Page 49 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes according to Parsons are concerned with organism actor’s relations with other persons and
social institutions.
• Parson’s social action has four elements. The first element is actor, who is the medium of
action and through him all actions are performed. The next characteristic is the end or the
object with which that action is performed. It is believed that each action must have some
end to achieve. Situation is his next characteristic. Each action is performed under certain
situations and not in isolation. Some situations can be within the control of the actors whereas
there might be other situations which would not he under his control. Selection of Alternative
Means is still another characteristic of social action. Each actor has several ends and also
several means of achieving those ends. In other words there are alternative means and
alternative ends. These conditions help in expediting social actions, but are not unavoidable.
• “A Social System consists in a plurity of individual actors inter action with each other in a situation
which has at least a physical or environmental aspect, actors are motivated in terms of tendency to be
optimization of gratification and whose relations to the situation including each other, is defined and
motivated in terms of system of culturally structured and shaped symbols.”
• Parson’s Theory of Social action was his original contribution to the field of social thought.
Along with that he has also given the theory of social control. He has started with the idea
that by nature and necessity every human being is a social animal and that he preserves his
interests than the interests of any other person.
• Social stability can be possible only when tendencies to have selfish interests first and foremost
are fully checked. In his opinion mechanism of social control is nothing else, but checking of
such tendencies and habits among the human beings by which they are prepared to even
disturb social stability and equilibrium, so that their selfish interests are fully met. In his own
words, “The most fundamental mechanisms of social control are to be found in the normal process of
interactions in an institutional integrated social system.”
• The order which helps in maintaining social equilibrium and stability is of two kinds :
namely Time Schedule and Institutional Priorities. According to Time schedule order for
completing an activity some schedule is fixed. In other words if there are different activities
these are to be performed at different times and to be completed according to different time
schedules. In this way no activity or group interferes with the other and social stability and
equilibrium is maintained. But in every society there are certain actions which are given
priority over other actions.
• Priority can be fixed by taking individual or immediate needs. But it is always desirable that
priorities should be institutionalised. Without that the individuals may get involved into
conflicting demands and might not be in a position to either systematise or order behaviour.
Since institutionalised priorities determine the behaviour of a person therefore these are
helpful in maintaining social control. He believed that the process of social control is a
continuous one and mechanisms are used only when under certain pressures normal system
either completely breaks down or tends to break down.
• Other means of social control or mechanisms thus become un-avoidable. These can be rituals,
secondary institutions, isolation etc. Rituals can break down under heavy social pressure,
but as long as these function these perform very useful social control. These control and
balance human behaviour on the basis of values of the community and society. Then there
are secondary institutions which help in maintaining social control. With their help behaviour
of an individual is made to conform to social standards and values accepted by the society.
These institutions go a long way in reducing social conflicts.
• Parsons’s theory of social control is another contribution to the field of social thought. He
has rightly pointed out that without controls there will be social dis-harmony and disorder.

44 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY