Schmalleger Theory Of Social Structure Essay

Schmalleger describes the social structure as interrelationships among society’s institutions (Schmalleger, 2012, p. 151). It is also the basic foundation that sociologists use to comprehend society. There hasn’t been an agreed upon specific definition of social structure, however there have been numerous people with various concepts of social structure, to include but not limited to S. F. Nade, Ginsberg, Radcliffe Brown, Talcott Parsons, Harry M. Johnson, and MacIver and Page. According to Shelly Shah in the Sociology Discussion, taking all of those concepts into consideration the following five (5) views may be concluded as it relates to the subject (Shah, n.d.).

• Social structure is an abstract and intangible phenomenon.

• As individuals are the units of association and institutions so these associations and institutions are the units of social structure.

• These institutions and associations are inter-related in a particular arrangement and thus create the pattern of social structure.

• It refers to the external aspects of society, which is relatively stable as compared to the functional or internal aspect of society.
• Social structure is a “living” structure, which is created, maintained for a time and changes.

How might the organization and structure of a society contribute to criminality?
The philosophy behind the organization and structure of a society and how that contributes to criminal behavior within society is by stressing poverty, economic conditions, lack of education, lack of skills, are not sought-after in the work place, and divergent cultural values.

Criminal behavior is the result of the person’s assignment of location within the structure of society (Schmalleger, 2012). I tend to agree with this philosophy to an extent, I do feel like this is not a cookie cutter approach to everyone, in America there are ways out of this makeup. That being said, I will agree that it’s extremely difficult to step off that hamster wheel once on it, life in America is very competitive and to obtain something, it will require work, sometimes-hard work. Nothing comes easy, one can just about obtain anything they want, but you better be ready to sacrifice something for it; there is the rub, most are not willing to sacrifice, they want something for nothing, the I

generation.