Structuralism

Another important theoretical approach to the concept of social structure is structuralism (sometimes called French structuralism), which studies the underlying, unconscious regularities of human expression—that is, the unobservable structures that have observable effects on behaviour, society, and culture. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss derived this theory from structural linguistics, developed by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to Saussure, any language is structured in the sense that its elements are interrelated in nonarbitrary, regular, rule-bound ways; a competent speaker of the language largely follows these rules without being aware of doing so. The task of the theorist is to detect this underlying structure, including the rules of transformation that connect the structure to the various observed expressions.

According to Lévi-Strauss, this same method can be applied to social and cultural life in general. He constructed theories concerning the underlying structure of kinship systems, myths, and customs of cooking and eating. The structural method, in short, purports to detect the common structure of widely different social and cultural forms. This structure does not determine concrete expressions, however; the variety of expressions it generates is potentially unlimited. Moreover, the structures that generate the varieties of social and cultural forms ultimately reflect, according to Lévi-Strauss, basic characteristics of the human mind.

Structures such as the human mind, grammar, and language are sometimes called “deep structures” or “substructures.” Since such structures are not readily observable, they must be discerned from intensive interpretive analysis of myths, language, or texts. Then they can be applied to explain the customs or traits of social institutions. The French philosopher Michel Foucault, for example, used this approach in his study of corporal punishment. His research led him to conclude that the abolition of corporal punishment by liberal states was an illusion, because the state substituted punishment of the “soul” by monitoring and controlling both the behaviour of prisoners and the behaviour of everyone in the society.

Structuralism became an intellectual fashion in the 1960s in France, where writers as different as Roland Barthes, Foucault, and Louis Althusser were regarded as representatives of the new theoretical current. In this broad sense, however, structuralism is not one coherent theoretical perspective. The Marxist structuralism of Althusser, for example, is far removed from the anthropological structuralism of Lévi-Strauss. The structural method, when applied by different scholars, appears to lead to different results.

The onslaught of criticism launched against structural functionalism, class theories, and structuralism indicates the problematic nature of the concept of social structure. Yet the notion of social structure is not easy to dispense with, because it expresses ideas of continuity, regularity, and interrelatedness in social life. Other terms are often used that have similar, but not identical, meanings, including social network, social figuration, and social system. Starting with his work in general sociological theory in the mid-1970s, British sociologist Anthony Giddens suggested the term structuration to express the view that social life is, to a certain extent, both dynamic and ordered.

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The critical difference between social structure theory and structuralism is one of approach. Analysis of social structure uses standard empirical (observational) methods to arrive at generalizations about society, while structuralism uses subjective, interpretive, phenomenological, and qualitative analysis. Most sociologists prefer the social structure approach and regard structuralism as philosophical—that is, more compatible with the humanities than with the social sciences. Still, a significant number of sociologists insist that structuralism occupies a legitimate place in their discipline.

Later trends in social structure theory

Those pursuing research in the area of social structure have pursued limited but practical goals. They have focused on the development of theories, laws, generalizations, calculi, and methods that account for structural regularities in society. They have not, however, been concerned with demonstrating the limitless structural regularities in society (such as linguistic routines, the permanence of national boundaries, the stability of religious practices, or the durability of gender or racial inequality).

In concrete terms, the task of structural analysis is not so much to account for poverty, for example, as it is to account for the rates of poverty. Likewise, the analysis focuses on empirical data such as the distribution of cities in the world, the patterns of land use, the shifts in educational achievement, changes in occupational structure, the manifestation of revolutions, the increase in collaboration between institutions, the existence of networks among groups, the routines of different types of organizations, the cycles of growth or decline in organizations and institutions, or the unintended collective consequences of individual choices.

Only a few sociologists have developed structural theories that apply to institutions and whole societies—an approach known as macrosociology. Gerhard Lenski in Power and Privilege (1966) classified societies on the basis of their main tools of subsistence and, unlike Marx, demonstrated statistically that variations in the primary tools used in a given society systematically accounted for different types of social stratification systems.

An entire specialty in sociology has been built on a structural theory developed by Amos Hawley in Human Ecology (1986). For Hawley, the explanatory variables are the makeup of the population, the external environment, the complex of organizations, and technology. Research has revealed that these variables account for differences in the spatial characteristics, rhythm of activities, mobility patterns, and external relations between communities in various parts of the world. Applying this framework to the world ecosystem, Hawley focused on the problem of its expansion and growth. Unlike Marxist world systems theory, which emphasizes political factors, Hawley’s work emphasized technology as the critical factor. He argued that the growth and spread of technology leads to population growth, burdens the land, and prompts changes in the organization of institutions. At worst, according to Hawley, the long-term costs of expansion would lead to polarization and inequality, urban decay, environmental destruction, and political instability, which over time must result in a reordering of the ecosystem.

In Structural Contexts of Opportunities (1994), Peter M. Blau developed a formal macrosociological theory concerning the influences of large population structures on social life. He identified how different population groups relate to each other. He found that occupational heterogeneity increases the chance for contact between people in different status groups. For populations with multiple-group affiliations, in-group associations tend to promote intergroup relations.

These are some examples of ways in which logically drawn abstract generalizations provide insights about society. Such findings are approached through macrosociological or structural theory and are not readily available through the study of individuals or isolated groups.