure through relations between the majority and the minority."
"Majority-minority relations create a hierarchical stratification within social structures that favors the majority in all aspects of society."
"As those who align with the majority are considered 'normal', and those who align with the minority are considered 'abnormal'..."
"Majority-minority relations create a hierarchical stratification within social structures that favors the majority in all aspects of society."