How do we fit into larger social structures?
What is a social structure?
Before we started to talk about how we fit into social structures we had a go at explaining what a social structure is.
Here are our answers:
- Rules
- Unspoken
- What happens when people break them
- Peer pressure
- A group of humans have rules to get whatever they’re doing, done. Roles play a part in it.
- Assumptions and accepted ideas about how we relate to each other.
- The organisations and institutions that makeup society.
- There are scales of social structure:
- Marriage (both a couple in a single marriage and the whole idea of marriage as a thing are social structures).
- A neighbourhood.
- Big social movements.
- Insiders and outsiders.
- Hierarchies:
- Class system
- Occupations
- Gender system
- Education
- It’s tied up with identity.
We struggled a bit to say what an institution is. ‘Institution’ has a double meaning. ‘Institution’ can refer to places like residential homes and prisons. But in terms of social structure, it also means social structures like marriage or education.
How do social structures affect what we do?
We thought about the different ways that we interact with social structures when we do something very ordinary, in this case, doing the washing. We made list of the different social structures that influence how we do the washing in our home.
- Water system
- What happens to grey water
- Unspoken rules
- Your clothes should smell nice afterwards.
- You mustn’t smell.
- Your clothes should look clean.
- You should wear different outfits each day, particularly in offices.
- Our housing
- Space for a washing
- Space for drying clothes – often difficult in old houses with small rooms and small yards.
- The technology available
- Washing machines for sale.
- A laundrette near by.
- Transport to the laundrette.
- Tumble driers.
- Habits and routines
- Learned from family
- Routines have changed – we don’t have a wash day anymore.
- Marketing, particularly detergents.
- The oil industry
- Looking for a market for products
- Plastic packaging
- Manufacturing
- Creating new products and marketing them can create new needs.
