**4. Social processes**

The social processes requiring separate treatment include:


#### **4.1 Social construction processes (Constructing the boxes)**

Social structures are almost never built anew from the ground up. On the other hand, nor can they readily be seen as fragile frameworks that are freshly reconstructed each day. It is more reasonable to take an intermediate position to draw attention to those social processes

Analysing Social Structures 31

symbolism and studying this is vital to understanding how the social structure operates. These conceptual frameworks are in part constitutive of social structures through the cognitive infrastructure they lay down, and in addition they are highly significant in

Once (as it were) the empty places in social structures are set up, they can be filled with people. Further processes deal with how the people that are recruited for positions are then handled in that position: their sustenance, promotion and disposal! In turn, the types of people who come to occupy a social structure can, by virtue of their own characteristics, have social consequences, since they may well endeavour to shape the structure 'in their own image'. It should surprise no-one that social structures are very often designed (not

Much interest in peopling centres on how people are recruited into positions. The most basic distinction is between recruitment on inscriptive criteria and recruitment on achievement criteria. In ascription frames, recruitment is fixed by pre-set biological or kinship characteristics, whereas in achievement frames, wider bases of selection criteria are possible. Especially for paid-work positions, recruitment is largely structured on a social class basis, albeit mediated by the effect of schooling and educational credentials. Gender, ethnic and other effects are also strong. Bourdieu has pointed out that this social class basis for recruitment involves the cultural capital obtained from people's home environments, reinforced by the way schooling (largely captured by middle-class intellectuals) is organised to in fact amplify the effects of class-based cultural capitals. The very style and ambience of

Attention also needs to be addressed to the mechanisms through which people may come to hear of jobs to apply for. In his classic network study, Granovetter (1995/1973) was able to show that, for many, the information which yielded a job offer came from relatively remote and chance linkages. After all, the information scanning range of close contacts is more likely to be narrow and overlap with the information horizon of the job-seeker themselves,

Once people are in place they may be motivated, instructed, cooled-out, monitored, supervised, sanctioned, rewarded and perhaps placed within a promotional ladder or other

Once places have been filled with people, the compositional pattern resulting can have its own effects. For example, in various community studies, the question has been posed about the extent to which a locality affects the people living within it. One major influence is clearly the effect of the physical and spatial environment and another is the particular history of the area. However, an important point is that, beyond these obvious comparisons, many of the differences between communities arise precisely out of the mix they contain of different social categories of people. A community of middle class people is likely to operate in quite a different way than one composed of working-class people; a retirement community will be different than a 'nappy valley' of young newly marrieds. Compositional features of a community can have quite a direct effect in their own right. Of course, this

whereas the far-flung nature of the network immensely broadens its scanning range.

necessarily at all consciously) with a particular social category very much in mind.

providing legitimation.

**4.2 Peopling processes (Filling the boxes)** 

education institutions operate to reinforce these processes.

point applies to social structures other than communities as well.

schemes for handling their progress.

of social construction which provide the more or less stable frameworks that shape everyday social life, and which also legitimate and bolster it. The main framework around which social structures are built is cultural: it is the set of 'constitutional' ideas held about how that social structure is to be put together. This cognitive and moral framework then provides the boundaries and sets the terms within which the social structure actually works. But this point does not imply that this shared cultural framework is necessarily the most important component in how the social structure works.

A general framework was sketched by Berger and Luckmann (1966) which provides some general guidance. More detailed, and empirically-related, material relevant to the processes of structure-building can be cobbled together from several diverse sources such as:


Tilly has developed the study of 'repertoires of contention' as part of fine-grained research into social movements accompanying long-term trends in modernising societies. He is interested in showing how the possibilities for action in any group are shaped by the range of possibilities that they consider are available to them.

Any group who has a common interest in collective action also acquires a shared repertoire of routines among which it makes a choice when the occasion for pursuing an interest or a grievance arises. The metaphor calls attention to the limited number of performances available to any particular group at a given time, to the learned character of these performances, to the possibility of innovation and improvisation within the limits set by the existing means, to the likelihood not only the actors but also the objects of their action are aware of the character of the drama that is unfolding, and, finally to the element of collective choice that enters into the events which outsiders call riots, distortions, disturbances and protests (1981:161).

While Tilly has developed this conception in relation to the framing of public protests, my point is that this approach can be used far more widely. In all areas of society, social structures are constrained by the culturally-available imagination of its members. We live in those social structures we can imagine. For example, Benedict Anderson has argued this most decisively in relation to the rise of different conceptions of the nation-state (Anderson 2006/1983).

Several other points have been adduced by those studying social structure from social interactionist or culturological perspectives. In these approaches, attention is directed towards the ideologies which shape people's understandings of their social environment, the symbols which are the vehicles of these meanings and the rituals which act these out, while mobilising supporting sentiments. One significant programme has organised around the concept of the 'negotiated order'. This approach recognises that social life is governed by shared meanings, but emphasises the complex and fragile way in which such shared meanings are put together. It is clear that most social structures are wreathed in layers of

of social construction which provide the more or less stable frameworks that shape everyday social life, and which also legitimate and bolster it. The main framework around which social structures are built is cultural: it is the set of 'constitutional' ideas held about how that social structure is to be put together. This cognitive and moral framework then provides the boundaries and sets the terms within which the social structure actually works. But this point does not imply that this shared cultural framework is necessarily the most

A general framework was sketched by Berger and Luckmann (1966) which provides some general guidance. More detailed, and empirically-related, material relevant to the processes




Tilly has developed the study of 'repertoires of contention' as part of fine-grained research into social movements accompanying long-term trends in modernising societies. He is interested in showing how the possibilities for action in any group are shaped by the range

Any group who has a common interest in collective action also acquires a shared repertoire of routines among which it makes a choice when the occasion for pursuing an interest or a grievance arises. The metaphor calls attention to the limited number of performances available to any particular group at a given time, to the learned character of these performances, to the possibility of innovation and improvisation within the limits set by the existing means, to the likelihood not only the actors but also the objects of their action are aware of the character of the drama that is unfolding, and, finally to the element of collective choice that enters into the events which outsiders call riots,

While Tilly has developed this conception in relation to the framing of public protests, my point is that this approach can be used far more widely. In all areas of society, social structures are constrained by the culturally-available imagination of its members. We live in those social structures we can imagine. For example, Benedict Anderson has argued this most decisively in

Several other points have been adduced by those studying social structure from social interactionist or culturological perspectives. In these approaches, attention is directed towards the ideologies which shape people's understandings of their social environment, the symbols which are the vehicles of these meanings and the rituals which act these out, while mobilising supporting sentiments. One significant programme has organised around the concept of the 'negotiated order'. This approach recognises that social life is governed by shared meanings, but emphasises the complex and fragile way in which such shared meanings are put together. It is clear that most social structures are wreathed in layers of

relation to the rise of different conceptions of the nation-state (Anderson 2006/1983).

of structure-building can be cobbled together from several diverse sources such as:

organisational structure is determined by 'technological imperatives';

representational, approaches to macro-sociological issues.

important component in how the social structure works.


of possibilities that they consider are available to them.

distortions, disturbances and protests (1981:161).

category;
