Chapter 14: End of the Class

Although I have taken other Sociology classes for my Criminal Justice major, I still had not learned the basics until now. This class has taught me many things and has provided me with a quality base of the Sociological perspective that I hoped to gain in order to carry my studies further. One thing that stuck with me and that I learned the most about was the structure of society. Through this I was able to broaden my knowledge on the importance of organizations and how they impact how the world works as a whole.

We all have roles in the world that are brought together by the concept of organizations. Organizations form to provide over all order for communities of people. They are created to offer a form social structure that provides a framework of society that adds order and predictability to one’s private life (278). When we are young, we do not consider how the impacts of the organizations form how we are expected to act in society. One form is education, and the expectations we have for children in our society to learn in a certain way. Educational organizations expect children to fall into the system and to morph their unique qualities into one track for success. This form of education provides benefits for our society because it provides high quality educated individuals to participate in society.

Although I knew about the impact of the education system there are components that I learned about organizations that I was not as exposed to. It is always surprising to learn the impact of bureaucracies, which are large hierarchical organizations governed by formal rules and regulations and having clearly specified work tasks (287). These bureaucracies have control over the overall impact on others’ lives and how certain components of our communities are produced.  They play into how our communities are controlled and how people fall into their everyday roles.

I think one thing that is rarely contemplated is the hierarchy of authority, where there are a few people at the top controlling most of the outcomes in society and then there are many at the base that have very little power (288). This is a prime example of how the Occupy Movement occurred. The whole movement focused around the hierarchy of authority and how there is 1% of the community that earn most of societies profit. Then there are 99% of the communities that are working for the people at the top and have very little power.  Although I participated in this movement, having the reason why it came to exist made a lot more sense to me.

People usually take their position in society among organizations and do not look at how other people impact their role. Many tend to focus on one’s own role and do not think about how it is essentially a conveyor belt of roles that get us to where we are in society. There are people at the bottom that have very little power but their roles carry to the top and provide us with our everyday needs. This is something that many do not take the time to realize on a daily basis.

With this chapter and concept I was provided with a more thorough understanding of how organizations impact my life. I have a role in the machine of society and there are other people that have other roles that provide me with my basic needs. It is a complicated system that is harder to understand because we rarely take a step away from our lives to realize where objects come from and how they come to be.  

This class has given me a better understanding of how our society works and how different components make up how we act. I have learned a lot that gives me an overall understanding on society and prepares me for further classes in Sociology.