Social institutions – Introduction to the Social Sciences (2024)

What are social institutions?

Social institutions are important to social scientists because they form a critical part of the fabric of our societies and have considerable influence on our lives. For instance, they are repositories of social norms, but also dictate and perpetuate social norms. They are also much more than social norms alone; instead, they are typically complex social structures within which social norms, rituals, conventions, rules, ontologies, and epistemologies are interwoven into a tight knit. In their book, The Institutional Order, Turner (1997: 6) defines social institutions as “a complex of positions, roles, norms and values lodged in particular types of social structures and organising relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing life-sustaining resources, in reproducing individuals, and in sustaining viable societal structures within a given environment”.

If, for instance, we were to apply our sociological imaginations to thinking about social issues, social institutions would be an important ‘layer’ of our nested realities to consider (see the image above). While, for example, one might consider an individual’s social position within their own family and extended family or kinship structure, we might also think about how their own experience of family and kinship is nested within the broader social institution of ‘the family’ in their society, as well as in other societies (see the image below). The social institution of ‘the family’ structure in non-Indigenous Australia, for example, is still typically based on a nuclear structure with two (typically heterosexual) parents, who play certain roles in terms of rearing children. Within this conceptualisation, we can see how an individual has a certain level of agency, but also how that agency is affected by the structure of their own family/kinship unit/s, as well as by the broader social institution of the family unit. There are, of course, many alternative family structures that do not necessarily ‘fit’ in this model set by the social institution of the family, which leads us to consider the important power of social institutions in upholding certain (political and ever-changing) social norms, while delegitimising others.

Social institutions play important and central roles, in terms of how our societies are organised and operate. In particular:

1. social institutions stem from a need in society;
2. based on that need, a fixed set of social relationships to fulfil it;
3. those relationships then organise into more formal structure/s or mechanism/s; and
4. those organised relationships gain significance in society, ensuring they are maintained and endure over time.

Indeed, social institutions are typically long lasting, though their shape and structure often change incrementally over time, and they sometimes also experience significant changes in response to particularly revolutionary moments (e.g. second-wave feminism of the 1960s-80s had considerable and relatively quick-paced impacts on the social institution of the family). Key social institutions include (but are not limited to):

• The state
• Work
• The family
• Education
• The economy
• Media
• Religion
• Health care
• Criminal justice system

These social institutions are also interrelated in different ways: something we touched on in Chapter 2 when we discussed structural functionalism (recall social institutions working as a ‘well-oiled societal machinery). In this Chapter, we focus on the social institutions of the family, the state, religion, education, and work (past, present and future). In particular, we examine how these institutions have changed over time, the roles they play, and how they influence our lives. We also discuss how social institutions are intimately interrelated; just as they influence us, they are also influenced by one another.

The family

The family unit has changed dramatically over time but remains a critically important social institution. Changes to the family unit have often occurred along gender lines; because (after the industrial revolution) men have typically earned higher wages in the formal economy, they are the ones who have most often undertaken waged labour while women have generally tended to work in the domestic realm (the informal economy). The changing nature of work has, thus, had a significant impact on women’s role in the family, as shown in the figure below.

Second-wave feminism saw the re-entry of large numbers of women into the workforce and significant changes to the family unit as a result. The paid childcare sector stepped into fill the gap and, as contraception became more readily available, women gained greater control over planning their families, or choosing not to have children at all (though social norms differ across geography and culture). However, even though women now participate in the formal economy at much higher rates, the playing field is far from even.

Arlie Hochschild shed light on what one of her research participants called the ‘second shift’. Women would go off to work in the formal economy, do their ‘day shift’, and then come home and do a second shift that consisted of unpaid work: cooking dinner, preparing children for bed, doing the washing, cleaning and other domestic duties. Women also tend to absorb these duties by taking on less work in the formal economy — e.g., through part-time and casual positions. As a result, women – and particularly women of colour and First Nations women – are far more likely across the globe to earn less and experience poverty. We discuss this further in Chapter 9 when we talk about ‘Work’, reproductive labour, and the ‘free riding’ nature of capitalism (to quote Nancy Fraser).

The nation state

The state might be considered a ‘meta-institution’, insofar as it is a social institution that — to an extent — has an overarching role in organising other social institutions. For example, governments typically have primary purview over the organisation and administration of education, the economy, the criminal justice system, and more. According to international law, nation states have sovereignty over their territories. They govern citizens of their territory in accordance with an invisible ‘social contract’. A social contract is theorised as a sort of agreement between the state and its citizens that sees citizens agreeing to abide by the laws and rulings of the state in return for being able to live peaceably within the nation state’s bounds and receive other benefits from the state, such as citizenship rights (e.g. access to welfare, health care and more). For social contract theorists, this provides an underpinning analogy for the way in which states operate today, which plays into a structural functionalist perspective of the role of the state as enabling the harmonious functioning of a society. However, drawing on conflict or critical theory perspectives, we can also consider how the state can also operate as a key site of power and oppression, including in Australia.

“Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.”As a settler colony, Australia as we know it today was erected on the stolen lands of Indigenous peoples who lived here for 65,000+ years prior. It was stolen on the basis that it was erroneously understood to be terra nullius — ‘no man’s land’; that is, uncivilised and uncultivated. While the doctrine of terra nullius was overturned in Mabo v Queensland (No. 2) (1992), it has cast a long shadow. There is, today, still no formal recognition of the unceded sovereignty of Indigenous Australians, nor any reckoning for the theft of Indigenous lands, including the violent genocide that has accompanied and enabled colonisation.

Moreton-Robinson (2009: 63) points out that “The white patriarchs who theorised about the social contract were primarily concerned with it being a means of agreement between white men to live together, make laws and govern, incorporating white women into the polity as their subordinates through a marriage contract.” In thinking through how the social contract operates in Australia, however, Moreton-Robinson (2009) points out that there is, and has never been, agreement by Indigenous Australians to be governed by the settler state (e.g., no treaty). In this context, instead of the state protecting Indigenous Australians, “citizenship rights [which were only afforded very recently] are a means by which subjugation operates as a weapon of race war that can be used strategically to circ*mscribe and enable the biopower of patriarchal white sovereignty… [thus] rights can be enabling and constraining” (Moreton-Robinson 2009: 64-65).

Political sovereignty has been perceived differently by different scholars; for instance, as being “able to coexist with and/or be enfolded into the (fabricated) sovereignty of the Australian settler state, or as being intrinsic, embodied and therefore not in need of substantiation by or through colonial governance structures” (Staines and Smith 2021: 17). The first view is one adopted by Indigenous law Professor and Cobble Cobble woman, Megan Davis (2017), while the latter view is one adopted by Professor and Quandamooka woman, Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2007). Nevertheless, there have been strong and ongoing proposals by Indigenous Australians for a stronger voice in governance and policymaking, including through the Yirrkala bark petitions in 1963 and, most recently, via the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017. The Uluru Statement, and its call for a recognition of the unceded sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, as well as a call for three structural reforms (a ‘voice’ in the Australian constitution, treaty, and truth-telling via a Makkarata Commission), was rejected by the Turnbull LNP Government in 2017. Despite committing to further negotiation around the Uluru Statement proposals as a key election platform, the Morrison Government has also done little to progress these proposals and has also outwardly said it disagrees with the notion of a constitutionally-enshrined First Nations voice. You can read a short analysis of this rejection by Staines and Gordon (2019): A road to reconciliation – The case for a voice to parliament.

More recently, in the lead up to the May 2022 federal election, First Nations leaders once again called for urgent action on the Uluru Statement From the Heart (you can read about this in The Guardian – ‘The time is now right’: parties urged to make Indigenous voice an election issue and set referendum date). In this election, the Australian Labor Party was elected to government on a platform that it would take the Uluru Statement proposals to referendum; so far, it is tracking in this direction and a referendum on the ‘Voice’ component of the proposals is expected in 2023.

When we take a critical perspective to thinking about the state as a key social institution, we can also delve more deeply into how it can operate as a source of stability for some, while simultaneously operating as a site of instability and oppression for others. We will continue to take a critical perspective over the coming weeks, as we think more deeply about other social institutions as well, like work, the family, and education.

Religion

Religion plays an important role in life around the world. It is an umbrella term to describe a range of systems of belief and practice. There are many definitions of religion with most focusing on the supernatural. Broadly, religion is a system of beliefs in supernatural forces with symbols and rituals or performances that provide meaning to life. Early social science definitions of religion, such as by anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) who saw belief in spirits and supernatural beings as central, claimed that religion offered ‘primitive answers’ to what happens when we die and gave explanations for all the unknowns.

There are several critiques of the social functions of religions, not least from Karl Marx who noted that religions tends to legitimize inequality and the status quo. Marx was writing at a time of turmoil in Europe, when it was believed that enlightenment values of reason, science and logic would overcome the pseudo-science and belief in cults, the clergy and religion as a whole. The nation-state was taking over as the key political ordering principle and science was answering many questions that had perplexed humanity, such as where we are from, how we can cure diseases or overcome poverty. Education was becoming more widespread and allowing people to read firsthand the evidence, news and primary texts of religion and science, allowing people to make up their own mind without the interference of clergy or other middlemen.

At this time eminent philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) lamented the demise of God and the concomitant religious superstructure that held together the Western Judeo-Christian worldview. To his mind the function of religion in maintaining order, especially moral order, was deteriorating and this would have a lasting impact on Western societies. In the section on work below you will see how Max Weber (1864–1920) described the consequences of Protestant beliefs leading to certain types of action in the world in his “Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism”. Max Weber compared religions and argued that his comparative cross-cultural analysis provided evidence of religion as an explanation to suffering. He showed how the process of rationalisation, the increasing importance of rationality and reason over traditions, led to a disenchantment of the world and therefore secularisation. This means that religion was increasingly uncoupled from other domains of life, such as the economy and governance.

Marx, Durkheim and Weber are the key social theorists to have addressed and investigated the move from pre-modern to modern societies, focussed on the (Christian) European experience. This process of modernisation changed the role religion as a social institution played in these societies and has had a lasting impact on people’s faith, identity and adherence to the dominant mass religious organisations.

Education

Education as we know it today was borne of the industrial revolution; it is intimately linked to and still reflects the conceptualisations of ‘work’ that arose from the 1700s and 1800s. Indeed, Education was and still is a process of socialisation whereby children become exposed to the social, cultural and political conventions of larger society and are taught how to perform skills and tasks that may be later required of them in the workplace. While education serves a variety of important social functions, it is also a site within which power imbalances are reflected and reinforced.

Initially, boys were typically sent to school while girls stayed home; the gender pay gap meant (and in lots of cases, still means) boys and men were the ones who would later be able to bring in a larger income. Early feminist writers, such as Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) argued that girls and women should also have equal rights to education and work. However, it wasn’t until the late 1800s that schools were made compulsory for both boys and girls; even then, girls were directed towards subjects that taught domestic duties (e.g., home economics) and guided into what were considered ‘feminine’ professions (e.g., administration, nursing, teaching), the latter of which continue to be paid less, overall, than other professions.

Access to and engagement with education remains a site for the perpetuation of power imbalances. For instance, Australian curricula overwhelmingly reflect dominant social norms that exclude minorities. An obvious example is the exclusion of First Nations histories, cultures and ontologies. This sends strong signals about what types of knowledge are valued and devalued, and it also indicates who has a place (and who doesn’t) in educational institutions. This is changing, but very slowly. Beyond the types of knowledges covered, a main motivation to access education today is the qualification credential (degree, diploma or certificate) that one attains at the end. This has created a tendency to value education mainly based on the eventual credential one attains and not the learning that happens in between.

Work/The economy

We typically think about ‘work’ through a very narrow frame — that is, work in the formal economy. However, this narrow framing tends to exclude lots of different forms of work, including:

• work in the grey (informal) and black (illegal) economies
• work in the informal economy (e.g. care work, volunteer work)
• work inside versus outside the home.

Work hasn’t always been conceptualised in the way it is today; understanding this helps us critique current conceptualisations of work and the impact these narrow frames have on our lives.

What we consider to be ‘work’ has changed over time. In pre-industrial societies, families tended to work on the land (e.g., subsistence farming) and/or in craft-like trades. Work was typically undertaken at home (e.g., tending the land), or very close to home; the distinction between work and home was not as strong as it is today (though COVID-19 has continued to challenge this!). Domestic responsibilities, including caring for children, were more evenly shared amongst families and communities. People also tended to be more self-sufficient and independent (e.g., growing their food locally and perhaps also participating in local bartering).

These workers often owned and had a stake in the product of their labour. For instance, if a family managed to grow 2kg of tomatoes, but only needed 1kg to sustain themselves, they could sell the extra tomatoes and directly reap the benefit of their labour — that is, they would be paid directly for the tomatoes they produced. Nevertheless, as technological advances led to the industrial revolution, more people began to work in mills and factories, which started to pop up as mass-manufacture of goods became more commonplace. Families also moved en masseaway from the land and into cities to take up work in these new industries.

People started working for wages — a key moment in the birth of capitalism, where the extra benefit that might be accumulated through an individual’s hard work was redirected away from workers and to employers. This severed the relationship between workers (or as Karl Marx called the working classes, the proletariat) and the product of their labour; something Marx called ‘alienation’.Returning to the example of tomatoes used earlier, while pre-industrial workers would directly reap the rewards of producing an extra kilo of tomatoes, workers during the industrial revolution were instead paid the same wage regardless of how many tomatoes they produced. Any extra capital from surplus tomatoes instead went to the employer (in Marxist terms, the bourgeoisie, or owners of the means of production). Karl Marx was particularly critical of this key change and saw this shift in the way we work as being symptomatic of class conflict and the associated exploitation of workers.

Conditions were terrible in early industrial workplaces; horrific workplace accidents and deaths were commonplace. However, because families began to move into (emerging) industrial cities at extremely high rates (‘urbanisation’), employers had a surplus workforce to choose from. This meant that employees had very little power. If they demanded better working conditions or higher wages, they could be fired and easily replaced. Workers began to realise that they had greater power in numbers and, so, began to see value in unionising as a means of pooling their collective bargaining power. It was more difficult to sack and replace an entire workforce than it was when dealing with just one or two people.

Workers’ unions made some great gains, such as demanding higher wages and time off (e.g., we owe the concept of the weekend to unions). However, union membership has decreased dramatically in previous decades for a variety of reasons. For instance, the percentage of all employees who were also members of a union (‘union density’) in Australia dropped from 51% to 14% of the workforce between 1976 and 2016 (Gilfillan and McGann 2018). As we discuss further in Chapter 8, many have argued that this is related to the erosion of workers’ rights and concomitant rise in ‘precarious work’. Work in the formal economy has also changed in other important ways, including with regard to what has been called the ‘feminisation’ of the workforce. This has had significant implications for the social institution of the family, as we discussed earlier in this Chapter, and also elaborate on further in Chapter 8.