Читать книгу Our Social World - Kathleen Odell Korgen - Страница 50

If social structure is similar to the human body’s skeletal structure, social processes are similar to what keeps the body alive—a beating heart, the lungs processing oxygen, and the stomach processing nutrients. Social processes take place through actions of people in institutions and other social units. The process of socialization teaches individuals how to behave in their society. It takes place through actions in families, educational systems, religious organizations, and other social units. Socialization is essential for the continuation of any society because through this process members of society learn the thoughts and actions needed to survive in their society. Another process, conflict, occurs between individuals or groups over money, jobs, and other needed or desired resources. The process of change also occurs continuously in every social unit; change in one unit affects other units of the social world, often in a chain reaction. For instance, change in the quality of health care can affect the workforce; a workforce in poor health can affect the economy; instability in the economy can affect families, for breadwinners lose jobs; and family economic woes can affect religious communities because devastated families cannot afford to give money to churches, mosques, or temples.

Sociologists try to identify, understand, and explain the processes that take place within social units. Picture these processes as overlying and penetrating our whole social world, from small groups to large societies. Social units would be lifeless without the action brought about by social processes, just as body parts would be lifeless without the processes of electrical impulses shooting from the brain to each organ or the oxygen transmitted by blood coursing through our arteries to sustain each organ.