institution

(noun)

An established organization, especially one dedicated to education, public service, culture, or the care of the destitute, poor etc.

Related Terms

Examples of institution in the following topics:

  • Chapter Questions

  • Social Institutions

    • Institutions can be either formal or informal.
    • However, formal institutions do not have to have the force of the law at their disposal.
    • Institutions can also be abstract, such as the institution of marriage.
    • While institutions tend to appear to people in society as part of the natural, unchanging landscape of their lives, sociological studies of institutions reveal institutions a social constructs, meaning that they are created by individuals and particular historical and cultural moment.
    • The social function of the institution is the fulfillment of the assigned roles.

  • Resocialization and Total Institutions

    • A total institution is a place where a group of people is cut off from the wider community and their needs are under bureaucratic control.
    • Within a total institution, the basic needs of a entire bloc of people are under bureaucratic control.
    • Institutions established to care for harmless or incapable people, including orphanages, poor houses and nursing homes
    • First, the staff of the institution tries to erode the residents' identities and independence.
    • Review Goffman's five types of social institutions and their functions, including their processes of resocialization

  • Depository Institutions

    • Depository institutions accept deposits and make loans.
    • Savings institutions are another depository institution.
    • Unfortunately, this happened to the saving institutions.
    • Currently, savings institutions are similar to banks, except different government agencies regulate the savings institutions.
    • Credit unions are another depository institution.

  • Pressure from the Western Institutions

  • Institutional Racism in South Africa

  • Institutions and Costs

    • Social institutions also facilitate and enforce reciprocity.
    • Institutions arise as solutions to a given set of problems.
    • Should the elements of the problem change (the actors, agents, technology, information, other institutions), the institutions may need to adapt.
    • Those who benefit from a particular institutional structure have a vested interest in preventing changes in the institutions.
    • These vested interests may use their positions and power to prevent institutional change and to work to alter institutions (particularly explicit institutions such as law) in their interests.

  • Alternative Arrangements

    • These include business-to-government, consumer-to-consumer, and institutional markets.
    • Institutional markets are very similar to typical business-to-business markets.
    • However, many institutional markets are considered nonprofits, such as churches .
    • Rather, institutions tend to satisfy somewhat esoteric, often intangible, needs.
    • Churches, schools, and hospitals are some examples of institutional market consumers.

  • Institutionalized Children

    • Institutionalized children may develop institutional syndrome, which refers to deficits or disabilities in social and life skills.
    • In clinical and abnormal psychology, institutional syndrome refers to deficits or disabilities in social and life skills, which develop after a person has spent a long period living in mental hospitals, prisons, or other remote institutions.
    • The term institutionalization can be used both in regard to the process of committing an individual to a mental hospital or prison, or to institutional syndrome; thus a person being "institutionalized" may mean either that he/she has been placed in an institution, or that he/she is suffering the psychological effects of having been in an institution for an extended period of time.
    • Deinstitutionalization can have multiple definitions; the first focuses on reducing the population size of mental institutions.
    • This can be accomplished by releasing individuals from institutions, shortening the length of stays, and reducing both admissions and readmission.

  • Institutions

    • Are institutions formal or informal?
    • Like institutions, organizations provide a structure to human interaction.
    • "Institutions are a creation of human beings.
    • North refers to some institutions as "conventions and codes of conduct.
    • If implicit social institutions are weakened, force of law (formal explicit institutions) may be used to encourage some behavioral patterns and discourage others.