Émile Durkheim first described the importance of our social institutions. He likened them to organs in a human body. Each organ does one specific thing—a heart is responsible for the circulatory system, a brain is the key to the nervous system, and a pair of lungs regulates the respiratory system. If something happens to the heart, its functions cannot be assumed by other organs, and as a result, the body as a whole becomes compromised.
Social institutions are defined as a stable set of statuses, roles, groups, and organizations that provides a foundation for addressing fundamental societal needs (Newman 2006), each with a specific role in society. As discussed in Chapter 1, Durkheim believed that an essential set of institutions is necessary for society to function. For our discussion, we focus on five institutions—family, education, work and the economy, health and medicine, and the media.
If you’ve taken an Introduction to Sociology course, these institutions may have been presented as the basis for socialization—what do we need to learn to make us human, and how do we learn through each of these institutions? However, in the chapters that follow, our focus is on the social problems affecting each institution. You will learn how the bases of inequality we reviewed in Part I are intricately related to the social problems based in each institution. Each chapter concludes with a discussion about the policies and community efforts that are being made to address these social problems.