A social group consists of two or more people who identify with and interact with one another.

People who make up a group share experiences, loyalties, and interests.

The primary group is a small social group whose members share personal and lasting
relationships.

The secondary group is a large and impersonal social group whose members pursue a
specific goal or activity.

To assess one’s own attitudes and behaviors, individuals use a reference group, a social
group that serves as a point of reference in making evaluations and decisions .

An in-group is a social group toward which a member feels respect and loyalty, while an out-
group is a social group toward which a person feels a sense of competition or opposition.

A network is group containing people who come into occasional contact but who lack a sense
of boundaries and belonging .

Family is a social institution found in all societies that unites people in cooperative groups to
care for one another, including any children
The nuclear family is a family composed of one or two parents and their children. It is also
known as a conjugal family.

As an extended family is a family composed of parents and children as well as other kin. It is
also known as a consanguine family (Ibid).

A reconstituted family is a family whose composition and form of emotional care differ from
those of the nuclear or extended family.

Female- headed transnational family is a household with “core members living in at least two
nation-states and in which the mother works in another country while some or all of her
dependents reside in the Philippines

Transnational family is one with core members living in at least two nation-states.

Kinship. Family ties are also called kinship, a “social bond based on common ancestry,
marriage, or adoption”. A more traditional understanding of kinship follows the idea that persons
who extend duties and privileges to one another on the basis of consanguinity or blood relations
are considered members of the same kin group.

There are several types of kinship relations within groups. For instance, some societies
organize themselves through a matrilineal descent, where people are regarded as members of
the mother’s group by birth and throughout their lifetime.

Societies organized along a patrilineal descent automatically consider people as members of

the father’s group by birth and throughout their lifetimes.
Societies with bilateral descent, such as many of the societies in the Philippines, trace
automatic membership to both sides of descent.

Ritual kinship refers to ritual parent-child relations such as the godparent-godchild relationship
established through the baptism ceremony of Roman Catholics. In the Philippines, this is called
the compadre system.

Bands is a small groups of people connected mainly by kinship ties organize themselves into a
community. A band is usually led by a headman who members of the the community considered
as either their best hunter or wisest member.

Tribes. Some kindred groups from multiple localities integrate themselves into a larger unit of
relations. That integrated formation of multi-local kin groups can be referred as a tribal society or
a tribe.

Chiefdoms. Some societies organize some form of formal structures that integrate several
communities into a political unit under the leadership of a council with or without a chief. These
societies are referred as chiefdoms. A chiefdom, however, is usually headed by a chief, a
person of higher rank as well as authority compared to other members of a council.

Social stratification is a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy

according to power, wealth, and prestige.

Power, wealth, and prestige are referred to as social desirables, or rewards of social positions
of statuses.

Wealth pertains to ownership or control of resource.

Power is the ability to compel obedience or control a number of people.

Prestige refers to social recognition and deference. People in different positions have different
access to wealth, power, and prestige. These differences in society give rise to social
inequality.

Macionis (2012) points out that in certain societies, some people experience social mobility or
the change in position within the social hierarchy.

Vertical mobility refers to the change from one status to another that is higher or lower.
Individuals who rose from modest beginnings to fame and fortune experience upward mobility.
Some people move downward because of business failures, unemployment, or illness.

In contrast, horizontal mobility is the change from one status to another that is roughly
equivalent. This is the case when people switch from one job to another at about the same
social level.
There are two types of social stratification systems.
Closed systems allow for little change in social position, while open systems, permit much
more social mobility.

Closed systems are called caste systems, and more open systems are called class systems. A
caste system is social stratification based on ascription, or birth.

A class system, in contrast, is social stratification based on both birth and individual
achievement. The system is common in industrial societies.

Theories of social stratification

Functionalist perspective
According to the structural-functional approach, social inequality exists because it plays a vital
part in the continued existence of society. Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) argue that
the more important a position is to society, the more rewards a society attaches to it. Rewarding
important work with income, prestige, and power encourages people to do these jobs and to
work better, longer, and harder.
Social conflict perspective Marxist social-conflict perspective
Social conflict analysis draws on the ideas of Karl Marx and Max Weber. Rather than viewing
social stratification as benefiting society as a whole, it emphasizes how it benefits some people
and disadvantages others. According to Marx, social stratification is created and maintained by
one group in order to protect and enhance its own economic interests.

Weberian social conflict perspective

Max Weber claimed that social stratification involves three distinct dimensions of inequality:
class, social status or prestige, and power.

Symbolic Interactionist perspective

The symbolic-interaction approach, a micro-level analysis and influenced by the ideas of Weber,
explains that we size up people by looking for clues to their social standing. We can know about
a person’s position in society through status symbol, anything than can give an idea as to what
stratum an individual belongs to.

Inequality
One important dimension of social stratification is income inequality. Poverty is a state in which
resources, usually material but sometimes cultural, are lacking.
Relative poverty is the lack of resources of some people in relation to those who have more.
Absolute poverty refers to a lack of resources that is life threatening (Macionis 2012: 257).

Social ranking likewise involves gender and ethnicity. Minority refers to any category of people
distinguished by physical or cultural difference that a society sets apart and subordinates
Gender is the meaning a culture attaches to being female or male.

Gender stratification is the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men
and women.

Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage based on common ancestry, language, or religion that
gives a group people a distinctive social identity.

Prejudice is a rigid and unfair generalization about a category of people.

A related concept, discrimination, is the unequal treatment of various categories of people.

Characteristics of social change

Social change happens all the time. Nothing is constant and change is inevitable.
The process of change may be slow at one time than another time. One society may be
changing faster than the other. Hunting and food gathering societies have been changing
quite slowly; members of today's high income societies on the other hand, experience
significant change within a single lifetime.

Social change is sometimes intentional but is often unplanned.

Industrial societies actively encourage many kinds of change. For example, scientists seek more
efficient forms of energy, and advertisers try to convince us that life is incomplete without this
or that new gadget. So market researchers find out new ways of convincing people to use the new
product. Yet rarely one can envision all the consequences of the changes that are
set in motion. Automobile has been introduced for mobility and transportation. At the same time there
have appeared many unintended consequences like pollution, accidents, and the same autos being
used for robbery and other unlawful activities.

Social change is controversial. Social change brings both good and bad consequences, and
thus could be welcomed by some and opposed by others. Capitalists welcomed the
industrial revolution because new technology increased productivity and increased profits.
However, the workers feared that
the machines would make their skills outdated and resisted the push for progress.

Some changes matter more than others. Some changes have only passing significance,
whereas others last a long time and may change the entire world. Information technology may
revolutionize the whole world just like the industrial revolution.