sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

, macrostructures, often simply called 'structure', correspond to the overall organization of

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

, described at a rather large-scale level, featuring for instance social

groups A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...

organizations An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

institutions Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...

nation-states A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may i ...

and their respective properties and relations. In this case, societal macrostructures are distinguished from societal microstructures consisting of the situated

social interaction A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...

of social actors, often described in terms of

agency Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that ...

. This distinction in sociology has given rise to the well-known macro-micro debate, in which microsociologists claim the primacy of interaction as the constituents of societal structures, and macrosociologists the primacy of given social structure as a general constraint on interaction. One important macrostructure is

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...

, the traditional system of economic and political inequality between women and men in most societies.

References

{{Reflist * Alexander, J. C., Giesen, B., Münch, R., & Smelser, N. J. (Eds.). (1987). ''The micro-macro link.'' Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. *

Anthony Giddens Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is t ...

(1986). ''The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration.'' Berkeley: University of California Press. * Jones, B., Gallagher, B. J., & McFalls, J. A. (1995). ''Sociology. Micro, macro, and mega structures.'' Ft. Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace. * Knorr-Cetina, K., & Cicourel, A. V. (Eds.). (1981). ''Advances in social theory and methodology. Towards an integration of micro- and macrosociologies.'' London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. * Tepperman, L., & Rosenberg, M. M. (1998). ''Macro/micro: A brief introduction to sociology.'' Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall Canada. * Teun A. van Dijk (1980). ''Macrostructures: An interdisciplinary study of global structures in discourse, interaction, and cognition.'' Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Sociological terminology