Social Structure, Roles, And Norms Pertaining To Family

1. Social structure is described by McIntyre to be, “A set of relatively stable roles, that is, patterned relationships among statuses”. Where as a social institution, also described by McIntyre, is said to be, “An institution that is an accepted and persistent constellation of statues, roles, clause, and norms that respond to important societal needs”. Social structure and social institutions shape my everyday life because I am part of a major social institution, family.

McIntyre, in “The Practical Skeptic”, perfectly summarized the different institutionalized statuses, roles, values, and norms pertaining to family. I used this diagram in the book to examine how family, a social institution I am a part of influences my everyday behavior and choices. My institutionalized status is a sister and daughter. My institutionalized role is to support my family members and to do well and school. My institutionalized value is “family will be there long after friends, boyfriends, or hardships in my life”. An institutionalized norm is to “represent your family well while in public”. While doing this exercise, I was able to see how because of the social

Socialization is the process of learning and teaching social norms and expectations of society. The agents of socialization are family, school, media, peer groups, and the workplace. Our in-class activity, “Gender Socialization in Consumer Culture”, highlighted the social norms and expectations about what clothing and toys represent feminine culture and masculine culture. My group focused a significant amount of the time on this assignment looking at the pictures of the Halloween costumes. We examined how costumes that were designated for women and girls usually had plunging necklines, short skirts, and were fantasy or ‘make-believe’ characters. Where as, the costumes that were targeted for male consumers usually were usually representative of what society believes are brave and strong professions, like police