Groups in a Society

Groups in a Society

Groups are the essence of life in a society for the reason that everyone is born into one, such as to a mother and father. Your family, church congregation, faculty at a university, and sports teams whether professional or not are all examples of groups. In a general sense, " Groups are people who have something in common and who believe that what they have in common is significant." Societies are the largest and most difficult groups that are studied by social scientists. They are people who share a culture and a territory; they also contain smaller groups within itself. " The types of groups within a society are primary groups, secondary groups, reference groups, social networks, in-groups and out-groups."

Primary groups are groups that are characterized by long term, intimate, face to face association and cooperation. Secondary groups are bigger, conformal, impersonal and relatively temporary groups. Reference groups are groups we use as standards to evaluate ourselves. Social networks are the social ties radiating outward from self-that link people together, their cliques, friends, family and acquaintances.

The focus of this A+ sociology paper is on the in-groups and out-groups of society. "Factors such as race and sex or gender play a role in in-groups and out-groups." In-groups are groups toward which one feels loyalty. An example of an in-group, would be the Boy Scouts of America. The scouts were incorporated on February 8, 1910, under the laws of the District of Columbia. The purpose of scouting is to serve others by helping to instill values in young people, and in other ways to prepare them to make ethical choices over their lifetime in achieving their full potential. Co...

... middle of paper ...

...ociety, Haitians and Arabs are apart of a lower class system and are located in third world countries. The Eastern Europeans and their countries are a bit more developed, so they would be deemed as more civilized in the means of stereotyping, no matter how similar or dissimilar they are to the French Canadians.

Trying to compare social groups to the three theoretical perspectives is the hardest part of the paper. With the functionalist perspective, groups bind people together. Every member of that group must share a working knowledge of the same aspects of life. With the conflict theory perspective, a societies groups are controlled by an high society that manipulates them in order to maintain its own position of wealth and power. With the symbolic interactionist see how groups perceive different things for example ideas and how it would affect their behavior.