Introduction

The social sphere consists of the interactions of pluralities of human individuals. These interactions lead to the formation of social systems and account for their continuity as well as change. That is why, in sociological analysis, we do not focus on the individual as a biological being, or even as a personality. These are the fields of specialization for physical anthropologists and psychologists, respectively. Both biology and psychology, of course, influence the performance of the individual as a culture bearing and a culture creating actor interacting with his/her counterparts. It is this latter aspect of role playing that is the concern of sociology.

In sociology we treat an individual as one carrying a bag of statuses and performing various roles associated with them. As a member of a social group–including society–an individual is a bundle of statuses.

We shall introduce the interdisciplinary perspective in the analysis of the social system that is drawn principally from biology, psychology and cultural anthropology, and integrated into sociology. It is because of this integrated approach to understanding the social sphere in its totality that some sociologists prefer to designate society as a socio-cultural system. As Parsons would clarify, the focus of the analysts of the ‘social’ system is ‘on the conditions involved in the interaction of actual human individuals who constitute concrete collectivities with determinate membership’. As against this, the focus of the analysts of the ‘cultural’ system is ‘on the patterns of meaning, e.g., of values, of norms, of organized knowledge and beliefs, of expressive form’.¹

It is through institutionalization that integration of the two systems—society and culture–is achieved. Institutionalization is to be understood in terms of creating permanent structures–as subsystems within a society–and the values and norms governing their functioning.²

We talked of the groups and sub-groups that are the key components of a society. Like the society, they are also collectivities composed of individuals as members.

We shall first focus on the individuals–as status holders–who are the basic ingredient of any social system. Then, we shall proceed to examine other aspects of institutionalization.