**Textbook: Brinkerhoff, Essentials of Sociology. (9th ed.). Wadsworth Publishing**
****ASSIGNMENT***
Pick a group within an institution of your choice (family, economic, government, education, or religion) and write a two-page paper (at least 500 words) to include the following:
• Describe the major positions (statuses) within the group.
• Select two positions within the group and describe the major roles associated with the two positions selected. (Hint: look at a job description if one exists).
• Find two articles that are relevant to this topic and describe what the authors have to say.
*** BELOW is some of the reading we covered. ***
In 1953, sociologists Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills wrote a book called Character and Social Structure. Gerth and Mills pretty much look at social structure the way we have just described it. The “character” in the title was also pretty much the way we described it Week One.
For Gerth and Mills, character structure is a combination of biological, psychological and sociological influences. The biological part of the individual they called the organism. The psychological part of the individual is the psychic structure. The sociological part of the individual they call the person. They defined the person as the role player.
For sociologists, the role is the connection between the individual person and the position, or status, the individual person occupies in the institutions that make up the social structure. For Sociologists, the role is both part of the person and part of the social structure. It is the connection between the internal biological and psychological influences on behavior and the external sociological influences on behavior.