![]() ![]() These groups tend to have some structural “core” characteristics, which are explainable in terms of their major institutional function or placement. However, there exist in each society definite groups and roles which deal predominantly with one of the major institutional problem areas. The same applies to any institutional sphere with regard to any other group or role within the society. Similarly, principles of economic regulation also organize various aspects of groups or roles that are predominantly cultural or political. Thus, not only are the principles of political regulation effective with regard to those groups whose major function is some kind of political activity-be it administration or mobilization of power-but they also regulate various aspects of groups whose predominant goal or function is economic, cultural, or educational. Institutions are very close to, but not identical with, groups or roles that are organized around special societal goals or functions. Last, there is the sphere of stratification, which regulates the differential distribution of positions, rewards, and resources and the access to them by the various individuals and groups within a society. The sphere of cultural institutions deals with the provision of conditions which facilitate the creation and conservation of cultural (religious, scientific, artistic) artifacts and with their differential distribution among the various groups of a society. The political sphere deals with the control of the use of force within a society and the maintenance of internal and external peace of the boundaries of the society, as well as control of the mobilization of resources for the implementation of various goals and the articulation and setting up of certain goals for the collectivity. The sphere of economics regulates the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services within any society. ![]() The sphere of education extends from the family and kin relationships and deals with the socialization of the young into adults and the differential transmission of the cultural heritage of a society from generation to generation. There is the sphere of family and kinship, which focuses on the regulation of the procreative and biological relations between individuals in a society and on the initial socialization of the new members of each generation. Again, in the literature there seems to be a relatively high degree of consensus as to the nature of these spheres. It is the basic “points of view” discussed above which have delineated the major institutional spheres or activities in all societies. Therefore, it is tentatively suggested that institutions or patterns of institutionalization can be defined here as regulative principles which organize most of the activities of individuals in a society into definite organizational patterns from the point of view of some of the perennial, basic problems of any society or ordered social life. These elements of institutions have been emphasized, in varied fashion, by most of the existing definitions (see, for instance, Gouldner & Gouldneh 1963). Finally, these patterns involve a definite normative ordering and regulation that is, regulation is upheld by norms and by sanctions which are legitimized by these norms. Second, institutions involve the regulation of behavior of individuals in society according to some definite, continuous, and organized patterns. ![]() First, the patterns of behavior which are regulated by institutions ( “institutionalized") deal with some perennial, basic problems of any society. Three basic aspects of institutions are emphasized. Social institutions are usually conceived of as the basic focuses of social organization, common to all societies and dealing with some of the basic universal problems of ordered social life.
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