Institutions
How institutions organize social life
Institutions are enduring patterns of norms and roles organized around basic social needs-family, education, religion, economy, government, and health care. Questions typically test the functions of an institution, its structure, or how institutions interact.
Concepts to name
- Family: kinship, marriage forms (monogamy, polygamy), residence and descent patterns; functions include socialization and economic support. Family forms vary across cultures and history.
- Education: transmits knowledge and culture, sorts students, and reproduces inequality through tracking and funding disparities.
- Religion: provides meaning and cohesion (Durkheim's sacred/profane distinction) and can also drive conflict and change.
- Economy: agricultural, industrial, and postindustrial shifts reshape work and family life.
- Government and politics: authority types (traditional, charismatic, legal-rational-Weber); power and legitimacy.
- Health care: medicalization-defining more conditions as medical problems-and unequal access.
Traps to watch
- Assuming one function-institutions have manifest and latent functions; both may appear.
- Confusing authority types-legal-rational rests on rules and office, not on personal charisma.
- Treating institutions as static-they change with economy and demography.
- Ignoring institutional interaction-schools and families jointly shape outcomes.
Rule of thumb
When an item names an institution, ask: what need does it meet, and who benefits from its current arrangement? Function answers and conflict answers differ, and the stem usually signals which.
Worked example
Schools teach reading (manifest function) and also sort students into tracks that reproduce class advantage (latent, conflict-relevant consequence). A question asking for the latent function wants the sorting, not the reading.