Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T09:58:13.187Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Three Descriptive Models of Social Structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Philip K. Bock
Philip K. Bock*
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, three descriptive models are described and compared in an attempt to discover the minimum number of concepts and relations necessary to an abstract description of social structure. It is argued that a “situational model” which uses the concepts of social time, social space and social role together with the relations of internal structure and external distribution is both adequate to the task and superior to the two other models. The advantages and implications of the situational model are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 1967 , pp. 168 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1] Bock, Philip, The Social Structure of a Canadian Indian Reserve, unpublished dissertation, Harvard University, (1962).Google Scholar
[2] Bock, Philip, “Social Structure and Language Structure,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, V. 20, No. 4, (1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3] Bock, Philip, “Social Time and Institutional Conflict,” Human Organization, V. 25, No. 2, (1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Frake, Charles O., “A Structural Description of Subanun ‘Religious Behavior‘”, pp. 111–129 of Explorations in Cultural Anthropology, edited by Ward H. Goodenough, New York, (1961).Google Scholar
[5] Hempel, Carl G., “On the Nature of Mathematical Truth,” in The Mathematical Way of Thinking, edited by James R. Newman, New York, (1956).Google Scholar
[6] Nadel, S. F., The Theory of Social Structure, Glencoe, (1957).Google Scholar
[7] Oliver, Douglas, “An Ethnographer's Method for Formulating Descriptions of ‘Social Structure‘”, American Anthropologist, V. 60, No. 5, (1958).Google Scholar
[8] Pike, Kenneth L., Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, Part I, Glendale, (1954).Google Scholar
[9] Wallace, Anthony F. C., Culture and Personality, New York, (1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar