In sociology there is another, somewhat different approach to the division into primary and secondary socialization. According to him, socialization is divided into primary and secondary depending on who acts as the main agent. With this approach, the primary socialization is called a process that proceeds in the framework of small - above all the primary groups (and they are usually informal). The secondary socialization proceeds in the course of life in the framework of formal institutions and organizations (kindergarten, school, university, production). Such a criterion is regulatory and informative: primary socialization proceeds under the closer eyes and the decisive influence of informal agents, parents and peers, and the secondary - under the influence of the norms and values \u200b\u200bof formal agents, or institutions of socialization, i.e. kindergarten, school, production, Army, militia, etc.
The primary groups are called small contact communities, where people know each other, where informal, trust relationships (family, neighboring community) exist between them. Secondary groups are called sufficiently large social sets of people, between which there are predominantly formal relationships when people treat each other not as individual and unique personalities, but in accordance with the formal status they possess.
Enough frequent phenomenon - The entry of primary groups into secondary parts as components.
The main reason why the primary group is an essential socialization agent is that for the individual the primary group to which it belongs is one of the most important reference groups. This term denote the group (real or imaginary), the value system and the norms of which acts for the individual a peculiar benchmark. A person is always free or unwittingly - relates its intentions and actions with how they can appreciate them, whose opinion he values, regardless of whether they are observed for him really or only in his imagination. Reference1 may be the group to which the individual belongs to this moment, and that group, whose member he was before, and the one to which he would like to belong. Personalized images of people constituting a reference group form a "internal audience", on which a person and oriented in his thoughts and actions.
As we said, the primary group is usually a family, a group of peers, a friendly company. The typical examples of secondary groups are army divisions, school classes, production teams. Some secondary groups, such as trade unions, can be viewed as associations in which at least some of their members interact with each other, in which there is a single regulatory system, shared by all members and some general, shared by all members of the meaning of corporate existence. In accordance with the specified approach, primary socialization proceeds in primary groups, and secondary - in secondary groups.
Primary social groups are the sphere of personal relationship, i.e. informal. Informal is called such behavior between two and large number of people, the content, order and intensity of which is not regulated by any document, but is determined by the participants in the interaction itself.
Example - family.
Secondary social groups are the scope of business relations, i.e. formal. Formal are called such contacts (or relationships), content, order, time and regulation of which is governed by any document. An example is the army.
Both groups are primary and secondary - as well as both types of relationships - informal and formal - every person is vital. However, the time paid to them and the degree of their influence differently are distributed on different sections of life. For full socialization, the individual needs to communicate in those and other environments. This is the principle of the diversity of socialization: the more heterogeneous nature, the experience of communication and interaction of the individual with its social environment, the most complicated the process of socialization proceeds.
The process of socialization includes not only those who study and assimilate new knowledge, values, customs, norms. The important component of this process is those who affect the process of learning, in a decisive degree forms it. They are called socialization agents. This category includes specific people, and social institutions. Individual socialization agents may be parents, relatives, nanny friends, family friends, teachers, coaches, teenagers, leaders of youth organizations, doctors, etc. The role of collective agents are social institutions (for example, the main agent of primary socialization is family).
Socialization agents are specific people (or groups of people) responsible for training cultural standards and the development of social roles.
Institutions of socialization - social institutions and institutions affecting the process of socialization and directing it: School and university, army and militia, office and factory, etc.
Primary (informal) Socialization agents - parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, close and distant relatives, coming nanny, family friends, peers, teachers, coaches, doctors, leaders of youth groups. The term "primary" refers within the framework of this context to everything, which is direct, or the closest, human environment. It is in this sense that sociologists speak a small group as primary. The primary environment is not just the closest to the person, but also the most important to form his personality, since it is in the first place and according to the degree of importance, and in frequency and density of contacts between it and all its members.
Secondary (formal) Socialization agents - Representatives of formal groups and organizations: the administration of schools, university, enterprises, officers and officials of the army, police, churches, states, as well as those contacts with which are mediated, - television staff, radio, press, Parties, ships, etc.
Informal and formal socialization agents (as we have already indicated, sometimes it can be whole institutions) in different ways affect the person, but also those and others affect it throughout its life cycle. However, the effects of informal agents and informal relations usually reaches its maximum at the beginning and at the end of human life, and the effect of formal-business relations with the greatest force is felt in the middle of life.
The accuracy of the present judgment is obvious even from the point of view of common sense. The child, as well as the old man, stretches to his relatives and close, from the help and protective actions of which its existence depends entirely. Old men and children are noticeably less than others mobile social plan, more defenseless, they are less active in political, and in economic, and in professional terms. The children have not yet become a productive force of society, and old people have already ceased to be; And those and others need support for mature relatives who are in an active life position.
After 18-25 years, a person begins to actively engage in vocational work or business and make his career. Chiefs, partners, colleagues, comrades in studies and work - these are the people, to whose opinions, a mature person listens most from which he receives the most information necessary for him, which define its service growth, salary, prestige and much more. Are you often calling with your "mammy" the matured children-businessmen who seem to have recently kept for the maternal hand?
Among the primary socialization agents in the above sense, not everyone play the same role and possess equal status. It is indisputable that in relation to the child passing primary socialization, parents are in a predominant position. As for the peers (those who play with him in one sandbox), they are simply equal to him by status. They forgive him a lot from the fact that parents do not forgive: erroneous solutions, violation of moral principles and social norms, unceremoniousness, etc. Each social group can give an individual in the process of socialization no more than what they themselves are trained or what they themselves are socialized . In other words, in adults a child learn how "right" to be adults, and in the peers - as "right" to be a child: play, fight, sick, how to treat the opposite sex, to be friends and be fair.
A small group of peers (Peer Group) 151 at the stage of primary socialization performs the most important social function: it facilitates the transition from the state of dependence to independence, from childhood to adulthood. Modern sociology indicates that this type of collectivity plays a particularly important role at the stage of biological and psychological maturation. It is the youthful groups of peers who have a distinct trend to possession: 1) a rather high degree of solidarity; 2) a hierarchical organization; 3) Codes that deny the values \u200b\u200band experience of adults or even oppose them. Parents are unlikely to teach how to be a leader or to achieve leadership in the company of peers. In a sense, the peers and parents affect the child in opposite directions, while often the first to reduce the second effort. Parents are in fact often looking at the peers of their children as their competitors in the struggle for influence on them.
Introduction
The concept of "social group"
Classification social groups:
a) separation of groups on the basis of belonging to them individual;
b) groups separated by the nature of the relationship between their members:
1) primary and secondary groups;
2) Small and large groups
4. Conclusion
5. List of used literature
Introduction
Society is not just a totality of individual people. Among the large social community classes, social layers, estates. Each person belongs to any of these social groups or may occupy a certain intermediate (transitional) position: withdrawing from the usual social environment, it has not yet fully joined the new group, the features of the old and new social status.
Science, which studies the formation of social groups, their place and role in society, the interaction between them, received the name of sociology. There are different sociological theories. Each of them gives its explanation to phenomena and processes occurring in the social sphere of society.
In his abstract, I would like to highlight the question in more detail what is a social group, consider the classification of social groups.
The concept of "social group"
Despite the fact that the concept of the group is one of the most important in sociology, scientists have no complete consent regarding its definition. First, the difficulty arises due to the fact that most concepts in sociology appear during social practice: they begin to be applied in science after their long-term use in life, and at the same time they are given the most various meanings. Secondly, the difficulty is due to the fact that many species of the community are formed, as a result of which certain types of these communities should be allocated to accurately determine the social group.
There are several types of social communities, to which the concept of "group" is used in an ordinary sense, but in a scientific sense they are something else. In one case, the term "group" denotes some individuals, physically spatially located in a certain place. In this case, the separation of communities is carried out only spatially, with the help of physically defined boundaries. An example of such communities can be individuals traveling in one car that are at a certain point on the same street or living in one city. In a strictly scientific sense, such a territorial community cannot be called a social group. It is defined as aggregation - Some people collected in a certain physical space and not exercising conscious interactions.
The second case is to apply the concept of a group to social community, combining individuals with one or more similar characteristics. So, men, graduates of schools, physics, old people, smokers seem to us by the group. Very often you can hear the words about the "age group of youth from 18 to 22 years old." Such an understanding is also not scientific. To determine the community of people with one or more similar characteristics, the term "category" is approaching more accurate. For example, it is quite correct to talk about the category of blondes or brunettes, age-related category of youth from 18 to 22 years, etc.
Then what is the social group?
The social group is a set of individuals interacting in a certain way based on the expectations of each member of the Group in relation to others.
In this definition, you can see two essential conditions necessary for the group to be considered by the Group:
1) the presence of interactions between its members;
2) the emergence of shared expectations of each member of the group relative to its other members.
In accordance with this definition, two people waiting for a bus at the bus stop will not be a group, but they can become it if they start a conversation, a fight or other interaction with mutual expectations. Passengers of the aircraft cannot be a group. They will be considered as aggregation until among them during travel groups of people interacting with each other are formed. It happens that the aggregation is entirely a group. Suppose a certain number of people is in the store, where they form a queue without interacting with each other. The seller suddenly leaves and is missing for a long time. The queue begins to interact to achieve one goal - to return the seller is not his workplace. The aggregation turns into a group.
At the same time, the above groups appear unintentionally, by chance, there is no sustainable expectation, and interactions, as a rule, are unilateral (for example, only the conversation and any other types of interactions). Such spontaneous, unstable groups call quasi-group. They can turn into social groups if the degree of social control between its members will increase during continuous cooperation. To carry out this control, some degree of cooperation and solidarity is necessary. Indeed, social control in the group cannot be carried out until individuals act randomly and separately. It is impossible to effectively control the disorderly crowd or the actions of people emerging from the stadium after the end of the match, but you can clearly control the activities of the team of the enterprise. It is such control over the activities of the team and determines it as a social group, since the activities of people in this case are coordinated. Solidarity is necessary for a developing group to identify each member of the group with a team. Only if members of the group can say "we", the sustainable membership of the group and the border of social control is formed (Fig. 1).
From fig. 1 shows that in social categories and social aggregations are missing social control, so this is purely abstract community allocations on one basis. Of course, individuals entering the category can notice a certain identification with other category members (for example, by age), but, we repeat, social control is practically absent here. Quite low level Control is observed in the communities formed on the principle of spatial proximity. Social control here is simply from the consciousness of the presence of other individuals. It is then enhanced as quasigroups turn into social groups.
Actually, social groups also have varying degrees of social control. So, among all social groups, the so-called status groups occupy a special place - classes, layers and castes. These large groups arising on the basis of social inequality possess (with the exception of castes) low internal social controls, which nevertheless can increase as the individuals of their belonging to the status group, as well as awareness of group interests and inclusion in the struggle for increasing their status Groups. In fig. 1 shows that, with a decrease in the group, social control is enhanced and the strength of social relations increases. This is because the number of interpersonal interactions increases with a decrease in the group size.
Classification of social groups
Separation of groups on the basis of
accessories to them Individual
Each individual distinguishes some multiple groups to which it belongs and defines them as "mine." It may be "My Family", "My Professional Group", "My Company", "My Class". Such groups will be considered ingroups. The themes to which he feels its belonging and in which it is identified with other members in such a way that he regards the group members as "we". Other groups that are not belonging to individuals - other families, other friends, other professional groups, other religious groups - will be for him outgroupsFor which he picks up symbolic meanings: "Not we", "others".
In the least developed, primitive societies, people live with small groups, isolated from each other and representing the clans of relatives. Related relations in most cases and determine the nature of the Ingroups and Outgroups in these societies. When two strangers meet, they first begin to look for related links, and if any relative binds them, both of them are members of the Ingroup. If related ties are not detected, then in many societies of this type, people feel hostile towards each other and come according to their feelings.
IN modern society The relationship between its members is based on many types of connections in addition to related, but the sense of the Ingroup, the search for its members among other people remain very important for every person. When an individual gets into an environment of unfamiliar people, he is primarily trying to find out if there are those who constitute his social class or layer among them, adheres to its political views and interests. Moreover, for example, who are engaged in sports, are interested in people who disassemble in sports events, and even better suffering for the same team as he. Avoid Filatelists involuntarily divide all people on those who simply collect brands, and those who are interested in them, and are looking for like-minded people, communicating in different groups. Obviously, the sign of people belonging to the Ingroup should be that they share certain feelings and opinions, let's say, laugh at the same things and have some unanimity regarding the areas of activity and life goals. Members of the Outgroups may have many features and signs common to all groups of this society can share many common feelings and aspirations, but they always have certain private traits and signs, as well as feelings other than the senses of members of the Ingroup. And people unconsciously celebrate these features, making previously unfamiliar people on "We" and "others."
In modern society, the individual belongs simultaneously to many groups, therefore a large number of ingredic and outgroup connections can crossed. An older year student will consider the junior course student as an individual belonging to the outgroup, but a junior course student together with a senior student can be members of one sports team, where they enter the Ingroup.
Researchers note that the ingroup identification, intersecting in many directions, does not reduce the intensity of self-determination of differences, and the complexity of the inclusion of an individual in the group makes more painful exceptions from the Ingroups. So, a person unexpectedly received high status, has all the attributes to get into the Higher Society, cannot do this, since he is considered to be an involvement; The teenager desperately hopes to participate in the youth team, but it does not accept it; A worker who came to work in a brigade cannot fit in it and sometimes serves as the subject of ridicule. Thus, the exception from groups can be a very cruel process. For example, most primitive societies consider foreign people with part of the animal world, many of them do not distinguish the words "enemy" and "outsiders", considering these concepts identical. Not too much from this point of view is the installation of the Nazis, which excluded Jews from human society. Rudolph Hoss, who led the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where 700 thousand Jews were destroyed, characterized this slaughter as "the removal of alien racial-biological bodies." In this case, the ingroup and outgroup identification led to fantastic cruelty and cynicism.
Summing up this, it should be noted that the concepts of the ingroup and the outgroups are important because the self-education of each personality has a significant impact on the behavior of individuals in groups, from members of associates in the Ingroup everyone has the right to expect recognition, loyalty, mutual assistance. Expected from representatives of the Outgroup behavior at a meeting depends on the type of this Outgroup. From some, we expect hostility, from others - more or less friendly relationship, from third - indifference. Expectations of certain behavior from the members of the outgroups over time are significant changes. So, a twelve-year-old boy avoids and does not like girls, but a few years later, he becomes a romantic lover, and after a few years a spouse. During the sports match, representatives of different groups belong to each other with hostility and can even hit each other, but it is necessary to sound the final whistle: their relationship changes sharply, become calm or even friendly.
We are not equally incorporated into our ingroups. Someone can, for example, be a friendly company's soul, but in the team at the place of work not to use the respect and be weakly included in intragroup links. It is not observed the same assessment by an individual outgroup surrounding it. The rye follower of religious teaching will be closed for contacts with representatives of the Communist worldview more than with representatives of Social Democracy. Each has its own assessment scale of outgroups.
R. Parkom and E. Berjesom (1924), as well as E. Bogardus (1933), the concept of a social distance was developed, which allows you to measure the feelings and attitudes that manifested by the individual or the social group to various Outgroups. Ultimately, the Bogardus scale was developed, which serves as a meter of adoption or closedness in relation to other Outgroups. Social distance is measured by separately consideration of the relationships in which people enter with representatives of other outgroups. There are special questionnaires, responding to which members of the same group assess the relationship, rejecting or, on the contrary, accepting representatives of other groups. The informed members of the group are asked when completing the questionnaires, to note who from the familiar members of other groups they are perceived as a neighbor, comrade for work, as a partner for marriage, and thus define relationships. Questionnaires for measuring the social distance cannot accurately predict the actions of people if a member of another group really becomes a neighbor or comrades for work. The Bogardus scale is only an attempt to measure the senses of each member of the group, the madness to communicate with other members of this group or other groups. What will make a person in any situation, to a great extent depends on the set of conditions or circumstances of this situation.
Reference groups
The term "reference group", first introduced into circulation by the social psychologist Mustafa Sheriff in 1948, means a real or conditional social community, with which the individual relates itself with both the standoff and the norms, opinions, values \u200b\u200band evaluation of which it is focused on his behavior and self-esteem. A boy playing a guitar or sports, focuses on the lifestyle and the behavior of rock stars or sports idols. An employee of the organization, seeking to make a career, focuses on the behavior of the highest leadership. It can also be seen that ambitious people who unexpectedly received a lot of money seek to imitate in clothing and manners to representatives of the highest classes.
Sometimes the reference group and the Ingroup may coincide, for example, in the case when the teenager focuses on its company with a greater extent than on the opinion of teachers. At the same time, the outgroup may be the reference, the examples above demonstrate it.
There are regulatory and comparative reference functions of the group.
The regulatory function of the reference group is manifested in the fact that this group is a source of behavioral norms, social attitudes and valuable orientations of the individual. So, a little boy, wanting to become an adult, is trying to follow the standards and value orientations adopted in an adult environment, and the emigrant coming to someone else's country is trying to master the norms and installation of indigenous people as soon as possible, so as not to be a "white crow."
The comparative function is manifested in the fact that the reference group acts as a reference, with which the individual can evaluate itself and others. If a child perceives the reaction of loved ones and believes their estimates, the more mature person takes separate reference groups, belonging or non-impossibility to which it is especially desirable for it, and forms I-image based on the estimates of these groups.
Stereotypes
Outgroups are usually perceived by individuals in the form of stereotypes. Social stereotype is a shared image of another group or category of people. Evaluating the actions of any group of people, we are most often in addition to our desire ascribe to each of the individuals who are included in the group, some features that, in our opinion, characterize the group as a whole. For example, there is an opinion that all blacks are more passionate and temperamental than people representing the Europeanid race (although in fact it is not so), all the French are frivolous, the British are closed and silent, the inhabitants of the city N are stupid, etc. A stereotype can be positive (kindness, courage, perseverance), negative (unprincipledness, cowardice) and mixed (Germans disciplined, but cruel).
Having aroused once, the stereotype applies to all members of the corresponding outgroup without taking into account any individual differences. Therefore, he is never completely true. Indeed, it is impossible, for example, to talk about the features of inaccurability or cruelty in relation to the whole nation or even the population of any city. But stereotypes are never completely false, they should always comply with the characteristics of the personality from the stereotypes of the group, otherwise they would not be recognizable.
The mechanism of the emergence of social stereotypes is not fully investigated, it is still incomprehensible why one of the features begins to attract the attention of representatives of other groups and why it becomes universal. But one way or another stereotypes become part of a culture, part of moral norms and role-playing installations. Social stereotypes are supported by selective perception (only frequently repeated incidents or cases that are noticed and remembered), selective interpretation (interpretation of observations relating to stereotypes, for example, Jews - entrepreneur, rich people are greedy, etc.), selective identification ( You look like a gypsy, you look like an aristocrat, etc.) and, finally, selective exception (it is absolutely not like the teacher, it does not act as an Englishman, etc.). With the help of these processes, the stereotype is filling, so that even exceptions and improper interpretation serve as a nutrient medium to form stereotypes.
Stereotypes are constantly changing. Poorly dressed, fan with chalk teacher as a private stereotype actually died. There is also a sufficiently stable stereotype of capitalist in the cylinder and with a huge stomach. Examples can be given a huge set.
Stereotypes are constantly born, change and disappear because they are necessary for members of the social group. With their help, we get compressed and laconic information about the outgroups around us. Such information determines our attitude to other groups, allows you to navigate among many surrounding groups and, ultimately, to determine the line of behavior in communicating with the representatives of the Outgroups. People always perceive the stereotype faster than the true features of the person, since the stereotype is the result of many, sometimes laughing and fine judgments, despite the fact that only some individuals in the Outgroup fully correspond to him.
Groups divided by nature
relationship between their members
Primary and secondary groups
The difference in the relationship between individuals is most clearly noticeable in primary and secondary groups. Under primary groups There are such groups in which each member sees other members of the group as individuals and individuals. The achievement of such a vision occurs through social contacts that attach an intimate, personal and universal nature of intragroup interactions in which many elements of personal experience are included. In such groups as a family or a friendly company, its members seek to make social relationships informal and softened. They are interested in each other first of all as individuals, have common hopes and feelings and fully satisfy their needs to communicate. In secondary groups Social contacts are impersonal, unilateral and utilitarian. Here are not necessarily friendly personal contacts with other members, but all contacts are functional, as required social roles. For example, the relationship masters of the site and subordinate workers are impersonal and do not depend on friendly relations between them. The secondary group can be an employment union or any association, a club, a team. But the secondary group can also be considered two individuals trading in the bazaar. In some cases, such a group exists to achieve specific purposes, including certain needs of the members of this group as personalities.
The terms "primary" and "secondary" groups better characterize the types of group relationships than the indicators of the relative importance of this group in the system of other groups. The primary group can serve as objective objectives, for example, in production, but it is more characterized by the quality of human relationships, the emotional satisfaction of its members than the production efficiency of products or clothing. So, a group of friends is found in the evening for a chess game. They can be quite indifferent to play chess, but nevertheless deliver each other pleasure to their conversation, the main thing is that everyone is a good partner, and not a good player. The secondary group can function in conditions of friendly relationships, but its basic principle is to perform specific functions. From this point of view, a team of professional chess players, assembled for the game in the team tournament, of course, refers to secondary groups. Here is the selection of strong players who can take a decent place in the tournament, and then it is desirable that they are in friendly relations among themselves. Thus, the primary group is focused on the relationship between its members, while the secondary is focused on the target.
Primary groups usually form a person, it is socialized in them. Everyone finds an intimate environment in it, sympathy and the possibility of implementing personal interests. Each member of the secondary group can find an effective mechanism in it to achieve certain purposes, but often at the cost of the loss of intimacy and heat in relationships. For example, the saleswoman as a member of the store's team should be attentive and polite, even when the client does not cause her sympathy, or a member of the sports team, when moving to another team, knows that the relationship with his colleagues will be complex, but it will open more opportunities To achieve a higher position in this sport.
Secondary groups almost always contain a certain number of primary groups. Sports team, manufacturing team, school class or student group are always internally divided into primary groups of individuals, sympathetic to each other, on those who have interpersonal contacts are more and less frequent. When managing the secondary group, as a rule, primary social education is taken into account, especially when performing single tasks related to the interaction of a small number of group members.
Small and large groups
Analysis social Structure Society requires that an elementary particle of society acts as a studied unit, which focuses on all types of social connections. As such a unit of analysis, the so-called small group was chosen, which was the constant necessary attribute of all types of sociological studies.
As a real set of individuals related by social relations, the small group began to be considered sociologists relatively recently. So, in 1954, F. Ollport interpreted a small group as "the set of ideals, ideas and habits that repeated in each individual consciousness And existing only in this consciousness. " Really, in his opinion, there are only individual individuals. Only in the 60s appeared and a look at small groups began to develop as a real elementary particles of the public structure.
The best modern look at the essence of small groups is expressed in the definition of G.M. Andreva: "Small group - a group in which public relations act in the form of direct personal contacts." In other words, small groups are called only those groups in which individuals have personal contacts each with each. Imagine a production team, where everyone knows each other and communicate among themselves during the work, is a small group. On the other hand, the team of the workshop, where employees do not have permanent communication, is a big group. About students of one class, having a personal contact with each other, one can say that this is a small group, and about all students of the school - a large group.
A small group can be both primary and secondary depending on what type of relationship exists between its members. As for the large group, it can only be secondary. Numerous studies of small groups conducted by R. Bay and J. Homans in 1950 and K. Hollander and R. Mills in 1967 showed, in particular, that small groups differ from large not only with dimensions, but also qualitatively different socially -Ithological characteristics. Below, as an example, there are differences in some of these characteristics.
Small groups have:
- non-group-oriented actions;
- group opinion as a permanent social control factor;
- conformism to group standards.
Large groups have:
- rational targeted actions;
- group opinion is rarely used, control is carried out from top to bottom;
- conformism to politics conducted by the active part of the group.
Thus, most often small groups in their permanent activity are not focused on the final group target, while the activities of large groups are rationalized to such an extent that the loss of the goal most often leads to their decay. In addition, in a small group, such a means of monitoring and joint activities, as a group opinion, acquires particular importance. Personal contacts allow all members of the group to participate in the development of group opinions and control over the conformism of the members of the Group with respect to this view. Large groups due to the lack of personal contacts between all their members, with a rare exception, do not have the opportunity to develop a single group opinion.
The study of small groups is currently widespread. In addition to the convenience of working with them, due to their small size, such groups are of interest as elementary particles of social structure, in which social processes originate, the mechanisms of cohesion, the occurrence of leadership, role relationships are traced.
Conclusion
So, I reviewed the topic in my abstract: "The concept of a social group. Classification of groups. "
In this way,
The social group is a set of individuals interacting in a certain way based on the expectations of each member of the Group in relation to others.
Social groups are classified on various features:
On the basis of belonging to them individual;
By the nature of the interaction between their members:
1) large groups;
2) Small groups.
References
1. Frolov S.S. Basics of sociology. M., 1997.
2. Sociology. Ed. Yelsukova A.N. Minsk, 1998.
3. Kravchenko A.I. Sociology. Ekaterinburg, 1998.
The social group is defined as some many people who have any common social sign. Such a group performs a specific function in society.
Unlike the generally discussed communities, the social group has the following features:
- it exists sustainable interactions of people, which contributes to the strength and stability of the group for a long time;
- it has a relatively high degree of cohesion;
- the composition of the group is very uniform: it is characterized by a similar set of features and features;
- it may be part of broader communities as an integral element without losing its specificity.
It is useful to allocate primary and secondary social groups.
Primary social groups
To primary social groups These are characterized by a high level of emotional bonds, proximity and solidarity. This solidarity may have a group level, and may have a public swing.
The characteristic signs of the primary group are:
- little composition;
- spatial proximity of group members;
- relative stability and duration of existence;
- the community of values, norms and forms of behavior;
- voluntary nature of people's relationships;
- moral and informal ways to ensure discipline.
The primary groups include, school class, group, course in educational institution, circle of friends and like-minded people. In the primary group, a person gets initial socialization, meets patterns of behavior, evaluates the elder, emerging "natural leaders", seizes social norms, values \u200b\u200band ideals. Developing in primary groups, a person is aware of his connection with certain social communities, with society as a whole.
Sociology conducts special studies of the peculiarities of the emergence and functioning of primary groups, since it is in them Many features of mentality, ideology and social behavior of adult citizens are laid. IN last years Candidate and doctoral dissertations are already devoted to these issues.
Primary groups are usually small groups.
Secondary social groups
Secondary social group It is a commonality in which the connections and interaction of participants have the non-modest, most often pragmatic. A secondary group of a bowl of everything is aimed at some purpose. In such groups, impersonal relationships prevail, individual identity qualities do not matter much value, is valued mainly, the ability to perform certain functions.
In secondary social groups, emotional relations are not excluded, but their main functions are the achievement of the goals. As part of the secondary group, there may be some primary groups.
As a rule, secondary groups are numerous. The size of the group has a significant impact on intragroup interactions and for general social relations. This type of groups includes, for example, the electorate of a particular party, as well as various movements in interest (sports fans, merger motorists, Internet lovers). Secondary groups unite people by ethnic principle, by profession, by demographic basis, etc.
In our country, it is customary to distinguish formal and not formal groups.
Formal group Social generality is considered, the position of which is regulated by regulatory documents - laws, standards, charters, service instructions, etc. soviet time The situation of various communities in the country was determined by the Charter of the CPSU and the Decisions of the Governing Bodies. Therefore, the charter of any public organization The USSR contained a provision for the recognition of the "party leadership".
In some cases, the type of formal groups includes a massive institution created by the authorities or citizens with the permission of the authorities to implement some specific tasks. Among such institutions are called school, army, enterprise, bank, etc. Such institutions have a clear structure, hierarchy, strictly division of labor, and relationships between people are governed by the rules and internal regulations.
It should be added that the concept of "formal groups" in some cases use to designate institutions and organizations that exist only on paper, and, of course, not playing the stated role in public Life. This type of groups can be attributed to "labor collectives", the creation of which was announced in the USSR law of 1984. These labor collectives were provided with such broad powers that they had no opportunity to realize them. They had to control the work of deputies of the Supreme Council, local governments, courts, etc., to determine the program of work of the enterprise and the institution, discuss and express their opinion on all matters relating to the country. Hence their formal character. Naturally, subsequent legislation forgot about labor collectives.
Sociology stresses that the peculiarity of this kind of groups is that they are pursuing real goals. And the point is not that groups that do not correspond to these properties does not happen. They arise, are created, but their duration is insignificant.
Informal groups Typically, such that are not provided in legal norms, programs and political documents are considered. They are distinguished by amateur character. In some cases, such groups acquire significant distribution and influence. This applies, for example, to NGOs - "non-governmental organizations". Ultimately, the institutions of power have to recognize them and translate into the category of "formal organizations". Informal groups arise spontaneously based on the initiative of one or more persons. Nevertheless, there are various legal norms regulating the emergence and activities of such amateur groups. In principle to receive legal status The Group's legal entity must register in the relevant state institution.
For some groups, a permitting principle of registration is established, that is, the group should receive official permission. For other groups, a declarative principle is installed, that is, the component of the association simply informs state body About your creation. Such an order is established, for example, to create a trade union, a small enterprise without the formation of a legal entity, etc. We note about this that in some countries such a notification procedure is carried out by mail, which eliminates the danger of corruption and long-term bureaucratic red tape.
In informal groups of amateur type, there are friendly relations, there is no rigid hierarchy and discipline. The number of such groups is usually small. They are built on the principle of "intimacy" - territorial, emotionally psychological or in common interests (neighbors, hunters, fans, peers, friends, tourists). Relations within such groups have a personal character, sympathies, habits, traditions, mutual respect play a major role.
Informal groups are not closed in the sense that their members can simultaneously enter other communities and act in them.
The special type of groups includes a variety of "secret" associations that exist in almost all countries. If such groups begin to violate the laws, they cause increased attention to law enforcement agencies.
At the same time, the study of such groups is pretty difficult because they rarely allow in their ranks of strangers and do not share their intentions with them.
Regardless of which type of public groups considered, they all play and can play an important role in public and political life countries.
Of all the above, it implies an important conclusion about the need for serious scientific research All processes occurring in society, especially unable to direct observation.
Social Group is an association of individuals who have general signs: age, gender, interests, position in society, profession, religion, and so on. Such a totality of people is two types: primary and secondary. If in the first group of communication between members of personalities, then in the second they are more official, business or remote.
What is the primary group?
In a word, we can conclude that this is a collection of loved ones, even native people. Primary social groups include personalities, between which they are based on the individual characteristics of all members of the association. In addition, people who are part of such community are distinguished by high interest in the group's affairs, they are involved in equal rights in the process of their decision and discussion. Such fraternities are small: otherwise, to establish close relationships between its members would be too difficult.
People have always been interested in the question: are the primary social groups include a family? In 1909, the American psychologist Charles Horton Kuli gave the answer back in 1909: he first introduced the concept of "Social Group" and applied him towards relatives. According to the conclusion of a scientist, the family is a classic representative of such a community, as it plays a dominant and crucial role in habits and behavior of children. Later, other close associations of citizens began to be called primary groups.
Who applies to primary groups?
First of all, communion in which emotional bonds, proximity and solidarity are observed. The latter, by the way, may have not only a group limited level, but also public scope. The primary group is easy to allocate citizens among other associations. It is inherent in it:
- Voluntary character.
- Relative duration, sustainability of existence.
- Small number of people.
- Their spatial proximity.
- Common forms of behavior, values \u200b\u200band moral norms.
- The same informal and moral ways of establishing discipline.
In addition to the family, the primary social groups include the school class, the course at the institute, a meeting of friends, members of one sports team or an applied mug. It is in this close circle that a person receives his initial socialization, aware of the connection with the Company and its members. In the primary social group, a personal mentality of an individual is formed, his ideology and a model of behavior that will be inherent in adulthood.
Characteristic
Primary social groups include individuals, which are associated with direct and personal relations, and not by general rules or specialized standards, such as in the team of any labor organization. Therefore, it is possible to allocate the main features inherent in this fraternity:
- At this level, people perceive each other not as carriers and positions, but as personalities.
- There are friendly emotionally painted between individuals.
- Evaluating each other, they pay attention to the nature and comrade, and not on the performance of his work. For example, if there is a two-hander in the class, but he is a sensitive, kind and responsive boy, then he will love and respect along with others. At the same time, excellent can hate if he is a liar, coward and jabed.
In a word, the primary social groups include people who easily find mutual understanding. There is no emotional neutrality inherent in standard rules and staffing schedules.
A family
The brightest representative of the primary social group. Each of her dick has its own roles that have consolidated historically: a man is a minider, a woman's custodian, children - decent heirs of a common family business. Although, as already mentioned, people in such a structure are very close, so they can easily agree on changes in their activities. The sharing of roles or their mutual addition occurs. In addition, the volume of household functions varies depending on social status, education, spiritual development. The higher these characteristics, the richer the life of the family, above its cultural level, is more interesting.
Primary social groups include a family, class and course, because it is precisely the most clearly expressed structural characteristics. Despite this, a friendly team is also credited here: there is no hierarchy in it, but there is a close relationship between members of the structure combines the generality of the interests of individuals, warm feelings between them, and understand. People entering the primary social group, which is most importantly, love each other. And even if the relationship between them is spoiled with time, they can easily restore them and re-become close and relatives.
Social institutions.
Most of us begin their lives in the organization - in the maternity hospital. Doctors, medical sisters, anesthesiologists, nurses and others work there; They all care about our health. Having left the maternity hospital, we get to other organizations - Nasli, kindergarten, primary and high school, each of them has a certain structure and work order. After graduating from school, we will not render organizations again. Becoming adults, we will go to work in one of them. We are dealing with organizations such as financial management, army, police, courts, banks, shops, etc. After retirement, we will be faced with the organizations of the social security and health system; It is possible that we will be in a hospital or even in a nursing home. Even when a person dies, the organization does not leave him for the mercy of fate. They are engaged in funeral offices, banks, legal offices, tax agencies and courts, where the heirs are settled by the deceased.
Organizations arose relatively recently. In less developed societies, care for health, learning, assistance to the elderly, etc. carried out in the family or family members.
But in industrial countries, life is significantly complicated and the need arises in creating a variety of organizations. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the essence of organizations and their forms.
There are personal relations between members of the primary groups (family, group of friends), spending many parties of their individualities. In contrast, the secondary groups form to achieve certain purposes. Their members play, for example, strictly certain roles, and there are almost no emotional relations between them. The main type of secondary group is the organization - a large social group formed to achieve certain purposes. Universal shops, publishing companies, universities, post office, army, etc. - This list can be continued endlessly.
In real life, it is difficult to conduct a clear distinction between the two formations: the primary group and the formal organization. For example, some groups are similar to organizations, since they exist to achieve certain goals, but by their structure resemble primary groups. These are charismatic groups. At the head there is a leader, characterized by charm and a huge attractive force, or charisma; The members of the group deify the leader and are ready to serve him faithfully. Typical charismatic group - Christ and his students.
The essence of the charismatic group in the impermanence of their organizational structure and dependence on the leader. They do not have a service hierarchy (for example, vice president posts or secretary, etc.), which exists until there is a group regardless of its composition at any given time. The roles of members of such groups are determined in accordance with their attitude towards the leader. Here there is no such thing as promotion - it all depends only on the location of the leader to one or another member of the group. Since personal relationships can be very volatile, the group structure is also unstable. Moreover, there are no sustainable intragroup norms in charismatic groups, in contrast to more structured organizations, whose leaders with the help of the established rules and norms strengthen their power.
Since charismatic groups are unstable, usually they are preserved until the leaders have attractive power. However, since the leaders are not immortal, the rules are developing, in accordance with which their successors are elected. Sooner or later, these followers are convinced that for the preservation of the group for a long time not enough for the faith. It also matters as which methods members of the group earn a living. Often the group solves this problem, having taxes of their members or selling a certain product. During the formation of certain rules, methods and traditions, hierarchy of officials is developing. Thus, the formation of a significantly more ordered organization.
Max Weber called such a process for the rutinization of charisma. This happens in a variety of groups. For example, Ross (1980) explored three organizations that were formed to assist the population of the cities of the Midwest, affected by hurricanes. Although these three groups differed in many ways from each other, it is amazing that before becoming organizations, they passed the same stages. At the "crystallization stage", each group comprehended the needs of society and made decisions on measures to meet them. Then there was a transition to the "Recognition" stage when the leaders came into contact with other organizations to discuss their goals and joint efforts; Thus, they received recognition from others. This led to the third stage, called "Institutionalization", when the activity began to be carried out by the generally accepted way. By this time, sustainable forms of interaction between group members and with representatives of other organizations are established. It is interesting to note that as a result of this process, each group became more ordered; To carry out its goals, a smaller number of people were required,
therefore, the group decreased.
When discussing the specifics of the transition from the group to the organizational structure, you may have an idea that there are many forms of organizations. If so, then you reasoned correctly. One of these forms is a voluntary association resembling an informal group; It is exactly opposite to her - a total organization.
Voluntary associations are distributed throughout the world. These include religious groups, such as the World Congress of the Zionists or the Women's Christian Union, professional societies like the American Sociological Association and the American Planning Institute, as well as the Associations, whose members are associated with general hobbies, such as the Cubics Club or the Protection Society and the promotion of vocal quartets among America's hairdressers .
Three main features are characteristic of the voluntary association:
1. It is formed to protect the common interests of its members;
2. Membership is voluntary - it does not provide for presenting requirements for certain people (which is observed when a call for military service) and are not assigned it from birth (as, for example, citizenship). As a result, the leaders have a relatively slight impact on members of the Voluntary Association, who have the opportunity to exit the organization if they are not satisfied with the activities of the leaders;
3. The organization of this type is not related to local, state or federal government bodies (Sils, 1968).
Voluntary associations are often created to protect some common interests of its members. Total type facilities are formed to promote public good, the essence of which is formulated by state, religious and other organizations. Examples of such institutions - prisons, military schools, etc.
Inhabitants of total institutions are isolated from society. Often they are under the supervision of the guards. The guards supervise many sides of their lives, including food, housing and even individual care. It is not surprising that in order to maintain the order and dependence of the inhabitants of these institutions from the guards, many decrees are published. As a result, a strong group of guards and a weak group of those - who obeys them.
Erwin Gofman (1961), which introduced the term "total institutions", allocated several types of such organizations:
1. Hospitals, houses and sanatoriums for people who cannot take care of themselves (blind, elderly, beggars, patients);
2. Prisons (and concentration camps) intended for people who are considered dangerous to society;
3. Military barracks, sea vessels, closed educational institutions, labor camps and other institutions created for certain purposes;
4. Men's I. women's monasteries And other asylum where people go away from the world, usually for religious reasons.
Often, insulation from the outside world is imposed on the newly applied institution with the help of complex or hard rituals. This is done to achieve a complete break of people with their past and subordination to the standards of the institution.
Social institutions.
Another type of social systems is developing on the basis of communities whose social ties are due to associations of organizations. Such social relations are called institutional, and social systems - social institutions. The latter act on behalf of the Company as a whole. Institutional relationships can also be called regulatory, as their nature and content are established by society in order to meet the needs of its members in certain areas of public life.
Consequently, social institutions are performed in the society of social management and social control as one of the controls. Social control makes it possible to society and its systems to ensure compliance with regulatory conditions, whose violation causes damage to the social system. The main objects of such control are legal and moral norms, customs, administrative decisions, etc. The action of social control is reduced, on the one hand, to the application of sanctions against behavior that violates social constraints, on the other to the approval of the desired behavior. The behavior of individuals is due to their needs. These needs can be satisfied in various ways, and the choice of funds for their satisfaction depends on the system of values \u200b\u200badopted by this social community or society as a whole. The adoption of a certain system of values \u200b\u200bcontributes to the identity of the behavior of community members. Education and socialization are aimed at transmitting individuals established in this generality behavior and ways of activity.
Social institutions lead the behavior of community members through the system of sanctions and awards. In social management and control, institutions play a very important role. Their task is reduced not only for coercion. In each society, there are institutions that carry out freedom guarantees in certain activities - freedom of creativity and innovations, freedom of speech, the right to obtain a certain form and the amount of income, at housing and free medical care, etc. For example, writers and artists have guaranteed freedom creativity, search for new artistic forms; Scientists and specialists are obliged to explore new problems and search for new technical solutions, etc. Social institutions can be characterized from the point of view of their external, formal ("material") structure and internal, meaningful.
Externally, the Social Institute looks like a set of persons, institutions provided with certain material means and carrying out a specific social function. From the meaningful side is a certain system of suitable oriented standards for the behavior of certain persons in specific situations. So, if there is justice as a social institution, externally can be characterized as a set of persons, institutions and material means of justice, then from a substantive point of view, this is a combination of standardized samples of the behavior of eligible persons providing this social function. These standards of behavior are embodied in certain roles characteristic of the Justice system (the role of the judge, the prosecutor, the lawyer, the investigator, etc.).
The social institution, thus, determines the orientation of social activities and social relations through a mutually agreed system of suitable oriented standards of behavior. Their emergence and grouping depend on the content of the tasks solved by the Social Institute. Each such institution is characterized by the existence of a goal of activities, specific functions that ensure its achievement, a set of social positions and roles, as well as a system of sanctions that ensure the promotion of the desired and suppressing deviating behavior.
The most important social institutions are political. With their help, political power is installed and supported. Economic institutions provide the process of production and distribution of goods and services. The family is also one of the important social institutions. Its activity (relations between parents, parents and children, methods of education, etc.) is determined by the system of legal and other social norms. Along with these institutions, such social and cultural institutions, as a system of education, health care, social security, cultural and educational institutions, etc. have significant importance, etc. Still a prominent role in society continues to play the Institute of Religion.
Institutional relations, as well as other forms of social relations, on the basis of which social communities are developing, are an ordered system, a certain social organization. This is a system of accepted activities of social communities, norms and values, which guarantee the similar behavior of their members, coordinate and send people to a certain direction, establish ways to meet their needs, allow conflicts arising in the daily life process, ensure the state of equilibrium between the aspirations of various individuals and groups of this social community and society as a whole. In the case when this balance begins to fluctuate, they speak of social disorganization, on the intensive manifestation of undesirable phenomena (for example, such as crimes, alcoholism, aggressive actions, etc.).
