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- Title
SMALL GROUP AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION.
- Authors
Cloyd, Jerry S.
- Abstract
Small group studies have typically employed a frame of reference in which observed phenomena are regarded as the spontaneous Product of face-to-face contact in a specified situation. Social structure has been conceived as either artificially and formally imposed from outside the group or as emergent from the interaction among the group's members. It is suggested here that the small group as such exhibits many of the characteristics of a social institution. Evidence for this view is found in the linkage among the small group with important cultural, values, in popular criteria for the evaluation of groups and behavior within them, in explicit socialization for small group behavior, in the sanctions applied to persons who are ineffective in small group relationships and in structural patterns common to concretely unique groups. Treating the small group as social institution has certain implications for interpreting past research and beginning new lines of investigation; these are examined.
- Subjects
SMALL groups; SOCIAL institutions; SOCIALIZATION; BEHAVIOR; INVESTIGATIONS; SOCIAL structure
- Publication
American Sociological Review, 1965, Vol 30, Issue 3, p394
- ISSN
0003-1224
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2090720