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Social Structure

The term social strcture, refers to entities or groups in definite relation to each other, to relatively enduring patterns or behaviour and relationship within social system, or to social institutions and norms becoming embedded into social systems in such a way that they shape the behaviour of actors within those social systems.

The notion of the social structure as relationships between different entities or groups or as enduring and relatively stable patterns of relationship emphasises the idea that society is grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meaning or purposes.

The notion of structure as embedded institutions or norms that shape the actions of social agents as structural determination may accur as the actions of people and organisations are guided partially by the underlying structures in the system.

so: 1) the relationship of definite entinities or groups to each other
2) as enduring patterns of behaviour by participants in a social system in relation to each other and
3) as institutionalised norms or cognitive frameworks that structure the actions of actors in the social system.

posted by C-T @ 6:02 PM