Institutional Injustices in Education

Yiming Cao

Social 101

                          Institutional Injustices in Education  

           Every society consists of diverse types of institutions. A social institution is an established set of social norms and subsystems organized around the satisfaction of social values which are basic and vital for the continued existence of society. They prescribe the ways of doing and acting. Individuals are socialized into institutional norms and regulations. Individual is required to follow the rules and attributing to the society according their responsibilities. Moreover, the main goal of social institutions is keeping society stable and reducing the social disruption. Although, it exists in human society in every historical period with varying forms, sociologists use the term to refer these forms that including economic, governmental, family, educational and religious institutions.

          Social institutions are important because they make it possible to run state and produce its working tools from society. Meanwhile, they cannot be separated from modern societies. Every institution has its unique characteristics and service human society. Stephen J. Sills explained the point of view of Talcott Parsons who sought to understand social institutions as if they were parts of a living organism that “In the human body, there are organs that work together in a healthy, stable system. Each organ has its own function or purpose. Without the lungs, for instance, the circulatory system would fail to operate and oxygen would not make its way to other parts of the body” (Stephen, 2010). The relationship between societies and social institutions is same as it between body organs with whole body. Once the society would avoid the chaos and disorder, only if the institutions meet their proper functions or needs.

           Consider the character of institutional injustice, it composed of some organized combination of natural properties according to the system. There are different kind of injustices in our society such as cultural injustice and interpersonal injustice. Differing with the cultural and interpersonal injustice which are too complex to solve, institutional injustice is much easier because it raised according to the social institution that can be justified by government or the people who made.