Everyday Sociology Blog

Social Institutions: Central to our Lives—and Beyond

Sally Raskoff: Social Institutions Central to our Lives - and Beyond

Download this episode

By Karen Sternheimer

Social institutions, the building blocks of societies, are not only central to our lives, but they continue to be part of us even after death. Social institutions such as family, medicine, government, religion, and the economy are part of the process of death as well as its aftermath.

In this podcast conversation, Sally Raskoff and I discuss our experiences with these social institutions following the deaths of family members. We do not just mourn with family members when someone passes away. After a death it also takes work to disentangle all of the threads from other social institutions (think closing bank accounts, taking a name off of a title deed to a house, ending pension and Social Security payments, to name a few tasks for survivors).

In this brief conversation, we touch upon the involvement of family members with hospitals and hospice, mortuaries, religious practices, and the long-term process of dissolving economic arrangements.

As you listen to this podcast, think about the following questions:

1. What roles do social institutions play in our lives that are often hidden? How does the death of a loved one reveal these connections with social institutions?
2. How does the involvement with these social institutions vary by age, gender, and socio-economic status?
3. How else might social institutions be part of our lives, and how might these connections linger beyond death? What other social institutions might be an ongoing part of our lives and their aftermath?
4. Are there social institutions that we can never fully separate from, even after death?

The Future of Gender?

By Sally Raskoff

In my Sociology of Gender class, we’ve been discussing what gender might look like in the future, should we achieve true gender inclusion and gender equality. As we learn more scientifically based information about gender and we do better with accepting gender-fluid and non-binary gender categories into our culture and society, what will it look like when we’ve achieved a more equal society, in terms of gender?

Some say we’ll have a gender-less society, as the extremes of binary sex, “masculine men” and “feminine women,” are made obsolete due to an increased understanding of the ways people define themselves and live their lives. Without society dictating you have to be either a “man “or a “woman,” and all that means for how you live your life, the standards of masculinity and femininity and the gender regime might disappear (eventually).

Cats, Dogs, and #metoo

By Sally Raskoff

There seems to be an emerging awareness of sexual harassment and sexual assault as more “open secrets” are exposed as some powerful men have recently been fired from their jobs.

The hashtag #metoo has recently been circulating on social media to encourage women to share if they have experienced sexual harassment and/or sexual assault. Alyssa Milano’s tweet suggesting it created this current wave of #metoo’s across the Internet. However, the term was first used by Tarana Burke to support and empower African American women and girls who experienced sexual assault and exploitation. The idea of the current Twitter and Facebook firestorm is to show highlight how many people have dealt with this issue.

The Nuances of Naming

B y Sally Raskoff

The alt-right. White nationalists. White supremacists. Nazis.

Naming groups is part of what we do so that we can know who is who and what they are about. It’s also important to identify who is included as “us” and who is considered “them.”

Knowing your in-groups and out-groups facilitates our social interactions in positive, neutral, and negative ways. Reference groups operate on a less personal scale than in-groups and out-groups, as they are typically large scale and operate on a national or international level.

What is Anomie?

By Sally Raskoff

A neighbor and I were talking as he was on his daily dog-walk past my home. He was expressing concern about how badly people drive, how rude they are, how no one seems to have any manners anymore, how people are more likely to walk looking down into their phones, even when crossing the street, rather than with their head held high and noticing what’s around them. He continued our conversation discussing events in the news, as it had been a particularly wacky and disturbing week, to put it lightly.

While I don’t usually “talk shop” with my neighbors and acquaintances as they walk their dogs, it seemed that he truly was seeking some solace or at least understanding about the state of things.

I saw my sociological opening and took it.

Technology and Jobs: More of One, Less of the Other?

By Sally Raskoff

A student and I were chatting in my office, and she mentioned that she had just applied for five jobs but was concerned about the interviews. I assumed that these interviews were in-person and face-to-face with another human being. She quickly corrected me and shared that these were virtual interviews, and how she found talking into the computer somewhat difficult.

The five jobs she applied for were all using an online platform that uses live and recorded video to prescreening candidate and conduct job interviews. Their Google ad specifically sells them as a way “to make [Human Resource]’s life easier.”

Signs of Gender

By Sally Raskoff

You might be seeing new restroom signs popping up in public or private spaces. Single-person bathrooms are getting a makeover in many places with the gender specific labels replaced with gender “neutral” labels. Thus, anyone who has to go, can just go, without concern about using the “right” room.

Here’s a photo I took the other day of a room newly re-labeled. This is a very inclusive sign, as it says “all gender” and even has the accessibility icon:

How Do You Study?

By Sally Raskoff

Are you studying smarter, or spending lots of time that accomplishes relatively little? Do you have those oh-so-familiar moments of reading your text and waking up to realize you have stared at the same page or paragraph for way too long without really seeing it? Or do you skip the readings, thinking you can get by without them?

Well, of course, from my perspective as a professor, your notes, textbook, and other readings are important for the learning process to occur. We choose those readings carefully, so that once you read them, digest them, and can apply whatever gems of knowledge are in them, you have gone a long way towards developing an effective sociological imagination.

Cyber Crime

By Sally Raskoff

We’ve been hearing a lot about “cyber” crime lately. Are cyber crimes increasing? What is the impact of cyber crime on society?

If we have a phone, most of us get those annoying phone calls, most of which are hang-ups, but some of which inform us that the IRS wants our money or there’s a deal that we “must” take advantage of. Individuals have the freedom to react to calls like these as we prefer, but this personal nuisance is certainly part of a societal issue.

Social Norms and Social Change

By Sally Raskoff

As students of sociology, we learn about social norms. Social norms are guidelines for expected behaviors, thus they set out our options for appropriate behavior. Bradley Wright’s blog post nicely describes a number of social norms operating in a college setting.

Not everyone follows the norms (deviance might be defined as not following the norm), challenging the social order. Note that the norms are guidelines for expected behaviors. They are the “should dos” and, sometimes the “must dos” of society. Norms can be loosely held, such as folkways, or tightly held, such as mores and taboos, those that are often built into the legal code.