Social Differentiation Research Paper

Social differentiation means both a process and a structure. In structural terms, it refers to the fact that a unit of analysis, such as a society, consists of a number of distinct parts. These parts may be of the same kind, such as families as the basic components of tribal societies. Or the parts may be different, such as the subsystems—economy, politics, mass media, etc.—making up modern society. As a process, social differentiation is the dynamic that brings about and changes a given structure of differentiation.

Two fundamentally diverging views of the social differentiation of modern society have been put forward in sociological thought. These views do not strictly contradict, but balance each other in important respects. In the following, the partly opposing but mostly complementary relationship between both views will be sketched, with respect to the features, causes, and consequences of social differentiation. The focus of attention will be put on the differentiation of modern society.

1. Social Differentiation As Decomposition Or Emergence

For Durkheim and Parsons as the most important representatives of the first view of social differentiation, it is a process of decomposition of a functionally diffuse unit—a role, or an institution— into several, functionally more specific units. This idea is modeled after the division of labor in work organizations, a process which fascinated nineteenth-century thinkers. Durkheim’s major illustration is the widespread specialization of occupations in industrial society. In Parsons’ more abstract analysis, the theoretical and structural-functional analytical framework of society is composed of four principal subsystems (economy, polity, societal community, and fiduciary system) each of which fulfills one of the four fundamental functional prerequisites of societal reproduction. Social differentiation as a process of social change tends towards a successive decomposition of each of these subsystems into four second-level subsystems. Parsons called this ‘functional differentiation,’ a term that is still used to describe the type of differentiation of modern society. His analytical perspective, Parsons suggests, is validated empirically over time by the concrete differentiation of social roles and institutions.

In structural terms, the decomposition perspective on social differentiation highlights the advantages of specialization for society, which are basically the same as on the organizational level. Specialization greatly improves performance. For instance, if formal education in schools is differentiated from the family, where education was previously concentrated, both sides profit in terms of functional efficiency and effectiveness—teachers can rely on primary socialization accomplished by parents and are able to focus on secondary socialization, and vice versa.

In contrast to this perspective of social differentiation as a fruitful division of labor, Weber portrayed the birth and composition of modern society as the emergence of a number of autonomous ‘valuespheres.’ One after another, science, law, art, politics, economics, sexuality, and others freed themselves from their former domination by religious ideas. These value-spheres became societal domains of their own which cultivate their particular central value without concern for the value orientations of other domains. Science, for instance, does not care about economic profits, aesthetic beauty, legality, or the conformity of its truths with religious doctrine. Weber (1919, pp. 27–8) speaks graphically about the ‘polytheism’ of value-spheres in modern society.

Luhmann formulates this second perspective on social differentiation even more to the point. To him, society consists of about a dozen subsystems in each of which communication is guided by a specific binary code. For example, the science systems binary code is true untrue, the legal systems legal illegal. The binary code of each subsystem establishes a highly selective searchlight onto the social world, illuminating certain corners of it and leaving the rest in the dark.

The binary codes generate self-referentially closed universes of communication. Thus, a societal subsystem consists of chains of communications each of which refers to other communications of the same kind. For this fundamental feature, Luhmann picks up the concept of ‘autopoiesis’ from biological thinking. To illustrate, in the social system of science assertions of truth are the specific kind of communication. These assertions, usually made in scientific publications, lead to other such assertions, and—within science—not to political declarations or declarations of love. Any scientific publication, if it provokes any reactions at all, is either affirmed or rejected by later publications. Which of these two eventualities happen does not matter with respect to the reproduction of science as a societal subsystem. In both instances science continues as an open-ended sequence of publications.

Luhmann’s conceptualization is better suited than Weber’s to grasp the basic dynamics of continual reproduction of a societal subsystem or value-sphere. For both, each subsystem can take only its own codedetermined perspective on social events. In science, nothing but its own concerns are important, and the same holds true for all other subsystems. The overall result is an effective multiplication of society with respect to the communicative meanings of events. An event, such as a train accident, looks totally different from the point of view of the economy, compared to the point of view of science, compared to the point of view of the health care system, compared to the point of view of the mass media, and so on. Borrowing a term from philosopher Gotthard Guenther, Luhmann (1997) calls this the ‘polycontexturality’ of modern society.

Although all subsystems have, in this sense, no ‘window’ to the social world outside, this basic autonomy goes along with an openness to their societal environment with respect to resources and functional performance. The science subsystem, for instance, needs financial resources among other things, and gets them from the political subsystem, or the economy. In the other direction, science provides these and other societal subsystems with knowledge. Since all societal subsystems make essential contributions to the reproduction of many others and none of them can substitute any other one, each is a functional prerequisite of modern society. Modern society would break down without economy, but also without mass media, or without a health care system, and the latter could not be replaced, for example, by politics or education.

Despite these manifold mutual dependencies, Luhmann insists that it makes no sense to understand the ensemble of societal subsystems as a division of labor. In a division of labor, the subsystems as parts are teleologically oriented towards the performance and maintenance of the whole society. Thus, the whole comes first, historically and logically, and decomposes itself for its own benefit. By contrast, Weber and Luhmann emphasize that social differentiation consists of a simultaneous birth and liberation of the parts. They emerge and become autonomous from each other and from the whole. Even more, the whole vanishes in the sense that it becomes nothing more than the—often tension-ridden and antagonistic— interrelationship of the parts.

2. Causes Of Social Differentiation

Both analytical perspectives identify different driving forces of social differentiation. Four kinds of causal factors can be distinguished, improvements of performance, evolution, cultural ideas, and interests of actors.

The first causal factor, improvements of performance by specialization, was especially emphasized by Parsons and structural-functionalist studies of social differentiation. Such specialization is initiated either by performance deficits of existing structures of differentiation, or by opportunities to improve a satisfactory level of performance. An example of the problem driven dynamic is the previously mentioned differentiation of the education system. Schools, and a duty of all children to attend them, were established because other societal subsystems, especially the economy, needed a general level of cognitive skills and social discipline within the population that could no longer be provided by the family alone. A differentiation dynamic driven by opportunities was the spur for differentiation of the radio and television sector within the mass media. Entirely new possibilities of public communication opened up by the technological innovations of radio and television, rather than any perceived performance deficits of newspapers, caused the sectoral differentiation of roles and organizations within mass media.

By contrast to a planned division of labor within organizations, on the societal level performance improvements by differentiation occur often as unintended results of actions motivated by quite different reasons. In this sense, Parsons already relied on evolution as the mechanism that brings about performance improvements. In contrast, Luhmann gives up all connotations of evolution with progress. Adopting neo-Darwinian evolutionary thinking from biology, he conceives of evolution as an interplay of three mechanisms, variation, selection, and retention. Each societal subsystem has its own specific evolutionary mechanisms. For instance, in the science subsystem most publications are variations of the existing body of knowledge. Selection happens whenever one of these publications is cited affirmatively. Retention occurs when this new knowledge is incorporated into overview and review articles and into textbooks for students. As in biological evolution, most variations are not selected, and most of those selected do not reach the stage of retention. This evolutionary cognitive growth and differentiation goes along with a social differentiation of scientific specialties.

Luhmann does not deny that this evolution of the science system may bring about performance improvements usually called ‘scientific progress.’ But for him, this is no necessary outcome of evolutionary differentiation. Evolution may also lead to dysfunctional differentiation. For instance, the growing quest for interdisciplinary research indicates an over-specialization in more and more scientific fields. An understanding of evolutionary differentiation as progress becomes even more dubious in other societal subsystems, such as art, politics, or the mass media. But even if evolutionary differentiation on the level of each subsystem would result in performance improvements of all of them, the overall result for society would not add up to progress but only to an increase of societal complexity which manifests itself particularly in a growing destabilization of society. Each evolutionary change within one subsystem is also a change of the societal environment of all other subsystems. For them, often adaptive changes become necessary each of which again changes the societal environment, with new adaptive pressures arising. Thus, social differentiation becomes permanently autodynamic. Until now, these dynamics often brought about increasing differentiation. But Parsons’ statement that this is a linear and unlimited social process is clearly wrong as not only Luhmann’s theoretical reflections point out but also empirical cases presented especially by the ‘neofunctionalists’ demonstrate.

A third driving force of social differentiation was already mentioned with respect to Weber: an auto- dynamic rationalization of cultural ideas. In pre- modern societies the values that today constitute the guiding principles of the various societal subsystems were closely interwoven with each other and, more- over, integrated into an encompassing order of religious values. The differentiation of the principal subsystems of modern society is understood by Weber as a gradual but irresistible separation of economic, political, scientific, aesthetic, legal, erotic, and other values, first, from the religious context, and second, from each other. This dynamic is triggered and sustained by the compelling intellectual urge to contemplate extensively the implications and consequences of each value for everyday life. When this rationalization reaches the point where each value is rigorously reflected in its own terms, without regard to others, soon a self-referential closure of value-spheres occurs, giving way to a corresponding differentiation of roles, organizations, and subsystems.

The fourth driving force of social differentiation is the general interests of individual, collective, or corporate actors who are involved in constellations with each other. One explanation of an ongoing division of labor mentioned by Durkheim is growing ‘social density’ resulting in an intensification of competition among actors. This constellation evokes an interest to preserve one’s own domain of action, be it an occupation for an individual or a market position for a firm. This interest, in turn, leads many of the respective actors to find new niches for themselves where they are relieved from high competitive pressure. The aggregate effect of such domain-preserving activities is social differentiation on the level of roles and organizations.

Other general interests of actors that often stimulate dynamics of social differentiation are the preservation or extension of one’s autonomy, of one’s control of other actors, and of one’s resource base. Some professions, especially those guided by such interests were strong carriers of the differentiation of certain societal subsystems including science, law, education, and health care. Sometimes, a particular kind of social differentiation is the explicit goal of certain groups of actors who believe that this will serve their interests best. In other cases, social differentiation is an unnoticed, unforeseen, or unwanted effect of actors’ pursuit of their interests. Outcomes often diverge markedly from intentions because usually the relevant constellation consists of actors in quite different positions: catalyzers and promoters of the respective process of change; followers who join in when a ‘critical mass’ has been mobilized; defenders of the status quo who resist any change; more open-minded defenders with whom compromises are possible; and those who are indifferent or indecisive at the beginning and whom the promoters of change as well as the defenders of the status quo try to recruit as allies.

Each of these four kinds of driving-forces is causally relevant in the dynamics of social differentiation, although the combination varies greatly from one case to another. Often these factors are interrelated. Thus, what actors understand as their interests are framed by cultural ideas. Cultural ideas as well as actors’ interests are explicit or implicit criteria to judge the performance of a given differentiation structure; and ice versa, performance deficits provoke actors’ interests. Finally, the evolution of societal subsystems creates new challenges, restrictions, and opportunities for the pursuit of interests and the spelling out of cultural ideas.

3. Consequences Of Social Differentiation

The differentiation of modern society became a central theme not just of sociological thought but also of public discourse in the nineteenth century, and still is today. This is because social differentiation has far-reaching consequences for society at large, as well as for each individual member of it. These consequences are neither totally positive nor totally negative but a mixed blessing.

To begin with, the modern individual profits from role differentiation and an enormous increase of options in every sphere of life, from economic markets for goods and services to opportunities of political participation, sports activities, lifelong education, and cultural life. The abundance of options is the result of performance improvements in all societal subsystems and of an inclusion of all members of society into the status of customers, clients, and public of the subsystems. In connection with the polycontexturality of modern society, role differentiation and the growth of options allow each person to become an individual in the proper sense of the word: a person who creates a unique biography for himself or herself. However, options are only one side of a person’s ‘life chances’ (Dahrendorf 1979). The other side includes ‘ligatures,’ meaningful attachments which tie a person to certain institutions, cultural worlds, social groups, or communities. In this respect, the functional differentiation of modern society seems to neglect important psychic needs of persons. Ligatures are eroded by ‘polycon texturality’ and individualization. As a consequence, anomy, alienation, and other experiences of meaninglessness are present in modern society, not just as individual misfortunes and temporary phenomena, but as structurally produced permanent vulnerabilities of everyone.

Looking at society at large, social differentiation exhibits the same kind of ambivalence. First, it is obvious that functional differentiation is evolutionary highly successful. All kinds of premodern, traditional societies were overrun by those national societies from Europe and North America that converted to functional differentiation since the sixteenth century. Worldwide, there was no alternative to the adoption of functional differentiation. As shown by the socialist experience, those countries that tried to stop halfway failed. Countries where the political system attempted to control all other subsystems were beaten by the fully developed functional differentiation of Western countries, as Parsons, among others, had anticipated in the 1960s .

However, global supremacy of a fully-fledged functional differentiation implies serious problems. Their common denominator is an endangering of the integration of modern society. More precisely, systems integration, social integration, and ecological integration must be distinguished.

Systems integration seems to be the least problematic aspect. Coordination and cooperation among different subsystems of modern society is obviously possible, despite the fact that each of them is governed by its own self-referential binary code. But there are manifold interrelationships by which subsystems adapt to each other in a decentralized way. Where this does not suffice, representatives of subsystems, such as the respective interest groups, meet and bargain for common solutions in the political arena. Finally, political guidance may support or promote intersystems adaptation and bargaining among subsystems. Thus, problems of systems integration remain fragmented and manageable for modern society.

With social integration, it is different. The integration of individual members into modern society may be precarious as a result of the already mentioned erosion of ligatures. More important could be the fact that the increase in individual options might put excessive demands on all subsystems’ abilities in the long run. In this respect, social inequality and the subsystems’ unlimited drive to improve their performance work hand in hand. In conflicts among those who, as individuals, profit more and those who profit less from a particular subsystem’s performance, the former will try to avoid redistribution. One way to achieve this is a growth of the subsystem’s performance so that those whose claims were not satisfied can be served some- what better without those who were better of giving up anything. For instance, children from the lower classes have got access to higher education. But this has been no zero-sum conflict in which the higher classes have lost some of their educational opportunities but a positive-sum constellation because the higher education sector has been extended—which has fitted also the interests of the respective groups of teachers and professors and has been reinforced by the cultural imperative of ‘progress.’ Such dynamics, driven by complementary interests and backed by powerful cultural ideas could go on forever, were there no limits to subsystems’ growth. But because these limits exist, for example with respect to resources, continuing inequalities contain a potential for serious social conflict to which functional differentiation has no ready answer.

Finally, the functional differentiation of modern society is a major cause of the growing problems of ecological integration. Modern society’s path away from a ‘sustainable’ relationship with its natural environment has occurred as a result of two basic characteristics of all societal subsystems, their growth tendencies, and the neglect of ecological aspects by their binary codes. The modern economy is the most obvious example, but the same is true of the family, the subsystem primarily responsible for population growth. No societal subsystem exists now that takes care of the ecology, only social movements address their protest to the political system. But this subsystem, following its binary code of maintaining and increasing power, must listen to many other demands from society and so often disregards ecological concerns.

Thus, the functional differentiation of modern ‘world society’ is a high-risk outcome of social evolution. No alternative to this type of social differentiation is apparent as an option for the future. But whether modern society can survive in this way or will ruin itself sooner or later is an open question that sociological theories of social differentiation cannot answer. Theorists can only observe what has happened previously and infer warnings from this.

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