Sociology Social Institutions Education, Medicine & Quick Review
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Education
Every society has to prepare its young people for a place in adult life and teach them societal values through a process called education.
Function of Education
Education is an important agent of socialization and encourages social integration, especially in countries with diverse populations, such as the United States. Through their schools, students from a variety of cultural backgrounds come into contact with mainstream culture.
Unequal Education
The vast majority of the children in the United States attend public schools, but these schools are far from equal. Public schools located in affluent, predominantly white, suburban areas tend to have more modern facilities and smaller class sizes than schools in urban, less affluent areas, which means that economic status often determines the quality of education a student receives. Children whose parents are wealthy enough to send them to private school enjoy an even greater advantage. Studies show that graduates of private schools are more likely to finish college and get high-salary jobs than are graduates of public schools.
Medicine
The institution of medicine is responsible for defining and treating physical and mental illnesses among members of a society. The goal of a society’s medical establishment is to promote health, the total well-being of its people. The nature of both health and medicine in a given society are culturally determined.
Definitions of illness vary widely from society to society. Societies attach different values to conditions that people worldwide experience, and as such, they treat those conditions differently, or not at all. In addition, societies have vastly differing views on the nature and origin of both physical and mental illness.
Physical Illness
The institution of medicine must not only define illness but also figure out how to cure it. The acceptance of a cure depends on how that society views the illness. In the West, illnesses are thought to originate primarily from physical sources, and doctors use biomedical or surgical cures to treat them. Other cultures consider illnesses punishment for certain deeds or curses that are put on individuals, so other methods of curing the condition, such as incantations or folk remedies, are more common.
Mental Illness
The symptoms and origins of a mental illness can be as varied as those of a physical illness. In the West, hearing voices or hallucinating are generally viewed as symptoms of a mental illness, such as schizophrenia. In other societies, these symptoms might instead indicate a religious experience, and the afflicted individual may not be seen as mentally ill. Instead, he or she could be viewed as enlightened or special in a positive way.
Scientific Medicine
What Americans consider “medical treatment” is actually a fairly new approach to health care. Before the nineteenth century, any number of people might be called upon to treat a sick person: herbalists, druggists, midwives, even barbers (in the middle ages, barbers became skilled at bloodletting). Today, most Americans seek medical treatment from trained, certified medical doctors who focus on treating their particular illnesses and symptoms. This modern, scientific medical practice has been remarkably effective at saving people’s lives. Women and children in particular have benefited, and rates of maternal death in childbirth and infant mortality have plummeted since the turn of the twentieth century.
Still, the scientific approach has its drawbacks. Practitioners tend to focus on only one part of the patient at a time and don’t try to see the “big picture” of patient health or ask questions about the patient’s diet, exercise habits, or emotional well-being, all of which might influence treatment.
Holistic Medicine
Once scientific medicine became dominant in industrialized countries, practitioners of traditional forms of medicine, such as midwives, acupuncturists, and herbalists, were pushed to the fringe of the medical establishment, their work dismissed as quackery. But a growing body of evidence suggests that holistic medicine, a medical approach that involves learning about a patient’s physical environment and mental status, may be just as effective as scientific medicine for some illnesses. More and more medical doctors are opening themselves to the possibility of a balance between holistic and scientific medicine.
Quick Review
Economy
- The economy is the social institution responsible for the production and distribution of goods.
- The two dominant economic systems in the world are capitalism, under which resources and means of production are privately owned, and socialism, a system under which those resources are owned by the society as a whole.
- Welfare capitalism and state capitalism are hybrids of capitalism and socialism. Welfare capitalism features a market-based economy coupled with an extensive social welfare system. Under state capitalism, the government closely monitors and regulates the resources and means of production, which are privately owned.
- According to Karl Marx, capitalism brings workers and employers into conflict. The only way to resolve the conflict is workers’ revolution to replace capitalism with communism.
- The economy is a quickly changing social institution. Economic trends include globalization, demand for educated professionals, self-employment, and diversity in the workplace.
Government
- The government is the institution entrusted with making and enforcing the rules of the society, as well as with regulating relations with other societies.
- Most of the world’s governments fall into one of four categories: monarchy, democracy, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism.
- A monarchy is a political system in which a representative from one family controls the government and power is passed on through that family from generation to generation.
- A democracy is a political system in which the citizens periodically choose officials to run their government.
- Authoritarianism is a political system that does not allow citizens to participate in government.
- Totalitarianism is a political system under which the government maintains tight control over nearly all aspects of citizens’ lives.
- The U.S. government is characterized by a limited welfare state and a two-party political system.
- Conflicts in governments generally take three forms: revolution, war, and terrorism.
Family
- The institution of family has three important functions: to provide for the rearing of children, to provide a sense of identity or belonging among its members, and to transmit culture between generations.
- There are two types of families. A nuclear family comprises a mother, father, and their children living under one roof. An extended family includes several generations and branches living nearby.
- Marriage is a foundation of family life. It exists in every society, with some variations.
- Alternative families such as single-parent households, unmarried couples, and gay and lesbian couples are on the rise in the United States.
Religion
- Religion is a social institution that answers our larger questions and explains the seemingly inexplicable.
- The world’s major religions include Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
- Religious groups include churches, sects, and cults.
- In the United States, social class, race, and ethnicity are factors in how religious a person is.
Education
- Education is the preparation of children for adulthood. It is an important agent of socialization and encourages social integration.
- The quality of education at public and private schools varies greatly in the United States.
Medicine
- The institution of medicine is responsible for defining and treating physical and mental illnesses among members of a society. The goal of a society’s medical establishment is to promote health, the total well-being of its people.
- The definitions of physical and mental illnesses are different in different cultures.
- Scientific medicine is an approach to healing that focuses on illness. This method is common in the United States.
- Holistic medicine is an approach to healing that focuses on a patient’s whole environment.
