Institutions: Meaning, Characteristics, Types, Functions


The term institution like many other sociological terms, has been given different meanings. The term is widely used to describe practices that are regularly and continuously repeated, are sanctioned and maintained by social norms and have a major significance in the social structure. Like role, the term refers to established patterns of behaviour but institution is regarded as a higher-order, more general unit that incorporates a plurality of roles. Thus a school, as a social institution, embraces pupil roles, teacher roles and managerial roles.

A social institution is a complex. It is an integrated set of social norms organized around the preservation of a basic social value. Sociologists often reserve the term 'institution' to describe normative systems that operate in five basic areas which may be designated as the primary institutions:

(a) in determining kinship;

(b) in providing for the legitimate use of power;

(c) in regulating the distribution of goods and services;

(d) in transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next;

(e) in regulating our relations to the supernatural.

As concepts, these five basic institutions are called family, government, economy, education and religion.

 DEFINITION OF AN INSTITUTION

According to Sumner and Keller, who contributed the most clearest explanation of the term, an institution is a vital interest or activity which is surrounded by a cluster of mores and folkways. Sumner conceived of the "Institution” not only of a concept, idea or interest, but of a structure as well. By structure he meant an apparatus or a group of functionaries.

Lester F. Ward regarded "an institution as the means for the control and utilization of the social energy".

E.A. Ross considered it a "grouping or relation that is sanctioned by society".

L.T. Hobhouse described it as “the whole or any part of the established and recognized apparatus of social life.”

Joyce 0. Hertzler defines the institution as a "fabric of fairly definite and generally sanctioned relations between individuals of a group in respect to one another.”

E.C. Hayes looks upon institutions as "sets of activities which a society adopts as its deliberately accepted method of attaining a deliberately approved end.”

C.A. Ellwood "The habitual ways of living together which have been sanctioned, systematised and established by the authority of communities” and he defined them as "social habits which are systematized”.

Robert M. MacIver regarded them as "established forms or conditions of procedure characteristic of group activity."

All told, institutions are being viewed as the major order units of societies. They are envisaged as forming mutual sustaining wholes.

 

Origin And Classification Of Institutions

As in the case of the mores out of which they arise, institutions cannot be traced to their very beginnings because by the time they have become definitely established, their origins are lost in the remote past. By means of careful inference, however, it is possible to determine the probable genesis of the basic social institutions.

Sociologists agree that institutions arise and persist because of a definite felt need of the members of a society. The need is not equally pressing in every case, but it must be present if an institution is to arise and develop. The family, for instance, is an institution which is tied up with the very survival of the human species, whereas an institution such as the theatre does not approach it in importance. Nevertheless, the latter certainly arose in response to a definite need for recreation.

While, there is essential agreement on the general origin of institutions, sociologists have differed about the specific motivating forces. Thus, Sumner and Keller maintained that institutions come into existence to satisfy vital 'interests of man; Ward believed that they arise because of a “social demand," or "social necessity”; and Bernard concluded that they originate to meet instinctive needs. Lewis H. Morgan, one of the American pioneer students of human society, ascribed the basis of every institution to what he called a "perpetual want.” Other social scientists have propounded comparable views to explain the origin of institutions.

 NEEDS AS THE BASIS OF INSTITUTIONS

Attempts have been made to classify the interests or needs which are responsible for the rise of institutions and which are as follows:

1. Emotional Needs: Sumner and Keller have given us a succinct and inclusive classification. According to them the chief interests that have given rise to institutions are hunger, love, vanity, and fear, which correspond to the impulses of self-preservation, of sex, of self-gratification, and the dread of the supernatural. These socializing forces have operated in all human beings, and as a result institutions arose to satisfy as well as to regulate and control them.

2. Economic Needs : The institutions that developed as an outgrowth of these interests are the economic and governmental systems (concerned with the food supply, property, class, and law system).

3. The Familial Needs : The family concerned with courtship, marriage and divorce, training of the young and treatment of the aged.

4. Aesthetic and Intellectual Needs : Aesthetic and intellectual expressions and recreational needs which find outlets in dancing, acting, poetry, art, science, philosophy, social activities, games, and entertainment.

5. Religious Needs : Religion and its accompanying beliefs and practices.

The five major interests enumerated above account for practically all the institutions found in even the most highly civilized societies. As a society develops, new interests arise, but they all fit into the major categories; with these in mind, one should experience difficulty in assigning a place to such present-day institutions as a college, the stock market, Mother's Day, the game of baseball, cocktail-drinking, and the movies.

The more highly developed a society is, the greater will be the variety and, sometimes, the complexity of its institutions. The fundamental institutions resulting from universal human needs will be found in all societies, even in the most primitive. Goldenweiser, in Early Civilization, showed that the psychological and physical needs of mankind are basically the same, as are the physical conditions under which man is forced to live. Hence, his activities and institutions are essentially alike in all societies. Sumner and Keller asserted that the means adopted for meeting universal needs "all reflect the inveterate conditions of life on earth."

KINDS OF INSTITUTIONS

There are five primary institutions. These are (i) the family, (ii) economics, (iii) religion, (iv) education, and (v) state. There are a number of secondary institutions derived from each of the five primary institutions. Thus, the secondary institutions derived from family would be the marriage, divorce, monogamy, polygamy etc. The secondary institutions of economics are property, trading, credit, banking etc. The secondary institutions of religion are church, temple, mosque, totem, taboo etc. The secondary institutions of education are school, college, university etc. The secondary institutions of state are interest groups, party system, democracy etc.

Institutions may grow as do the folkways, and mores or they may be created just as laws are enacted. For instance, monogamy or polyandry grew in response to some felt needs of the people. Banks grew as the need for borrowing and lending money was felt. Schools and college are created by deliberate choice and action. An important feature that we find in the growth of institutions is the extension of the power of the state over the other four primary institutions. The state now exercises more authority by laws and regulations. Sometimes, folkways and mores are incorporated into laws, for example, monogamy; sometimes, new laws may be enacted, for example, Hindu Code Bill. Today the family is being regulated and controlled by the state in a score of ways. A number of traditional functions of family have been taken over by the state. The state has enacted laws regulating marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance. The authority of state has similarly been extended to economics, to education and to religion.

An institution never dies. New institutional norms may replace the old norms, but the institution goes on. For example, the modern family has replaced the norms of patriarchal family, yet family as an institution continues. When feudalism died, government did not end. The governmental and economic functions continued to be fulfilled, although according to changed norms. All the primary institutions are thousands of years old, only the institutional norms are new.

Sumner and Keller has classified institutions in nine major categories. He referred to them “as pivotal institutional fields" and classified them as follows:

The economic and industrial, matrimonial and domestic, political, religious, ethical, educational and scientific, communicative, aesthetic and expressional, and health and recreational. No doubt the list could be extended to include many minor institutions

Functions Of Institutions

The functions of institutions are of two kinds : Manifest and (ii) Latent. Manifest functions are those functions which are intended and main functions, those functions for which the institution primarily exists. Latent functions are unintended functions. They are not the primary functions but only the by-products. Thus the manifest functions of education are the development of literacy, training for occupational roles and the inculcation of basic social values. But its latent functions would be keeping young off the labour market, weakening the control of parents or development of friendship. The manifest functions of religion are worship of God and instruction in religious ideology. Its latent functions would be to develop attachment to one's religious community, to alter family life and to create religious hatred. The manifest function of economic institutions is to produce and distribute goods, their latent functions may be to promote urbanization, promote the growth of labour unions and redirect education. The latent functions of an institution may support the intended objectives, or may damage the norms of the institution.

It is clear that institutions are subject to gradual growth. Every institution has its antecedents, even though some may give the impression of sudden appearance. According to Sumner, institutions may be divided into crescive, or those developing gradually through the process of accretion, and enacted, or those appearing as a result of conscious and rational effort. The state is an example of the former, and a college or bank of the latter. This distinction, however, does not imply that enacted institutions arise abruptly and without antecedents, but primarily that their formation is more rapid and involves rational purpose. .

1. Institutions Serve Chiefly as a Means of Meeting the Needs of a Society : 

Those needs range from the essential ones, without which social life could not go on, to those relatively unimportant, which are more or less dispensable. No institution arises unless a need is felt. This is not to say, however, that there are no institutions or institutional forms in existence in a society which fail to meet a present need. On the contrary, some are mere survivals of the past; although they had utility at one time, they have become useless or even harmful. (An example of a harmful institution is the caste system in the South.) Moreover, even many of the fundamental institutions may need modification in order to make them function more satisfactorily under changed conditions.

2. Institutions Serve as a Means of Regulating and Controlling Man's Activities : 

This is particularly true of governmental institutions, but in a broader sense all institutions exercise control over the members of a society by making it clear to them what is and what is not allowed, or what is and what is not desirable. Finally it must be remembered that the various institutions are not independent entities, but are interrelated as well as interdependent.

 It is clear from what has been said that in an advanced and complex society the number and variety of institutions are very great. Every important phase of life is institutionalized. But there are, as we have seen, only a few major, or pivotal, institutions, an analysis of which yields a more or less adequate picture of society. 

Inter-Relations Of Institutions

A social structure owes its stability to a proper adjustment of relationships among the different institutions. No institution works in a vacuum. Religion, education, family, government and business all interact on each other. Thus education creates attitudes which influence the acceptance or rejection of religious dogmas. Religion may exalt education because it threatens the faith. Business conditions may influence the family life. Unemployment may determine the number of people who feel able to marry. An unemployed person may postpone his marriage till he gets employed in a suitable job. Postponement of marriage may affect the birth rates. The state influences the functions of institutions. It may take over some of their functions and determine their institutional norms. The businessmen, educators, clergymen and the functionaries of all other institutions also seek to influence the acts of state, since state action may obstruct or help the realization of their institutional objectives.

Thus, social institutions are closely related to each other. The inter-relationships of the various institutions can be likened to a wheel. The family is the hub while education, religion, government and economics are the spokes of the wheel. The rim would be the community within which the various institutions operate.

All institutions face the problem of continuously adjusting themselves to a changing society. Changes in the social environment may bring changes in all the institutions. Inflation may have a great influence on marriage, death, crime and education. Breakdown of economic institutions may have radical effects upon political institutions. Any change in an institution may lead to a change in the other institutions. There may also take place a shifting of functions from the institution to another. Child care, formerly a function of family, has now shifted to the state. When one institution fails to meet a human need, another institution will often assume the function. No institution can avoid affecting other institutions or avoid being affected by others.

Explanation Of Institutionalized Behaviour

Although the basic institutions can be found in one form or another in every society, societies vary greatly in the concrete regulative principles upheld in such institutions. They vary especially in more specific 'partial' institutional crystallizations, such as various rituals and ceremonies on the one hand, and bodies of folkloristic traditions on the other. The institutional structure may vary in extent of their universality, the extent to which they are spread within a given society and the extent to which they are institutionalized.

The existence of institutions both as regulative patterns and as basic institutional spheres has been considered as given in the very nature of society. Institutionalized behaviour can be seen as the most general evolutionary universal in human societies.

There are few adequate explanations of the ways in which these patterns of normatively regulated behaviour first arose.

Functionalist Perspective

The emergence and presumed universality of institutions has been explained in several ways. Some of them are as follows :

1.    In terms of needs of individual and of societies. Thus institutions are explained as providing for such presumed needs and assuring the survival of the society and the adequate functioning of the society.

2.    In terms of the needs of other institutions and ecosystems and conditions. A specific concrete institutional pattern, e.g., political or economic has been explained as being conditioned or necessitated by or congruent with the needs and prerequisites of the functioning of certain organized systems in other institutional sphere e:g. cultural or familial.

3.    In terms of psychological tendencies or socio-structural laws. This can be found in Murdock's analysis on kinship nomenclature which combines various principles of learning theory and anthropology.

4.     In terms of gratification of various needs and resolution of psychological conflicts which develop within a society. The conflicts are seen primarily as developing from the encounter between the institutional setting of the society, especially as it is mediated through the process of socialization.

The functionalist perspective, however fruitful it may be for an explanation of institution in general, does not provide adequate explanation. The first weak point of such analysis has been the assumption of the uniformity of any given institution within a society. They do not specify the ways and mechanism through which the needs of individuals and society can be linked. In addition, this perspective tends to assume that such needs must be fulfilled. They fail to investigated the degree to which they are satisfied and the conditions that facilitate or impede satisfaction. Finally, it does not specify the ways in which both such needs and their relation to various structural arrangement may change.

Change And Conflict In Institutional Systems

The possibility of innovation and change is not something external to any institutional system. Whatever the success of the attempt of institutional entrepreneurs to establish and legitimize common norms in terms of common values and symbols, these norms are probably never fully accepted by the entire society.

Most groups tend to exhibit some autonomy in terms of their attitudes toward these norms and in-terms of their willingness or ability to provide the resource demanded by the given institutionalized system.

Some groups may be greatly opposed to the very premises to the institutionalization of given system, may share its values only to a very small extent and may accept those norms only as the least among evils and as finding on them only in a limited sense.

Others may share these values and accept the norms to a greater degree but may look on themselves as the more truthful repositories of these same values. They may oppose the concrete levels at which the norms are institutionalized by the elite in power and may attempt to interpret them in different ways.

Others may develop new interpretations of existing values and strive for a change in the very bases of the institutional order.

Hence, the institutional system is never fully homogeneous and to different orientation may becomes focuses of conflict and of potential institutional changes.

Sources of Conflict :

An institutionalization entails efforts to maintain, through continuous attempts to mobilize resources from different groups and individuals. But continuous implementation may affect the position of various groups and give rise of continuous shifts both in the balance of power among them and their orientations to the existing institutional system.

The institutionalization of any system usually creates new organizations which develop needs, interests and orientation of their own. This may impinge on various other institutional spheres. Thus changing their attitudes toward the premises of the systems.

These contradictions and conflicts may lead to the depletion of the resources needed to maintain any given system.

 

 

IMPORTANT TERMS

·         Autonomy: Self government; freedom from outside direction.

·         Bureaucracy: A pyramid of officials who conduct rationally the work of a large organization.

·          Intellectual: One whose work is dealing mainly with ideas.

·          Latent functions: Unintended effects of a policy, program or institution.

·          Manifest functions : Intended purposes of a policy, programme or institution.

·        Ombudsman: An official empowered to investigate and sometimes adjust complaints against officials.

·          Institutions : An organized cluster of folkways and mores created around a major human activity.


Comments

Thank You

Find your topic