Page 18 - Flipbook: Sociology Shortcuts Issue 3
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The structure
of culture Understanding the
building blocks of
socialisation.
roles are a building block of culture for two reasons:
Firstly, they’re always played in relation to other roles.
For someone to play the role of teacher, for example, others must play the role of student. Roles
contribute to the creation of culture because they demand both social interactions - people have
to cooperate to successfully perform certain tasks - and an awareness of others. Roles help
individuals develop sociality, the ability to form groups and communities, particularly when
they're grouped into role-sets - a group of related, complementary roles. This adds a further
dimension to the cultural framework because it locks people into a range of relationships, each
with their own routines and responsibilities.
Secondly, every role has a name (or label). This not only identities particular roles but also
carries with it a sense of how people, such as family members or teaching communities, are
expected to behave in any situation.
values Strong beliefs about how something should be that are
held in common with others.
Provide a sense of order and predictability because role-
play is governed by behavioural rules in two ways:
� all roles have a prescribed aspect based on beliefs about how people should behave when
playing a particular role. Think, for example, about the values teachers or students should display.
Role-play is structured by values that provide general behavioural guidelines - a teacher should
teach their students, a parent should care for their child and so forth.
� although values are a general structuring agency they are too vague to do more than paint role
behaviour in broad strokes; while we know someone playing the role of teacher should teach,
values don't tell them how to play this role.
As Thio (1991) notes, “While norms are specific rules dictating how people should act in a
particular situation, values are general ideas that support the norm”.
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