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The Influence of Social Institutions on People’s Lives Essay

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Institutions hold a great deal of power over people and can influence people’s daily lives dramatically. Every human activity connects to one or several institutions simultaneously, so the population’s daily lives are closely related to social institutions and could be influenced in a positive or a negative way. This essay will explore how institutions affect people’s lives through the example of a college student’s life and evaluate whether their influence is positive or negative.

The family institution shapes an individual’s views on the themes of gender and gender equality in daily life. According to Ang et al. (2021), the family institution mainly perceives both genders as equal, which is positive for gender equality. Authors emphasize that cases of the unequal amount of pocket money received by a sibling of another gender rarely happen in family institutions. On the other hand, the authors identified that in family institutions, the household chores remain divided by the traditional gender roles, which could negatively influence the younger individuals’ perception of gender equality.

In the education institution, both positive and negative effects could take place. According to Van Rensburg and Rothmann (2020), positive interventions and positive practices in different social institutions, like education, could result in higher performance levels and improved motivation of the students. However, depending on the type of educational organization, it could potentially influence the students’ social status and limit the student’s opportunities.

Lastly, the economic institution influences the daily life of the whole population in the same way. The economy determines the labor market, so a positive situation with guaranteed high wages could motivate the students to improve their level of knowledge and spend more time on education processes. However, the economic institution also determines the living conditions for students. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most students had to change their place of living, and many were at a loss of employment. According to Owens et al. (2020), many students experienced housing and food insecurities in the past year.

In conclusion, this essay explored how different institutions influenced people’s lives through the example of a college student’s life and attempted to evaluate whether the influence of institutions is positive or negative. The study showed that the college students’ life is majorly affected by the family, education, and economic institutions. Moreover, all institutions could affect an individual’s daily life both positively and negatively.

Ang, S. M., Koo L. K., Chang, Z. J., Low, K.W., Ong, Z., &Yeoh, B. K. (2021). Gender inequality, conflict and sexism within the family institution: A pilot study on university students’ experience. International Journal of Social Science Research, 3 (2), 1-13.

Owens, M.R., Brito-Silva, F., Kirkland, T., Moore, C.E., Davis, K.E., Patterson, M.A., Miketinas, D.C., & Tucker, W. J. (2020). Prevalence and social determinants of food insecurity among college students during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Nutrients, 12 (9), 1-17. Web.

Van Rensburg, C. J., & Rothmann, S. (2020). Towards positive institutions: Positive practices and employees’ experiences in higher education institutions. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology , 46 , 1-11. Web.

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The Family's Role in Society

How is the family different from other basic social institutions? Using Aristotle's distinction between a thing's form and its matter, I argue that the family produces society's matter while a market, pact, and political constitution are, at least in part, society's form. I draw upon Lucretius, John Rawls, and recent findings in endocrinology to argue that family life prepares adults for social cooperation and helps them evaluate whether their society is just. In other words, the family is important not only for bearing and raising children to become functioning members of society. It also conditions adults for constructive participation in society.

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Onyegasi Anthony Uche

10TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN A CHANGING WORLD PROCEEDINGS BOOK

The family, which is the basic core and functional element of social institutions and organizations, has a great importance in social life. The family institution has many functions in social life. The aim of this study is to determine the basic functions of the family institution, which is an important building block of society, from a sociological perspective and to draw attention to its importance in social life. For this paper, books, journal articles, congress/symposium papers, parliamentary resolutions and reports related to our subject were scanned, and the basic functions of the family were determined in the light of the findings and information obtained. Accordingly, the basic functions of the family institution were identified under eight main headings: 1. Biological function, 2. Educational function, 3. Religious function, 4. Economic function, 5. Love function, 6. Protective function, 7. Socialization function, 8. Leisure function. Our study is a descriptive study that determines the basic functions of the family institution, which has existed since the beginning of human history, with the document or document scanning method including information, findings. Finally, various suggestions regarding the social function of the family institution are presented. The points emphasized in this study can be summarized as follows: - In social life, there are effective socialization agents that affect individuals' feelings, thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. - As a socialization agent, the family is an institution that contributes to the socialization of the individual in many ways and transforms the individual. - The family institution fulfills its basic functions with love by educating the individuals raised in it in many ways. - Mother, father and other family members stand out as effective role models in socialization. - In this study, the functions of the family in the socialization process are examined.

Jungwoo Lee

Acta Sociologica

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Social Institutions

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• Seumas Miller 11  

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 321))

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My aim in this paper is threefold. First, I will make some suggestions concerning the nature of social institutions. This will consist chiefly in distinguishing between social institutions and other related social phenomena, and describing some of the defining features of institutions. Second, I will present a critique of John Searle’s account of social institutions. 1 Third, I will sketch an alternative teleological account of institutions.

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Institutionalism and Public Policy

Guardians of Public Value: How Public Organizations Become and Remain Institutions

Institutional Environment

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Tuomela, R. (forthcoming): “Collective Acceptance, Social Institutions and Social Reality”, Journal of Economics and Sociology .

Tuomela, R. (unpublished manuscript): “Searle, Collective Intentionality and Social Institutions.”

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Miller, S. (2003). Social Institutions. In: Sintonen, M., Ylikoski, P., Miller, K. (eds) Realism in Action. Synthese Library, vol 321. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1046-7_15

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Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)

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Home: Social Essays

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The entries of Amiri Baraka's Home: Social Essays (1966) chronicle the writer's rapidly emerging nationalistic posture. Including a number of essays that were originally published in such journals as Evergreen Review, Liberator, Kulchur, Cavalier, the Nation, Poetry, the Saturday Review, the New York Sunday Herald Tribune, and Midstream, this collection is also representative of the collective consciousness of much of the African American populace of the period. Written in the wake of the global liberation struggles of Africans, African Americans, and people of color in general, these essays reflect a growing impatience with the gradualism of the American civil rights movement, a contempt for liberalism, a passion for moral engagement, and a fervent embracing of African American history and culture.

As with much of Baraka's work, there is little middle ground in appraisal of these essays. William Harris notes in the introduction to The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader (1991) that Home is “an important book of essays written at its author's fullest powers.” A reviewer from Newsweek (May 1966), on the other hand, notes in an examination of Home that “[Baraka] writes and harangues himself out of the company of civilized men; and forfeits all claim to serious attention.”

In “Cuba Libra,” the longest essay in Home, all of the aforementioned themes are apparent. An accounting of a visit to Castro's newly liberated Cuba, this essay reflects strongly the writer's growing dissatisfaction with the “art-for-art's sake” posture of the Beats. In recounting the dialogue between himself and the more engaged Latin American poets also visiting Cuba, the writer reveals the roots of his politically charged later verse. Although this experience predates the writer's avowal of communism by a good number of years, the idealism that made his ideological conversion possible was abundantly present at the time of this visit.

In a number of these essays, Baraka delves deeply into the roots of African American folkways. Mixing a good bit of humor with the more tragic elements of the collective experience of his people, he celebrates those things that have become emblematic of the African American weltanschauung and style (“Soul Food,” “City of Harlem,” and “Expressive Language”).

Much of Home reflects Baraka's impassioned struggle with the idea of a Black Aesthetic. “The Myth of a ‘Negro Literature,”’ “A Dark Bag,” “LeRoi Jones Talking,” and “The Revolutionary Theater” are all fundamentally concerned with the African American writer's finding his or her authentic, morally engaged voice. The first of these essays, originally presented as an address to the American Society for African Culture in March 1962, is most notable for its castigation of most African American writing in terms of its derivative and apologetic nature. While attacking the literature, however, he exalts the bona fide artistry of African American music. Referring to jazz and blues as the only “consistent exhibitors of ‘Negritude’ in formal American culture,” Baraka evidences embryonic patterns of thought that would appear fully developed in his monumental Blues People (1963). The essays referred to here, especially the hortatory “The Revolutionary Theater,” served as touchstones for the many young writers who would ally themselves with the Black Arts movement of the late 1960s.

From:   Home: Social Essays   in  The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature »

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