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Unlock This CourseSocial control refers to the ways society encourages and enforces conformity to its norms, values and laws. It's essentially how societies maintain order and regulate the behaviour of their members. Without social control, societies would struggle to function as the shared rules that help us live together would be meaningless.
Key Definitions:
Formal social control involves official rules, laws and regulations that are written down and enforced by specific agencies like the police, courts and government. Breaking these rules typically leads to official punishments such as fines, community service, or imprisonment.
Examples: Laws against theft, speed limits, school rules about uniform and attendance.
Informal social control happens through everyday interactions with family, friends, teachers and the wider community. It works through social pressure, disapproval, praise and other reactions that encourage us to follow unwritten rules.
Examples: Parents teaching children to say "please" and "thank you", friends giving disapproving looks if you queue-jump, feeling embarrassed if you wear the wrong clothes to an event.
Social control operates through a system of sanctions - both positive and negative - that reward conformity and punish deviance. These sanctions can be formal or informal, depending on who applies them and how official they are.
Rewards given for following norms and rules:
Punishments given for breaking norms and rules:
Different social institutions play important roles in maintaining social control. Each has its own methods and focuses on different aspects of behaviour.
The first and most important agency of social control. Parents and family members teach children basic norms and values through:
Schools reinforce social control through:
The most formal agency of social control:
Religious institutions control behaviour through:
Increasingly important for social control:
Controls adult behaviour through:
Social control and deviance are two sides of the same coin. Deviance is behaviour that breaks social norms, while social control aims to prevent or respond to deviance. How societies define deviance varies widely across cultures and time periods.
Sociologists have developed several theories to explain how and why social control works:
Functionalists like Durkheim see social control as essential for maintaining social order. They argue that:
Marxists view social control as a tool of the ruling class to maintain power:
Social media has created new forms of social control in the 21st century. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Twitter have become powerful agents of informal social control:
For teenagers especially, peer approval on social media has become a powerful form of social control, with many young people reporting anxiety about how they're perceived online and changing their behaviour to fit in.
Social control varies significantly across different societies and cultures. What's considered deviant in one society might be normal or even celebrated in another.
Collectivist societies (like Japan, China) tend to rely more on:
Individualist societies (like UK, USA) tend to rely more on:
Social control has changed throughout history:
In the UK, we've seen shifts from public punishments (stocks, hangings) to rehabilitation approaches, though some argue we're now moving toward more surveillance-based control.
While social control is necessary for society to function, it's important to critically evaluate how it works and who it serves:
The challenge for any society is finding the right balance that maintains order while allowing for personal freedom and social progress.