Social Institutions
What Institutions Do
Institutions are stable clusters of norms and roles meeting basic social needs. Analyze each through the three lenses: what function it serves, whose interests it protects, and what meanings participants attach to it.
Family and Education
The family is the most universal institution. Distinguish family of orientation (into which one is born) from family of procreation (formed by marriage or partnership); nuclear from extended households; and endogamy (marrying within one's group) from exogamy (marrying outside). Monogamy, polygyny (multiple wives), and polyandry (multiple husbands) are marriage forms. Functionalists note reproduction, socialization, and emotional support; conflict theorists examine unequal domestic labor and power. Education transmits knowledge and also sorts students; the hidden curriculum teaches norms like punctuality and obedience, and tracking can reproduce inequality.
Religion, Economy, and Politics
Religion (Durkheim) creates collective conscience through the sacred/profane distinction and ritual; Weber linked Protestant ethics to capitalism's rise. Economy divides into primary (extraction), secondary (manufacturing), and tertiary (services) sectors. Politics involves authority: Weber's traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal types, and power versus authority (legitimate power).
Health and Medicine
Health institutions reflect social inequality; the sick role (Parsons) grants exemptions in exchange for seeking help, and medicalization expands medicine's jurisdiction over ordinary life.
Traps
Do not confuse endogamy with exogamy, or power with authority. Charismatic authority is unstable and tends toward routinization.
Rule of Thumb
For any institution question, identify the function, the power arrangement, and the meaning - then pick the lens the question's wording signals.