Announcements:

• The lecture started with a review of the February 10^th notes.

1. Social Structure – predictable pattern of behavior – interconnectedness (cont.)

1. Statuses (see Feb. 10)
2. Roles (see Feb. 10)
3. Groups (see Feb. 10)
4. Institutions (continued) – meet the basic needs of human beings. Example: Hospitals meet health needs. Also institutions are a cluster of values, norms, roles, groups, etc.

1. Features of Institutions (continued)

1. Don’t change easily – pattern of behavior is institutionalized
2. Inter-dependant – hold the same values and norms. Example: Health Care and Education both believe in capitalism.
3. Institutions change together
4. Sites of Major Social Problems – Example: Penn State University – drinking problems, fraternity hazing. Example: Health Care – 40 million people do not have health care.

1. Bureaucracy – an organized structure to perform tasks efficiently – based on calculated rationality. Modern societies are built on the foundation of bureaucracy. Max Weber defined some strengths and weaknesses of bureaucracy.

1. Strengths – 6 elements to bureaucracy

1. Based on Specialization – Example: A hospital has different doctors that specialize in different areas of medicine.
2. Rules and regulations
3. Hierarchy of offices – Example: Penn State University – the CEO is more important than a janitor is.
4. Technical competence – Example: Each teacher teaches a specific subject – the professor teaches sociology, not computers.
5. Impersonality
6. Written Communication – they inform people through letters.

1. Weaknesses (Dysfunctions)

1. Trained in capacity – applying rules and regulations in an unimaginative and mechanical way. Example: If the professor did not offer a make up exam for the people participating in THON, people could have said she was trained in capacity.
2. Parkinson’s Law – work expands in order to fill time available. Example: Having 8 TA’s is not necessary. Example: In socialist Poland there is very low unemployment, but people do "busy work" that is not necessary, like needing 3 people to take clothes for dry cleaning.
3. Oligarchy – concentration of power in the hands of a few people.
4. Alienation – impersonality and dehumanizing people. Example: At Penn State University, you are a number - not a person.
5. Bureaucratic Ritualism – preoccupation with rules and regulations, forgetting the goals of the institution. Example: Penn State University is more concerned with where you park or if you drink than giving you the best education possible.

1. Society – groups of people in a geographical area that share a common culture

1. Hunting and Gathering societies – hunting and gathering was the strategy for subsidence
2. Horticultural – animals grazed the land and were eaten
3. Agrarian – agriculture, land plowed and food grown
4. Industrial – more modern, the Industrial Revolution changed society dramatically
5. Postindustrial – Information revolution – 80% of jobs are in the tertiary (services) sector. Example: fast food restaurants, sales clerk.