social integration and system integration

Social and system integrationFig. 29 Social and system integration.

social integration and system integration

the distinction (LOCKWOOD, 1964) between INTEGRATION into society that arises from SOCIALIZATION and from agreement on values – social integration - and integration which occurs as the result of the operation of the social 'substratum’, e.g. as unintended consequences of economic relations or structures of power – system integration. What Lockwood wished to stress was that the two forms of integration are not the same, and that any analysis of society must distinguish carefully between them, something he accused some forms of FUNCTIONALISM as failing to do.

As elaborated by GIDDENS (1984) (see Fig. 29), while social integration can be seen as

arising particularly from the face-to-face interaction of individual social actors, system integration is far more a matter of interaction at a distance, and involves ‘reproduced practices’which arise from the interrelation of groups and collectivities and the operation of institutions, processes which tend to occur behind the backs of the individuals involved.