Types of social institutions and their functions

In society, there are a large number of structures that regulate the behavior and activities of people. Types of social institutions are very diverse. Classify them on the basis of different criteria - for example, in the spheres of action. In this case, we can distinguish the following types of social institutions: economic, political and ideological, cultural and educational, public.

Economic, including institutions of property, money, financial system, economic associations of various types, are designed to ensure the production and distribution of social products, regulate monetary circulation.

Political and ideological, structurally incorporating the institutions of the presidency, the State Duma, the government, the court, the prosecutor's office, the army, and security agencies are associated with the establishment and maintenance of power, the production, preservation and reproduction of ideological principles.

Cultural and educational institutions, which include science, education, family, religion, various creative organizations, are associated with the production and reproduction of cultural and spiritual values. Promote the socialization of individuals.

Public institutions, including all kinds of voluntary associations of citizens, regulate and organize the everyday social life of people, interpersonal and intergroup relations.

These are the main social institutions, the types and forms of which are quite diverse.

There are also other criteria for typologization. If the basis for the classification is taken as a way of regulating people's behavior, then one can single out formal and informal types of social institutions.

Formal activities based on the writing and execution of laws, legal acts, decrees, instructions, through which are carried out managerial and supervisory functions. They rely on sanctions related to encouragement and punishment in their activities. They include the state, the army, the school. Informal institutions do not have a precisely defined regulatory framework, interaction in them is not formalized, but is determined by social creativity and the will of citizens. Control in them is established by means of norms that are fixed in the public consciousness, opinion, customs, traditions. To them it is possible to carry various associations on interests, cultural funds and another.

Let us now consider the types and functions of social institutions, the most common of them. Regulatory function, for example, is to settle by means of norms, certain rules, rewards and punishments of people's behavior and activities. Public institutions also have the goal of reproducing public relations, through which the experience, norms, values of culture from one generation to another are transferred. Another function is integrative, which consists in the fact that it unites the aspirations, actions, relationships of individuals, which ensures the social stability of society. The next role is communicative, which is aimed at maintaining communication, communication, interaction of people.

In addition to the above, social institutions fulfill a number of specific economic, managerial, political and other functions: explicit (formal), which, as a rule, are realized by people and recorded in normative documents, and latent (hidden), which are not declared, but are actually implemented.

If you do not comply with certain conditions that support the maintenance of the functionality of institutions, they can become dysfunctional, that is, in their work there may be failures, violations that destabilize society.

Thus, we examined the main types of social institutions and their most significant functions.