Social institutions are organizational systems that satisfy basic social needs by linking individuals to culture. The main social institutions are family, education, economy, religion, and polity. They operate in the key areas of kinship, power, distribution of goods/services, knowledge transmission, and relation to the supernatural. Social institutions are universal and regulate behavior through established frameworks.

1. Social Institutions

2. Definition:
A social institution may be defined as an
organizational system which functions to
satisfy basic social needs by providing an
ordered framework linking the individual
to the larger culture.

3. Social Institutions
• operate in five basic areas of life:
▫ In determining Kinship (Family & Kinship)
▫ In providing for the legitimate use of power
(Polity)
▫ In regulating the distribution of goods and
services (Economy)
▫ In transmitting knowledge from one generation to
the next (Education)
▫ In regulating our relation to the supernatural
(Religion)

4. Family
• Most permanent and most pervasive of all social
institutions.
• Most immediate social environment to which a
child is exposed.
• Exerts constant influence in our life.
Family is a group of persons united by ties of marriage,
blood or adoption constituting a single household interacting
with each other in their respective social role of husband
and wife, mother and father, brother and sister creating a
common culture.
- Burgess & Locke

5. Types:
• Size or structure
▫ Nuclear
 Composed of husband wife and immature children
▫ Joint
 Consists of members who atleast belong to three
generations
• Nature of Authority
▫ Matriarchal
 Descent is traced through mother
 Mother exercises authority and power
▫ Patriarchal
 Descent is traced through the male line
 Eldest male exercises power

6. Features
▫ Universal
▫ Group of people
▫ Common residence
▫ Permanent
▫ Has social needs
▫ Has various forms, sizes and functions

7. Kinship System
• Network of relatives
• Ties of individuals through descents, affinity,
adoption…
• Regulate behavior
• Features:
▫ Group of people
▫ Regulate behaviour
▫ Unlimited members
▫ No common roof
The social relationships deriving from blood ties and
marriage are collectively referred to as kinship.
- Aberchrombie and others

8. Education
• Basic activity of human society
• Transmission of culture to the young
• Effective channels- schools, colleges, universities..
• Leads to socialization
• Features:
▫ Universal
▫ Life long process
▫ Acquiring/transferring of knowledge…
Historically education has meant the conscious training of the
young for the later adoption of adult roles. By modern convention
however education has come to mean formal training by specialists
within the formal organization of the school.
- A.W. Green

9. Economic System
• Production, exchange/distribution and consumption of
goods & services
• Concerns how people require things and how they are
produced and brought
• Features:
▫ Universal
▫ Production and distribution of…
▫ Subsystems: land, labor, capital and entrepreneur
▫ Dynamic
An institutionalized means through which peoples
requisites, be it goods or services are produced and
distributed throughout society.

10. Forms of economy:
• Capitalism
▫ Means of production are largely in private
hands.
▫ Main motive is accumulation of profits.
• Socialism
▫ Means of production are owned collectively.
▫ Basic objective is to meet people’s needs

11. Religion
• Body of faith/belief
• Concerns with supernatural, superhuman powers
and forces
• Includes values, attitudes, sentiments, emotions and
practices.
• Provides means of salvation
• Features:
▫ Universal
▫ Faith/belief
▫ Indicates methods of salvation
▫ Complex
▫ Social roles: social order and control
Religion is an attitude towards superhuman powers.
- Ogburn & Nimkoff

12. Politics
• Ancient and universal experience.
• No one is beyond it’s reach either they like it or
not.
• Encounters it in almost every institution be it
school, business firms, trade unions, clubs,
church…
• Polity: A society organized through the exercise
of political authority.
Politics is one of the unavoidable facts of human
existence. Everyone is involved in some fashion at some
time in some kind of political system.
- Rebert A Dahl

13. Classification of Political System
• Democracy
▫ power – decentralized
and distributed
▫ provision – plurality of
political parties
▫ ensures equality and
liberty
▫ assures fundamental
rights
• Totalitarianism
▫ power – centralized
and monopolized
▫ single party
▫ liberty and equality –
not guaranteed
▫ fundamental rights are
abolished.