What are social groups in society. social group. Types of social groups in society

Man is part of society. Therefore, throughout his life he contacts or is a member of many groups. But despite their huge number, sociologists distinguish several main types of social groups, which will be discussed in this article.

Definition of social group

First of all, you need to have a clear understanding of the meaning of this term. Social group - a set of people who have one or more unifying features that have social significance. Participation in any activity becomes another factor of unification. It must be understood that society is not seen as an indivisible whole, but as an association of social groups that constantly interact and influence each other. Any person is a member of at least several of them: family, work team, etc.

The reasons for creating such groups may be the similarity of interests or goals pursued, as well as the understanding that when creating such a group, you can achieve more results in less time than one by one.

One of the important concepts when considering the main types of social groups is the reference group. This is a really existing or imaginary association of people, which is an ideal for a person. The term was first used by the American sociologist Hyman. The reference group is so important because it influences the individual:

1. Regulatory. The reference group is an example of the norms of an individual's behavior, social attitudes and values.
2. Comparative. It helps a person to determine what place he occupies in society, to evaluate his own and other people's activities.

Social groups and quasi-groups

Quasi-groups are randomly formed and short-lived communities. Another name is mass communities. Accordingly, several differences can be identified:

• There is regular interaction in social groups that leads to their sustainability.
• A high percentage of cohesion of people.
• Members of a group share at least one characteristic in common.
• Small social groups can be a structural unit of larger groups.

Types of social groups in society

Man as a social being interacts with a large number of social groups. Moreover, they are completely diverse in composition, organization and pursued goals. Therefore, it became necessary to identify which types of social groups belong to the main ones:

• Primary and secondary - the selection depends on how a person interacts with group members emotionally.
• Formal and informal - the allocation depends on how the group is organized and how relationships are regulated.
• Ingroup and outgroup - the definition of which depends on the degree of belonging to them a person.
• Small and large - allocation depending on the number of participants.
• Real and nominal - the selection depends on the signs that are significant in the social aspect.

All these types of social groups of people will be considered in detail separately.

Primary and secondary groups

The primary group is one in which communication between people is of a high emotional nature. Usually it consists of a small number of participants. It is the link that connects the individual directly with society. For example, family, friends.

A secondary group is one in which there are many more participants than the previous group, and where interactions between people are needed to achieve a certain task. Relations here, as a rule, are impersonal in nature, since the main emphasis is on the ability to perform the necessary actions, and not on character traits and emotional ties. For example, a political party, a work collective.

Formal and informal groups

A formal group is one that has a certain legal status. Relations between people are regulated by a certain system of norms and rules. There is a clearly fixed goal and there is a hierarchical structure. Any actions are performed in accordance with the established procedure. For example, the scientific community, a sports group.

An informal group, as a rule, arises spontaneously. The reason may be a commonality of interests or views. Compared to a formal group, it has no official rules and no legal status in society. Also, there is no formal leader among the participants. For example, a friendly company, lovers of classical music.

Ingroup and outgroup

Ingroup - a person feels a direct belonging to this group and perceives it as his own. For example, "my family", "my friends".

An outgroup is a group to which a person is not related, respectively, there is an identification as “foreign”, “other”. Absolutely every person has their own outgroup evaluation system: from a neutral attitude to an aggressive-hostile one. Most sociologists prefer to use the grading system, the social distance scale, created by the American sociologist Emory Bogardus. Examples: "someone else's family", "not my friends".

Small and large groups

A small group is a small group of people that comes together to achieve some result. For example, a student group, a school class.

The fundamental forms of this group are the forms "diad" and "triad". They can be called bricks of this group. A dyad is an association in which 2 people participate, and a triad consists of three people. The latter is considered more stable than the dyad.

Features of a small group:

1. A small number of participants (up to 30 people) and their permanent composition.
2. Close relationships between people.
3. Similar ideas about values, norms and patterns of behavior in society.
4. Identify the group as "mine".
5. Control is not governed by administrative rules.

A large group is one that has a large number of members. The purpose of the association and interaction of people, as a rule, is clearly fixed and clear to each member of the group. It is not limited by the number of people included in it. Also, there is no constant personal contact and mutual influence between individuals. For example, the peasant class, the working class.

Real and nominal

Real groups are groups that stand out according to some socially important criteria. For example:

• age;
• income;
• nationality;
• marital status;
• profession;
• location.

Nominal groups are singled out according to one common feature for conducting various sociological studies or statistical accounting of a certain category of the population. For example, find out the number of mothers raising children alone.

Based on these examples of types of social groups, one can clearly see that absolutely every person has a connection with them or interacts in them.

The study of society is based on several basic phenomena or approaches that make it possible to simplify and at the same time systematize existing connections. For example, this is the division of society into different social groups. First you need to understand what it is about. So, social groups of the population are a set of people who act as a single subject of action. Moreover, they are distinguished by the presence of a unifying principle: interests, views, needs, values, etc.

Please note that social science highlights social groups and communities. What is the difference? There are several different definitions. But they all agree that social groups are characterized by a certain stability, ideological commonality, more or less regular contacts, and the availability of organizational resources. They are usually formed consciously.

What examples can be given here? These are fans of a particular football club, various professional associations that have appeared to protect members of their interests. Or entrepreneurs who are interested in bringing their products to the market at a lower cost.

At the same time, social communities, as a rule, are much larger (nation, inhabitants of a certain region, etc.). They are formed completely randomly, can be unstable, easily disintegrate. Such social formations often differ in ideological diversity. They do not have any plan of action, development. Much here is chaotic.

Nevertheless, social communities, social groups have common features. The first and second have something in common. Also, they may have the same goals, needs, etc. Let's say that passengers of the same train in the event of an accident face the same difficulties. Like social groups, social communities come in different sizes, and they can also shrink and grow. In many ways, both there and there there is an element of spontaneity. Large and small social groups

Groups are small and large. A normal sociological phenomenon was the transition from one to the other due to merger and disintegration. Sometimes a small formation can be included in a larger one, while maintaining its complete integrity. Large social groups in modern Russian society are the Orthodox, pensioners, fans of Putin's policies.

It can be seen that it is quite easy to confuse large social groups and their types (according to political, religious or age criteria) with communities. Such mistakes are often made even by professionals.

However, large groups are characterized by relative homogeneity and stability. Let's say, if we compare a nation, in which people with very different needs, income levels, interests, life experience, etc., with such a group as "pensioners", then the latter will have more unifying factors. Thus, as a phenomenon of social groups, large social groups in particular have some stability.

And even large social groups are difficult to organize and control due to their size. Therefore, they are often divided into small subgroups for better understanding.

In the general concept of social groups, small social groups are also distinguished. Scientists pay attention to the fact that the phenomenon itself is quite relative in terms of numbers. So, small social groups are 2-3 people (family), and several hundred. Different understanding gives rise to conflicting interpretations.

And one more thing: existing small groups are able to unite into larger formations in order to achieve some goals. Sometimes this creates a single structure. And periodically they retain their heterogeneity, but after the achievement of the task, they again disintegrate.

What are primary social groups?

When considering the concept of social groups, types, different classifications, one cannot ignore the division into primary and secondary. What can be said about the first? They presuppose the presence of direct contacts, mutual assistance, common tasks, a certain equality. These can be friends, classmates, etc.

Secondary ones appear with further socialization. They are more formal (a group of women who gave birth in the same year in the same city, an association of lawyers, an association of dacha owners). The same person can belong to several secondary groups at the same time.

Other types

The main classifications are listed above. However, they are far from the only ones. There is a division according to the method of organization: formal and informal. The former willingly submit to public control, they usually have a plan of action, they are officially registered, they can even act as legal entities. For example, trade unions, official fan clubs of famous sports teams, etc.

Unlike them, informal ones are largely spontaneous. Their representatives themselves classify themselves as one or another group (goths, punks, fans of Hollywood action movies, esoterics), there is no control over the number, as well as a development plan. Such education can spontaneously appear and disappear, losing popularity.

Social science also considers the division according to the principle of belonging of an individual into ingroups and outgroups. The first is closely related to the concept of "mine". My family, school, class, religion, etc. That is, everything with which identification occurs.

The second category is foreign groups, another nation, religion, profession, etc. Attitude can range from indifferent to aggressive. A benevolent interest is also possible. There is also the concept of a reference group. This is a kind of education, the system of values, views and norms of which serve for the individual as a kind of standard, an example. With them, he checks his life guidelines, draws up a plan (admission to a prestigious university, an increase in income, etc.)

Depending on the social significance, real and nominal groups are distinguished. The first category includes those groups that are formed on the basis of socially significant criteria. These are gender, age, income, profession, nationality, residence, etc.

As for the nominal ones, we are talking about a rather conditional division of the population into separate groups. For example, a plan for studying the target audience and its purchasing power suggests that you need to study everyone who purchased detergents in such and such a store. As a result, a conditional category of buyers "Asi" appears in the "Auchan" supermarket.

Nominality does not imply that the members of this group are generally aware that they were assigned to some kind of community. Since only one criterion is being studied, the people who are selected as a result of such a selection may naturally have almost nothing in common, hold different views, have different values, etc.

When studying social groups, one should also take into account such an association as a quasi-group. It may have all or most of the features of such a combination, but in fact it is formed chaotically, it does not last long, but it easily breaks up. Vivid examples are the audience on

A person participates in public life not as an isolated individual, but as a member of social communities - a family, a friendly company, a labor collective, a nation, a class, etc. His activities are largely determined by the activities of those groups in which he is included, as well as the interaction within groups and between groups. Accordingly, in sociology, society acts not only as an abstraction, but also as a set of specific social groups that are in a certain dependence on each other.

The structure of the entire social system, the totality of interrelated and interacting social groups and social communities, as well as social institutions and relations between them, is the social structure of society.

In sociology, the problem of dividing society into groups (including nations, classes), their interaction is one of the cardinal and is characteristic of all levels of theory.

The concept of a social group

Group is one of the main elements of the social structure of society and is a collection of people united by any significant feature - a common activity, common economic, demographic, ethnographic, psychological characteristics. This concept is used in jurisprudence, economics, history, ethnography, demography, psychology. In sociology, the concept of "social group" is usually used.

Not every community of people is called a social group. If people are just in a certain place (on a bus, in a stadium), then such a temporary community can be called "aggregation". A social community that unites people on only one or a few similar grounds is also not called a group; the term "category" is used here. For example, a sociologist might categorize students aged 14 to 18 as youth; elderly people to whom the state pays allowances, provides benefits for paying utility bills - to the category of pensioners, etc.

Social group - it is an objectively existing stable community, a set of individuals interacting in a certain way on the basis of several signs, in particular, the shared expectations of each member of the group regarding others.

The concept of a group as an independent one, along with the concepts of personality (individual) and society, is already found in Aristotle. In modern times, T. Hobbes was the first to define a group as "a certain number of people united by a common interest or common cause."

Under social group it is necessary to understand any objectively existing stable set of people connected by a system of relations regulated by formal or informal social institutions. Society in sociology is considered not as a monolithic entity, but as a set of many social groups that interact and are in a certain dependence on each other. Each person during his life belongs to many such groups, among which are the family, the friendly team, the student group, the nation, and so on. The creation of groups is facilitated by similar interests and goals of people, as well as the realization of the fact that when combining actions, you can achieve a significantly greater result than with individual action. At the same time, the social activity of each person is largely determined by the activities of the groups in which he is included, as well as the interaction within groups and between groups. It can be stated with full confidence that only in a group a person becomes a person and is able to find full self-expression.

The concept, formation and types of social groups

The most important elements of the social structure of society are social groups and . Being forms of social interaction, they are such associations of people whose joint, solidarity actions are aimed at meeting their needs.

There are many definitions of the concept of "social group". Thus, according to some Russian sociologists, a social group is a collection of people who have common social characteristics and perform a socially necessary function in the structure of the social division of labor and activity. The American sociologist R. Merton defines a social group as a set of individuals interacting with each other in a certain way, aware of their belonging to this group and recognized as members of this group from the point of view of others. He distinguishes three main features in a social group: interaction, membership and unity.

Unlike mass communities, social groups are characterized by:

• sustainable interaction, contributing to the strength and stability of their existence;
• a relatively high degree of unity and cohesion;
• clearly expressed homogeneity of the composition, suggesting the presence of signs inherent in all members of the group;
• the possibility of entering into broader social communities as structural units.

Since each person in the course of his life is a member of a wide variety of social groups that differ in size, nature of interaction, degree of organization and many other features, it becomes necessary to classify them according to certain criteria.

There are the following types of social groups:

1. Depending on the nature of the interaction - primary and secondary (Appendix, scheme 9).

primary group, by definition, C. Cooley, is a group in which the interaction between members is direct, interpersonal in nature and has a high level of emotionality (family, school class, peer group, etc.). Carrying out the socialization of the individual, the primary group acts as a link between the individual and society.

secondary group- This is a larger group in which interaction is subordinated to the achievement of a specific goal and is formal, impersonal. In these groups, the focus is not on the personal, unique qualities of the members of the group, but on their ability to perform certain functions. Organizations (industrial, political, religious, etc.) can serve as examples of such groups.

2. Depending on the method of organization and regulation of interaction - formal and informal.

formal group- This is a group with a legal status, interaction in which is regulated by a system of formalized norms, rules, laws. These groups have a consciously set goal, normatively fixed hierarchical structure and act in accordance with the administratively established procedure (organizations, enterprises, etc.).

informal grouparises spontaneously, on the basis of common views, interests and interpersonal interactions. It is deprived of official regulation and legal status. These groups are usually led by informal leaders. Examples are friendly companies, informal associations among young people, rock music lovers, etc.

3. Depending on the belonging of individuals to them - ingroups and outgroups.

Ingroup- this is a group to which the individual feels a direct belonging and identifies it as "mine", "our" (for example, "my family", "my class", "my company", etc.).

Outgroup - this is a group to which the given individual does not belong and therefore evaluates it as “alien”, not his own (other families, another religious group, another ethnic group, etc.). Each ingroup individual has his own outgroup rating scale: from indifferent to aggressive-hostile. Therefore, sociologists propose to measure the degree of acceptance or closeness in relation to other groups according to the so-called Bogardus' "social distance scale".

Reference group - this is a real or imaginary social group, the system of values, norms and evaluations of which serves as a standard for the individual. The term was first proposed by the American social psychologist Hyman. The reference group in the system of relations "personality - society" performs two important functions: normative, being for the individual a source of norms of behavior, social attitudes and value orientations; comparative acting as a standard for the individual, allows him to determine his place in the social structure of society, evaluate himself and others.

4. Depending on the quantitative composition and form of the implementation of connections - small and large.

- this is a directly contacting small group of people united to carry out joint activities.

A small group can take many forms, but the initial ones are the “dyad” and “triad”, they are called the simplest molecules small group. Dyadconsists of two people and is considered an extremely fragile association, in triad actively interact three persons, it is more stable.

The characteristic features of a small group are:

• small and stable composition (as a rule, from 2 to 30 people);
• spatial proximity of group members;
• sustainability and longevity:
• a high degree of coincidence of group values, norms and patterns of behavior;
• intensity of interpersonal relationships;
• a developed sense of belonging to a group;
• informal control and information saturation in the group.

large group- this is a large group in its composition, which is created for a specific purpose and the interaction in which is mainly indirect in nature (labor collectives, enterprises, etc.). This also includes numerous groups of people who have common interests and occupy the same position in the social structure of society. For example, social-class, professional, political and other organizations.

A collective (lat. collectivus) is a social group in which all vital connections between people are mediated through socially important goals.

Characteristic features of the team:

• combination of interests of the individual and society;
• commonality of goals and principles that act for the members of the team as value orientations and norms of activity. The team performs the following functions:
• subject - solution of the task for which it is created;
• social and educational - combination of the interests of the individual and society.

5. Depending on the socially significant signs - real and nominal.

Real groups are groups identified according to socially significant criteria:

• floor - men and women;
• age - children, youth, adults, the elderly;
• income - rich, poor, prosperous;
• nationality - Russians, French, Americans;
• marital status - married, single, divorced;
• profession (occupation) - doctors, economists, managers;
• location - city ​​dwellers, rural dwellers.

Nominal (conditional) groups, sometimes called social categories, are singled out for the purpose of conducting a sociological study or statistical accounting of the population (for example, to find out the number of passengers-benefits, single mothers, students receiving nominal scholarships, etc.).

Along with social groups in sociology, the concept of "quasi-group" is singled out.

A quasi-group is an informal, spontaneous, unstable social community that does not have a definite structure and system of values, in which the interaction of people is, as a rule, of a third-party and short-term nature.

The main types of quasigroups are:

Audienceis a social community united by interaction with a communicator and receiving information from him. The heterogeneity of this social formation, due to the difference in personal qualities, as well as cultural values ​​and norms of the people included in it, determines the different degree of perception and evaluation of the information received.

- a temporary, relatively unorganized, unstructured accumulation of people united in a closed physical space by a common interest, but at the same time devoid of a clearly perceived goal and interconnected by the similarity of their emotional state. Allocate the general characteristics of the crowd:

• suggestibility - people in the crowd are usually more suggestible than those outside it;
• anonymity - the individual, being in the crowd, as if merges with it, becomes unrecognizable, believing that it is difficult to “calculate” him;
• spontaneity (contagiousness) - people in the crowd are subject to rapid transmission and change of emotional state;
• unconsciousness - the individual feels invulnerable in the crowd, out of social control, therefore his actions are "impregnated" with collective unconscious instincts and become unpredictable.

Depending on the way the crowd is formed and the behavior of people in it, the following varieties are distinguished:

• random crowd - an indefinite set of individuals formed spontaneously without any purpose (to watch a celebrity suddenly appear or a traffic accident);
• conventional crowd - a relatively structured gathering of people influenced by planned predetermined norms (spectators in a theatre, fans in a stadium, etc.);
• expressive crowd - a social quasi-group formed for the personal pleasure of its members, which in itself is already a goal and result (discotheques, rock festivals, etc.);
• acting (active) crowd - a group that performs some kind of action, which can act as: gatherings - an emotionally excited crowd gravitating towards violent actions, and revolting crowd - group characterized by particular aggressiveness and destructive actions.

In the history of the development of sociological science, various theories have developed that explain the mechanisms of crowd formation (G. Lebon, R. Turner, and others). But for all the dissimilarity of points of view, one thing is clear: to control the command of the crowd, it is important: 1) to identify the sources of the emergence of norms; 2) identify their carriers by structuring the crowd; 3) purposefully influence their creators, offering the crowd meaningful goals and algorithms for further actions.

Among quasi-groups, social circles are closest to social groups.

Social circles are social communities that are created for the purpose of exchanging information between their members.

The Polish sociologist J. Szczepanski identifies the following types of social circles: contact - communities that constantly meet on the basis of certain conditions (interest in sports competitions, sports, etc.); professional - gathering for the exchange of information solely on a professional basis; status - formed about the exchange of information between people with the same social status (aristocratic circles, women's or men's circles, etc.); friendly - based on the joint conduct of any events (companies, groups of friends).

In conclusion, we note that quasi-groups are some transitional formations, which, with the acquisition of such features as organization, stability and structure, turn into a social group.

Social groups- any set of people selected according to socially significant criteria. Socially significant features can be gender, age, nationality and race, profession, economic or political status, religion, level of education, family and marital status, lifestyle, culture and language, personal qualities, type of social interaction and social relations, place residence, as well as groupings of signs give us a huge number of social groups, because they also include small groups.

Social groups are a kind of mediator between an individual and society as a whole. But social groups are also the environment in which collective processes arise and develop. Such forms of collective behavior as the crowd, the public, panic, rumors, rebellion, show the negative consequences of being in a group, they add some qualities to the individual and take away others (in the crowd he loses self-control, responsibility and sense of proportion).

Sometimes scientists discover amazing phenomena that can change the usual ideas. It can be considered an obvious fact that the number of stars in the sky exceeds the number of possible star clusters, that the number of elements is always greater than the number of sets, groups and classes in which they actually belong. But human society is an exception in this sense.

It turns out that the total number of human groups on Earth exceeds the population by 1.5-2 times. Thus, more than 5 billion people live on the planet, and the number of groups, according to experts, reaches 8-10 billion. And all this is possible due to the fact that one individual can be in 5-6 groups. In essence, a society is also a social group, but only the largest of those living in a given territory. So society is subject to laws, groups. Social groups are the foundation of social life. After all, society is also a social group, but only the largest of those existing in a given territory.

But not only society, but also the individual lives according to its laws. He is to the same extent a group, collective being, to which he is a public, social one. Scientists believe that many human features - the ability to think abstractly, speech, language, self-discipline and morality - are the result of group activity. In a social group, norms, rules, customs, traditions, rituals, and ceremonies are born. In other words, the foundation of social life is being laid. Man needs and depends on the group, perhaps more so than monkeys, rhinos, or wolves. People survive only together - in a social group.

Thus, the isolated individual is the exception rather than the rule. Already in ancient times, people lived in groups: mobile communities of primitive hunters and gatherers numbering 20-30 people, leading a wandering lifestyle, moved across the surface of the planet in search of food. And today a person does not think of himself outside the social group. He is a member of a family, a student class, a youth party, a production team, a sports team.

The simplest at first glance, the word "belonging" is fraught with many meanings. Some belong when they actively participate in all areas of the group. Others consider belonging only to what is formally listed in a group or organization. Thus, belonging is a whole continuum of transitional forms from active interaction to mental identification with the group (i.e. identification).

Social groups can be large, consisting of hundreds, thousands and even millions of people, or small (2-7 people. A friendly company or family belongs to small groups. Large social groups are divided into age and gender (old people, adults, children, men and women) , national (Russians, English, Evenks), professional (tractor drivers, engineers, teachers), economic (shareholders, brokers, rentiers), religious (Protestants, Mormons, Orthodox), political (liberals, conservatives, democrats).

But it turns out that there is another kind of belonging that a person is sometimes unaware of. For example, sociologists conducted a mass survey and established the numerical distribution in society

• a) unmarried young men,
• b) young girls and unmarried women,
• c) middle-aged single women without a specialty,
• d) elderly people moving from village to village with adult children.

It is clear that in everyday life none of us thinks, and does not know that, it turns out, he belongs to one of these groups. The term "belonging" is already used in a different, statistical, sense. For a particular person, such belonging is not a real thing. It is real, meaningful, and only needed by a sociologist or statistician.

Thus, belonging may be real, one way or another realized and designated by an individual, or it may not be real, not realized in any way, used by scientists as a criterion for classifying people into categories.

Sociology studies modern society, and for it the group is an interacting whole, i.e. a type of social organization that is made up of living people who are united together either by a common feature, such as age, gender, profession, income, or by a common occupation, activity. In the sociological sense, a group exists under the condition that the individuals that make it up contribute to the realization of the goals pursued by each individual. In a psychological sense, a group exists under the condition that its constituent individuals perceive themselves as helping each individual achieve his goals.

Scientists have proven that many human features - the ability to think abstractly, speech, language, self-discipline and morality - are the result of group activity. In the group, norms, rules, customs, traditions, rituals, ceremonies are born, in other words, the foundation of social life is laid. Man needs and depends on the group, perhaps more so than monkeys, rhinos, wolves, or mollusks. People survive only together.

Social groups are relatively stable aggregates of people who have common interests, values ​​and norms of behavior that develop within the framework of a historically defined society.

The whole variety of social groups can be classified depending on:

• group sizes
• socially significant criteria
• identification type with group
• rigidity of intra-group norms
• the nature and content of activities, etc.

According to the first criterion, sociologists distinguish between large social groups - social classes, social strata, professional groups, ethnic communities (nation, nationality, tribe), age groups (youth, pensioners) - and small social groups, the specific feature of which is the direct contacts of its members: family, school class, production team, neighborhood communities, friendly companies. According to the degree of regulation of relations and the life of individuals, groups are divided into formal and informal.

The classification of small groups in general includes: laboratory and natural, organized and spontaneous, open and closed, formal and informal, primary and secondary groups, membership groups and reference groups, etc. In sociology, groups are divided into primary and secondary, informal and formal. Primary groups are a small association of people connected by ties of an emotional nature. Example: family, group of friends (Cooley, Giddens). Secondary groups - a number of people who meet regularly, but whose relationships are for the most part impersonal. They are distinguished by the criterion of immediacy - the mediation of contacts between people.

Formal group - a type of small group, the position and behavior of individual members of which are strictly regulated by the official rules of the organization and. Nominal groups are singled out only for statistical accounting of the population and therefore they have a second name - social categories. A real group is a large collection of people that is distinguished on the basis of real-life signs:

• gender - men and women,
• income - rich, poor and prosperous,
• nationality - Russians, Americans, Evenks, Turks, etc.,
• age - children, adolescents, youth, adults, the elderly,
• kinship and marriage - single, married, parents, widows, etc.,
• profession (occupation) - drivers, teachers, military personnel,
• place of residence - townspeople, rural residents, countrymen, etc.

Three types are sometimes distinguished into an independent subclass of real groups and are called the main ones:

• stratification - slavery, castes, estates, classes,
• ethnic - races, nations, peoples, nationalities, tribes, clans,
• territorial - people from the same locality (compatriots), townspeople, villagers.

Small groups are a small group of people united by common goals, interests, values, norms and rules of behavior, as well as constant interaction. Small groups really exist: they are accessible to direct perception, observable in terms of their size and time of existence. Their study can be carried out through specific methods of working with all members of the group (observation of interaction in the group, surveys, tests for the characteristics of group dynamics, experiment).

Reference a group is called something that attracts a person, the values ​​of which he adheres to or seeks to adapt to them, of which he would gladly become a member, or a group with which he compares himself, which serves him as a starting point for evaluating himself and others.

Among the main types of socio-political groups that actively influence public life, four leading ones should be distinguished, namely:

• pressure groups,
• interest groups,
• lobby,
• elite.

Term interest group used primarily in political science. Here, an interest group is an association of people seeking to express and defend their power interests in relations with state bodies and other political institutions.

One of the most common is the typology of interest groups proposed by Jean Blondel. It singles out, in particular, groups according to custom, which grow on the basis of ideal communal interests. They are most common in the developing countries of the East and South. They also include some entities in developed countries (for example, the Catholic Church in Italy, Poland, Ireland). Institutional groups based on formal organizations within the state apparatus. Their influence is related to proximity to the decision-making process. They exist where there is a state form of governance of society. To defense groups primarily trade unions and business associations. They are prevalent primarily in mature democracies.

The nature of the performance of functions by pressure groups primarily depends on whether the methods of their activities are legal or illegal.

Interest groups and pressure groups, as mediators between the state and the people, perform their functions as follows:

• interact with candidates for deputies and members of executive and representative bodies (in the form of advice, recommendations, persuasion);
• participate in the financing of bills, examinations, conclusions of government bodies;
• monitor compliance with decisions (laws), up to going to court
• monitor the activities of the government in certain branches of government, the spending of financial resources, etc.

The mass media and scientific periodicals have recently begun to pay considerable attention to industrial and financial groups, social movements and associations seeking to exert a systematic, purposeful influence both on legislative activity and on the processes of implementing adopted laws and administrative acts.

These groups are called "pressure groups", "influence groups", lobby groups. All names are correct, since such associations put pressure on the parliament and administration in order to realize group interests.

Unlike interest groups, the lobby develops direct forms of pressure on the authorities. They must be qualified as pressure groups formed on the basis of bureaucratic structures and distinguished from interest groups formed by ordinary citizens on their own initiative.

The terms "lobby", "lobbyist", "lobbying" came from the English-language political vocabulary. Lobbying itself is a highly qualified activity that has political meaning and legal justification and is an integral element of a democratic political system. Lobbying, lobbying is a system and practice of realizing the interests of various groups (unions and associations) of citizens through organized influence on the legislative and administrative activities of state bodies.

Social communities- associations of people that arise and form on the basis of their cultural and historical identity (peoples and nations), family ties and similarity of life cycle stages (family, generational, gender and age), places in social production (classes) or differ in territorial-regional and settlement characteristics (urban and rural communities).

In addition to them, sociology studies another type of community - situationally emerged mass formations, whose members are united only by short-term joint actions or relatively short-term activities (mass movements and rallies, festivities and sports spectacles, audiences of listeners and TV viewers).

Short-term actions can develop into long-term and sustainable relationships. There are completely different communities - organized. They are united by the unity of purposeful activity. Moreover, the goals can be not only labor, but also sports and leisure (fans of football clubs), musical and leisure (informal youth associations such as "rockers", "metalworkers", "breakers"), social (alternative movements), political (parties , popular fronts).

In the hierarchy of social communities - the central position is occupied by large social groups (in the exact sense of the word), and among them - classes. They differ in the place occupied in the system of social production, in relation to the means of production (the main criterion of the social class structure), their role in the social division of labor (professional groups appear here), and the method and amount of income. Professional groups include the so-called sectoral teams of workers in industry and agriculture: miners, drivers, engineers, etc.; professional-territorial groups should include: a) temporary or non-resident workers and permanent personnel of enterprises (having a residence permit in a given city); b) foreign workers (for example, Vietnamese workers who were attracted to Moscow enterprises in the 80s and early 90s); c) workers employed in non-traditional forms of labor organization in the Far North (shift and expedition-shift methods of work).

Along with social communities that perform positive functions, there are deviant(deviating) and delinquent(criminal) groups that perform negative functions: prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, members of mafia and organized gangs, parasites, plunderers of property, etc. All these are quite large (sometimes tens and hundreds of thousands of people) social groups that are distinguished by stable behavioral traits, similar conditions residence and lifestyle.

Story

The word "group" entered the Russian language at the beginning of the 19th century. from Italian (it. groppo, or gruppo- knot) as a technical term of painters used to refer to several figures that make up a composition. . This is how his dictionary of foreign words of the early 19th century explains it, which, among other overseas “curiosities”, contains the word “group” as an ensemble, a composition of “figures that make up the whole, and so adapted that the eye looks at them at once” .

First written occurrence of a French word groupe, from which its English and German equivalents later came, dates from 1668. Thanks to Molière, a year later, this word penetrates into literary speech, while still retaining a technical coloring. The wide penetration of the term "group" into various fields of knowledge, its truly common character create the appearance of its " transparency”, that is, understandability and general accessibility. It is most often used in relation to certain human communities as aggregates of people united according to a number of characteristics by some kind of spiritual substance (interest, purpose, awareness of their community, etc.). Meanwhile, the sociological category "social group" is one of the most difficult for understanding due to a significant divergence from ordinary ideas. A social group is not just a collection of people united on formal or informal grounds, but a group social position that people occupy. “We cannot identify the agents that objectify the position with the position itself, even if the totality of these agents is a practical group mobilized for common action for the sake of a common interest.”

signs

Group types

There are large, medium and small groups.

Large groups include aggregates of people that exist on the scale of the whole society as a whole: these are social strata, professional groups, ethnic communities (nations, nationalities), age groups (youth, pensioners), etc. Awareness of belonging to a social group and, accordingly, its interests as their own occurs gradually, as organizations are formed that protect the interests of the group (for example, the struggle of workers for their rights and interests through workers' organizations).

The middle groups include production associations of employees of enterprises, territorial communities (residents of the same village, city, district, etc.).

Diverse small groups include groups such as family, friendly companies, neighborhood communities. They are distinguished by the presence of interpersonal relationships and personal contacts with each other.

One of the earliest and most famous classifications of small groups into primary and secondary was given by the American sociologist C.H. Cooley, where he distinguished between them. The "primary (basic) group" refers to those personal relationships that are direct, face-to-face, relatively permanent, and deep, such as relationships within a family, a group of close friends, and the like. "Secondary groups" (a phrase that Cooley did not actually use, but which appeared later) refers to all other face-to-face relationships, but especially to such groups or associations as industrial, in which a person relates to others through formal , often a legal or contractual relationship.

Structure of social groups

Structure is a structure, device, organization. The structure of a group is a way of interconnection, mutual arrangement of its constituent parts, elements of the group (carried out through group interests, group norms and values), forming a stable social structure, or a configuration of social relations.

The current large group has its own internal structure: "core"(and in some cases kernels) and "periphery" with a gradual weakening as we move away from the core of the essential properties by which individuals identify themselves and this group is nominated, that is, by which it is separated from other groups distinguished by a certain criterion.

Specific individuals may not have all the essential features of the subjects of a given community; they constantly move in their status complex (repertoire of roles) from one position to another. The core of any group is relatively stable, it consists of the bearers of these essential features - the professionals of symbolic representation.

In other words, the core of the group is a set of typical individuals who most consistently combine the nature of its activities, the structure of needs, norms, attitudes and motivations that people identify with this social group. That is, the agents occupying the position must take shape as a social organization, social community, or social corps, possessing an identity (recognized ideas about themselves) and mobilized around a common interest.

Therefore, the core is a concentrated expression of all the social properties of the group, which determine its qualitative difference from all others. There is no such core - there is no group itself. At the same time, the composition of the individuals included in the “tail” of the group is constantly changing due to the fact that each individual occupies many social positions and can move from one position to another situationally, due to demographic movement (age, death, illness, etc.). or as a result of social mobility.

A real group has not only its own structure or construction, but also its own composition (and also decomposition).

Composition(lat. compositio - compilation) - the organization of social space and its perception (social perception). The composition of a group is a combination of its elements that form a harmonious unity that ensures the integrity of the image of its perception (social gestalt) as a social group. The composition of the group is usually determined through indicators of social status.

Decomposition- the opposite operation or process of dividing a composition into elements, parts, indicators. The decomposition of a social group is carried out by projection onto various social fields and positions. Often the composition (decomposition) of a group is identified with a set of its demographic and professional parameters, which is not entirely true. It is not the parameters themselves that are important here, but to the extent that they characterize the status-role position of the group and act as social filters that allow it to exercise social distancing so as not to merge, not be "blurred" or absorbed by other positions.

As for the membership in the group of a particular individual as an element of the composition, then he really collides with the outside world, which surrounds him and positions him as a member of the group, i.e. his individuality in this situation becomes "insignificant", in him as a person, as a member of a group, they see first of all the whole group.

Functions of social groups

There are various approaches to classifying the functions of social groups. The American sociologist N. Smelser identifies the following functions of groups:

Social groups at present

A feature of social groups in countries with developed economies at present is their mobility, the openness of the transition from one social group to another. The convergence of the level of culture and education of various socio-professional groups leads to the formation of common socio-cultural needs and thereby creates conditions for the gradual integration of social groups, their value systems, their behavior and motivation. As a result, we can state the renewal and expansion of the most characteristic in the modern world - the middle stratum (middle class).

Notes

see also

• tusovka

Links

• Determination of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation No. 564-O-O on the constitutionality of the prohibition of inciting hatred against social groups in Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

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