Assessment of Scenario 2



Assessment of Scenario 2

Introduction

Social structure and social relations are an important element of society that are arranged and organized to form society and define relationship between people living in the society. There are three important elements of social structure. The first important element is that of totality which means that properties of the structure cannot be reduced to its individual elements that it is made up of. Second most important element means that every social structure has its own laws and thirdly it is self regulated (Bernardi et.al, 2011, pp.162). Therefore social structure, processes and relations can play an important role understanding and analyzing situations prevailing in society from different perspectives. Detailed study of social processes and social structures are important for understanding the prevailing trend of the society and make predictions for the future so that required measures in terms of policies and regulations can be put in place by government authorities. Additionally it provides useful data that can be employed by many multinational firms in designing and making of their products and services as per the requirements of the people living in a society.

Discussion

Social Structure and Social Relations

Brown and Barnett define social structure as the placement and position of the individuals in a system (Brown and Barnett, 2009, pp.31).There are two different views, Institutional vision and Relational vision. Institutional vision is basically a functionalist macro level theory which refers to the cultural norms and beliefs that help in guiding and regulating the acts of people belonging to a certain social structure (Lopez & Scott, 2000). Every actor has a well defined role according to the normative models of the society and these roles are transferred from one generation to the other by the process of socialization and social interaction. The second most important vision for explaining social structure of society is that of relational vision. Social relations between individual, organizations, governments, groups and communities form the very basis of social structure. Social structure is the social relation between different classes of the society where the basic relation is that of exploitation of the less dominating class at the hands of dominating class. Social structure has been defined as the division and distribution of the population of society into different social positions. There are certain parameters and criteria that help in defining the social structure that are namely gender, social class, age, race and socioeconomic status (Bernardi et.al, 2011, pp.164).

Social Class

According to Max Weber the social class helps in the grouping of people according to their social position or socioeconomic status in the society. It defines the strength of any individual in the economic market. There can be people who own property and those who don't. The second scenario presents a situation in which the wife is looking after the shopping responsibility by making calculation every time she picks up a product while the husband is looking after the kids not interested or participating any way in the process of selection or ...