SOCIAL GROUPS

1. Work done by:
• Beatriz Vieira nº1
• João Gomes nº10
12th C
Subject: Sociology
Teacher: Leonor Alves
Escola Secundária de São João da Talha
School Year 2017/2018

2. Meaning
The group of individuals that establish direct, continuous and long time
relationships is called social group.
The members of this group establish between them, interacting situations in
a continuous way, from which we can conclude that these people
share comum goals and interests.
The fact that the members share comum goals and interests
makes them interact in a long time way.
The group of members use to share identities and their own structures,
because of the continuous interaction.
This identity expresses itself through the atitudes, similar ducts and
standarts, which leads to think, act and react equally.

3. Characteristics
• Individuals plurality – there’s always more than one individual on the group;
• Social interaction – in the group, the individuals comunicate with each other;
• Organization – the whole group, in order to work easily, needs a certain
internal order;
• Objetivity and exteriority – the social groups are superior and exterior to the
individual, this is, when a person joins the group, it already exists; when a
person leaves the group, it continues to exist.

4. • Intentional content or comum goal – the members of a group unite in certain values in
order to achieve an all members’ goal; the importance of the values may be understood
by the fact that, generally, when occurs a conflict of values the group falls apart.
Ex: A (…) may fall apart when a small part of its members disagrees on their main values.
• Groups’ consciousness – consists on the thinking, acting and feeling of the whole group;
there’s a feeling of sharing ideas, thoughts and acting ways.
Ex: An adept that, when talks about his club win, says ‘’we win’’.
• Continuity – the passengers interactions don’t form social organized groups; for that,
they need to have a certain duration; for exemple, we have family, school, church, etc.;
there is, although, groups of ephemeral duration that appear and disappear easily.
Ex: manifestation.

5. Classification
The social groups can be classified as:
• Primary groups – the ones that predominate in primary contacts, this is, the
personal and direct contacts.
Ex: family and neighbours.
• Secundary groups – the big groups whose realtions are only formal and
institutional. Some of them may last many years but other may disappear in
a short period of time.
Ex: churchs and the state – direct way, no intimity
Letters, telegrams or phone calls – indirect way.
• Intermediate groups – the ones that alternate with each other and
complement in both ways of social contacts (primary and secondary).
Ex: school.

6. In Groups
• An in-group is a group that we are part of as individuals, independently
of our willl.
Out Groups
• The reference groups are the ones that we truly belong, but those that
we would like to make part of or that we could be part of in the future;
• Interfere with our behaviour, because we adapt them has a role model
(socialization by antecipation).

7. Main social groups
In the intersocial construction , the values are:
• Familiar group – Family.
• Vicinal (ou neighbourhood) groups – neighbourhood.
• Educational group – school.
• Religious group – church.
• Recreation groups – club, association.
• Professional group – company.
• Political groups – state, political (…)