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Showing papers on "Social system published in 1968"



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that every social system has two problems (functions) it must solve to survive: to cope with the physical environment and to control deviant behavior.
Abstract: PARSONS CONTENDS that every social system has two problems (functions) it must solve to survive.' One of these is to cope with the physical environment (the instrumental function), the other to control deviant behavior (the expressive function). In systems having a highly complex division of labor, the instrumental function becomes further differentiated into policy-making (goal attaining) and production (adaptive) functions. The expressive function often subdivides into pattern-maintenance (socialization of the young) and integrative (formal means of control) functions. Thus, subsystems develop and become organized around the fulfillment of these functions.

16 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The concept of status crystallization as defined by Lenski is examined in this article, and its applicability in the field of race relations is tested, and the relationship of the findings to other studies of attitudes is suggested.
Abstract: The concept of status crystallization as defined by Lenski is examined. Its applicability in the field of race relations is tested. Data in this field indicate that class position and degree of status crystallization considered jointly are more effective concepts for analysis of attitudes in the field of race relations than is either concept considered separately. The relationship of the findings to other studies of attitudes is suggested. Status crystallization as the concept is defined by Lenskil has received considerable attention over the past few years. It is, briefly, a concept which seeks to specify in an empirical fashion the component elements of social class and the interrelationships among those components.2 PROBLEM, ASSUMPTIONS, AND METHODS Social class has had significance for sociologists and those who use social class as a concept do so in ways, generally speaking, which suggest that by social class we are referring to status, power, prestige, life chances, rank-order position, etc., in a social system. Such positional aspects of individuals and groups in a system tell us important things about the interactions which occur, the choices of behavior open to individuals, and the kinds of properties that the social system under discussion has. Communities and societies have been the units within which such analyses are made. Quite characteristically the assumption is made, usually implicitly, that a communityfor example-has one and only one class system. The use of class has tended to follow either a strictly economic and/or marketchances definition similar to the way Weber used the concept3 or a usage more similar to that of Parsons as involving: not a rigid entity but a fairly loosely correlated complex.... All that is here contended is that the family-occupation-income complex is by and large the core of the wider complex. We have deliberately abstracted from ethnic status which might be brought in. In a sense, it is taken care of by way of the family. Perhaps the best single case for another element would be education. . . . [It] is only in the broadest sense that this class complex can in American society be made to yield a single unequivocal scale of classes. Some such broad classification as 'upper'carefully defined-'middle' and 'lower' make sense. . . . But care should be taken not to imply that . . . the lines between adjacent classes are very clear-cut.4 This wider view of class is used here. The components of position in such a class system in a community, particularly a large community, are, as Parsons suggests, such items as occupation, income, education, race and/or religion and ethnic origin. Arithmetic mean score of the four variables as a measure of social class is used here. No significant grounds for other procedures have been proposed that have won wide acceptance. * Revised version of a paper read at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, 1965. 1 Gerhard E. Lenski, "Status Crystallization: A Non-Vertical Dimension of Social Status," American Sociological Review, 19 (August 1954), pp. 405-413. 2 For a general discussion of many of the problems involved see Reinhard Bendix and Seymour M. Lipset (eds.), Class, Status and Power: A Reader in Social Stratifications (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1953). 3 See Max Weber, "Class, Status, Party," in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 180-195. 4 See Talcott Parsons, "A Revised Analytical Approach to the Theory of Social Stratification" in Bendix and Lipset, op. cit., pp. 120-121. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.148 on Sun, 11 Sep 2016 04:30:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

13 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe friendship interaction which is part of the informal social organization of elite Africans in a town in Uganda, and analyze the factors underlying the development of that organization.
Abstract: T HERE IS A GROWING LITERATURE dealing with new elite Africans in towns, but there have been few studies of their informal social networks.2 In this article I describe friendship interaction which is part of the informal social organization of elite Africans in a town in Uganda, and I analyze the factors underlying the development of that organization. Elite Africans in Uganda are more than individuals with certain socio-economic attributes. They interact with one another, despite their ethnic differences, and their interaction constitutes an elite social system. The factors underlying this system are geographical mobility and a common friendship ideology. Given the attributes of elite status in Uganda -Western education, fluency in English, employment in bureaucracies, and relative wealth-the mobility of the elite and their common friendship ideology are essential to their interaction and thus to the development of their social system. The social organization of urban elite Africans which I describe is based upon fieldwork in Mbale, Uganda, in 1965-1966.

12 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Kaplan as mentioned in this paper argues that the traditional Weberian concerns about complex organizations require refinement and extension for the understanding of organizations designed for social development, and proposes six ideal type modes of looking at development bureaucracies.
Abstract: This paper argues that the traditional Weberian concerns about complex organizations require refinement and extension for the understanding of organizations designed for social development. Six ideal type modes of looking at development bureaucracies are proposed: (1) that the organization is theoretically oriented; (2) that the organization is designed to provide latent structures to meet the changing contingencies of the development process; (3) that the organization is client centered and is consequently designed to work with the entire social system(s); (4) that the organization is designed to perform a socialization or resocialization function; (5) that social detvelopment organizations are ideally committed to a norm emphasizing experimental design as the primary consideration in program design; (6) and that the organization for social development is constrained by the limited alternatives for change available at any given time. In addition, brief attention is given to the great importance of community disintegration and ego impairment as critical constraints on attempts to repair and/or modernize a social system. Berton H. Kaplan is associate professor of mental health and epidemiology, School of Public Health, and is a research associate in the Institute for Research in Social Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

10 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Simulation of the situation can be simulated, with necessarily simplified rules of social action and interaction, and progressive sophistications of the representations of the social factors can be developed.
Abstract: Operational research has had only limited success in tackling problems which involve dynamic social factors. The social sciences today are not oriented to contribute to the solution of these problems. Rather than abandon the problems, or deal with them inadequately by ignoring the social factors, there is a third possibility. The situation can be simulated, with necessarily simplified rules of social action and interaction. The simulation should be regarded as a tool for experimentation rather than as an exact description, and progressive sophistications of the representations of the social factors can be developed. Illustrations of the adequacy of this approach are drawn from a model of the prescribing habits of doctors.

7 citations




Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1968
TL;DR: A national society is a Particular kind of social system as mentioned in this paper, and it may have more than one end: it may exist to produce goods, to raise children, to educate, to cure.
Abstract: A national society is a Particular kind of social system. Social systems, we assume, raise the question of their purpose or their contributions. They may exist to produce goods, to raise children, to educate, to cure. Often they have more than one end. Besides, their contribution to other social systems can easily go beyond the specific purposes that bind their members, and as they grow in size or combine within themselves members of very different outlooks or positions, the same social system may mean rather varied things to its constituent members. Still, social systems imply a moral order: a commitment to some general notions of what is right, or at least right for them. These notions help define the ends that are being sought; they also help select the means by which these ends can be sought.



26 Aug 1968
TL;DR: In this paper, Axinn and Loomis describe a five-component system with ten major internal linkages which may be used as a model for studying information flow in any rural agricultural social system.
Abstract: This paper describes a five-component system with ten major internal linkages which may be used as a model for studying information flow in any rural agricultural social system. The major components are production, supply, marketing, research, and extension/education. In addition, definitions are offered of the crucial variables affecting efficiency and effectiveness of communication via the linkages. Audience, message, channel, treatment, and impact are described. Based on the system model and the defined variables, simple mathematical formulas are given which illustrate the relationships in impact and efficiency, and which may be used in computer simulation of information flow, or in planning change, in any rural social system. A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATION IN RURAL SOCIAL SYSTEMS by George H. Axinn Michigan State University As Loomis and Beegle 1 and others have pointed out in their analysis of rural social systems, rural life throughout the world tends to be more sacred and less secular, more traditional and 13ss rational, more funccionally diffuse and less functionally specific than urban life. Change in such a system, as Becker 2 and Rao 3 and others have illustrated, is related to its communication with other systems. With regard to planned change in rural 1 Charles P. Loomis & J. Allan Beegle. Rural Social astfms, Prentice Hall, Inc., New York, 190,p.35. 2 Howard Becker. Throu h Values to Social Inter retation, Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1950, chapter 5 on Sacred and Secular Societies, pp. 248-280. -.V. Lakshmana Rao. Communication and_peyel2pment: A Study of Two Indian Villagfs, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1966.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Dec 1968
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors advocate a holistic approach to organizations, noting the diverse and sometimes conflicting approaches of those who are concerned with group dynamics and those who look at organization, and they advocate the use of group dynamics for group dynamics.
Abstract: The article advocates a holistic approach to organizations, noting the diverse and sometimes conflicting approaches of those who are concerned with group dynamics and those who look at organization...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss communication as a social system in a philosophy forum, and propose a communication model for science as social system, which they call Communication as a Social System.
Abstract: (1968). Communication: Science as a social system. The Philosophy Forum: Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 55-72.