social institutions
Established communal systems
Social institutions are the established systems and structures that organize human activity within a society—family, education, government, religion, the economy, healthcare.
They persist across generations, shaping behavior through rules, norms, and expectations.
Marriage is a social institution.
Sociologists study how social institutions both enable and constrain individual choice.
- democracyRule by the people
- kinshipState of being related
- nuclear familyParents plus their offspring
- marriageFormal union between partners
- legislationOfficial enactment of statutes
journalism · bureaucracy · litigation · pedagogy · schooling · lineage · labor · class system · trade · peer pressure · legitimacy · worship · ballot · town hall · rituals · collective identity · anthropology · household
- social systemspolitical systems, capitalism, feudalism, economic systems, socialism
- sociologystratification, norms, class, habitus, deviance
- culturemusic taste, beliefs, food preferences, custom, festivals
- socializationenculturation, norms, values, role models, upbringing
- functionalismMerton, Durkheim, dysfunction, Malinowski
- social researchethnography, fieldwork, interviews, surveys, focus groups
social institutionsanomie
Breakdown of shared standards
anarchy · societal collapse · disorder · lawlessness · state of nature
social institutionsgrassroots movements
Citizen-led collective action
social, society, associate, association, sociable, institute, institution, antisocial, socialize