Question 4. Types of social communities

Julia Zamroz

Topic 1. Sociology as a science

Question 1. The notion of Sociology
The term «sociology» is derived from two words: Latin «societas» - «сommunity» and Greek «logos» - «teaching, science». Thus, sociology means «the science of society» by its name. This science appears relatively late: only in 30s -40s of the nineteenth century. It is issued as a separate branch of scientific knowledge. It can not be said that in the history of human thought (thinking), researchers have not applied to the problems of society, its social groups, problems of human, but these appeals were characterized as not systematic, fragmentary and were constructive, that is not confirmed by the specific empirical researches.

The formation and accumulation of knowledge about society, its components and human place in his life began with the ancient times, based on the idea of primitive people, reflected in myths, legends and heroic epics. Over time, about two and a half millenary ago, based on the original mythology, philosophy emerged. This philosophy in the early stages of its existence was cumulative knowledge about the world and contained the elements of mathematical, astronomical and other knowledge, and afterwards was called "mother of all sciences."

Gradually social philosophy becomes a separate branch of philosophy, absorbing numerous attempts to explain social phenomena, the basic nature and purpose of man. Except philosophy, social processes and phenomena were also studied by history. In the ancient world the development of philosophy and history was carried out in parallel, their research fields did not overlap. Philosophy with its abstract and speculative understanding of social reality was far from the real social life in its unique, individual forms. History avoided philosophically-theoretical generalizations, being directed just for investigation and description of the unique and unforgettable phenomena and life of the historical figures.

Moreover, history has been always considered as the science of the past, while social philosophy tended to attempts of the current society understanding. Nevertheless, a social philosophy can be considered as the precursor of sociology, as its representatives made ​​the subject of their analysis certain aspects of social life and human place in it.

However, philosophers of antiquity did not regard society as a separate and independent constitution with its own development of his characteristic mechanisms and driving forces. For them, society and social life was an integral part of the total space being which was independent of man and his will. Thus, the philosophers of the ancient world regarded society not as an autonomous coherent social system with capabilities of self-development and self-improvement, but how simple or complicated subject of study according to analogy with other natural objects.

Besides, the ancient philosophical notions of society and man had an abstract, out of experimental character.
By the age of antiquity issued two trends in the understanding of the society emergence and human nature. The first was to spread ideas that society is a natural formation, then a man naturally belongs to the natural world and is essentially a social being. From its birth man enters the society and can not exist without it; coexistence of people in society is also a natural, voluntary and interconnected with other people. State in this case serves as a wise master which helps to ensure a fair distribution of benefits and organize defense against external enemies.

Other thinkers of antiquity, on the contrary, considered society as artificial which is necessary in order to develop from the person-half-animal individual member of society and curb her instinctive traits such as aggressiveness, selfishness, hostility to each other. Man was understood as a part of nature, subject to natural laws, such as the struggle for survival and natural selection. Here state already has to rely on power and coercion to prevent hostility and loosening of social order, stop the "war of all against all."
Thus, both these trends reflected the general belief that man is the highest product of nature development (according to the first trend, with all its innate characteristics and social aspirations to the coexistence with their own kind, according to the second - with a predominance of animal instincts, from which it was to deprive). Differences concerned the interpretation of society: in the first case it was also higher organic natural stage of development and based on the agreed will of the people to a joint life, in the second - artificially created mechanism or a means of socialization with a help of violence and coercion.
Between these two trends there were many intermediate points of view. Also not to mention the Middle Ages, when the ruling belief was that both the man and the environment of its existence was created by God. But then the idea of ​​sociality and the problem of the human and society origin were losing sense because everything on earth existed from the will of God and therefore had only one universal explanation. Such understanding of the origin of man and society contains in the religious sociology, which is one of the components of theology.

Secular sociology is interested in the main question: how possible is society? After all, if it is not created by God, it is created by people. But how and in what way? And why society is in constant conflicts and wars? What should we do to exercise social progress peacefully, to provide a decent life of a man? This required a scientific explanation, and so far as on the beginning of the nineteenth century the greatest success achieved Natural Sciences and actually social reality was sought to explore according to analogy of natural sciences, using an appropriate scientific methods. Therefore, the first name which have been taken to the definition of the social science was a "social physics"; conditions that it investigated, were called "social statics" and "social dynamics", the structure of society was borrowed or from machinery and its parts, or from the organism with its complex structure. The very same term "sociology" was introduced to the scientific circulation only in 1839 for the definition of the social science, the main theoretical positions of which had to be based on experimental data. It was the first among the socio-humanities sciences, theoretical principles and constructions of which have been deprived of abstract and speculative nature.
Thus, sociology in the most general form can be defined as the science of society created by people for common life.

Nadiya Karabyn

Question 2. The main levels of sociological analysis

If sociology it is a science about society, established by the people in the process of common vital activity, according to this appears two main opportunities of sociological analysis and accordingly two different investigated units that are in the process of investigation between the sociologists.

The first one – conviction, that appeared in the 30-40ths in the 19 century, where the society comes forward as the main unit of analysis. But which society? As there exist many countries and nations, societies of which have convergent and divergent features. That’s why, from influence on the formation of sociology revolution in the natural science at the end of the 18^th century beginning of the 19^th, the process of formation national states also played a vital role, which began in the West Europe from the times of French Revolution in 1789. The appearance of these states and the establishment their territorial boundary caused that the notion “society” became identical to the nation-state that existed on the certain territory. Afterwards during the second part of the 19^th century appears so called “container sociology”, that is a science about the development of a certain society in its national-state and territory boundaries. The expression “container sociology” was introduced by a famous German sociologist U. Bekom and created on the analogy with a big box or basket for transportation of goods, in which where imaginations of sociologists about social phenomena of different levels of complexity, typical to the society to which they belong.

So, at the early stages of the existence of sociology as a science about a society in the circle of sociologists, the positivistic vision of society as a macro system with coherent structure and functions dominates. At the center of research attention of sociologists there are large social constitutions as state, economical and cultural life, such generaly-social processes as distribution of work and appearance of collective responsibility, integration, transformation and social changes, revolutions and wars, and also social structure and classes as well as the layers. Such macro sociological analysis (derives from Greek word “macros” – great) practically releases person from her view, her role in social development and functioning of society.

That’s why, the other sociologist, inversely, looks at person as the main object of research, trying to clarify why, what for and how this person creates society and lives inside it. With the use of micro level of sociological analyses (derives from Greek word “micros” – small, little) on the foreground appears will and aspiration for living together and creation of “soziums”, groups of people; consciousness and motives of actions of personality, realias of everyday vital activity, other phenomena of spiritual inner world, interaction of people and cooperation within them. Such approach contrary to positivists sociology appears at the beginning of the 20^th century and is best manifested in “understanding sociology” of great and well-known German scientist M. Veber, in the center of which is personality.

In such a way, from the very beginnings of the existence of sociology in the theoretical imaginations dominated two polar paradigms, which were based on the different levels of sociological analyses, namely structure and interpretative paradigm or macro and micro sociology. The representatives of the first one were mostly interested in problems of functioning and its macrostructural components, and the representatives of the other – person-subject as a creator of social connection and institutions and active participant of social relations, as a builder of this society.

The two different methods of sociological thinking are put into practice in these two approaches: thought about social changes as a result of independent from people objective regularities and idea in reference to produce these changes by social subject-personalities. That’s why such gap is called macro-micro dilemma, and polarization of macro-micro orientations was tendency characteristic for majority of sociological theories in the 20^th century.

In this sense Ukrainian sociology takes specific position. While in the west sociological opinion were debates around polarity macro-and micro levels, the representatives of domestic sociology, which was developing in immigration between the First and Second World Wars, were actively developing mesolevel (from Greek “mesos” – middle) sociological analyses. This peculiarity was specified by the defeat of national liberation movement 1917-1920 and next in turn loss of its independence by Ukraine. Therefore, the most patriotic representatives of Ukrainian science in the period of emigration asked a question that could not give an answer any history or political or economic science-What is the Ukrainian nation-a nation-state or nation-culture? Why every time independence ended in failure, loss of statehood setting power of other countries?Is it possible the continued existence of the Ukrainian nation and what are the prospect derivation and maintaining their own state? To answer this question,they turned to sociology,which called knowledge of community (No wonder one of the first purely social institutions Ukrainian abroad was called ‘’Ukrainian Institute knowledge of community’’).This reflected the attention of the Ukrainian sociologists primarily to those social groups, communities (such as a nation,family,religious community) by which the Ukrainian nation could survive even under outlandish domination and keep the energy of national revival.

Meso- level of sociological analysis combines individual and society, micro and macro level,the existence of social reality as it is through community man is a social life and makes connections with broader social institutions and structures. Since the birth of their child developing in the first small, then in an increasingly complex group formations and communities, ranging from family while man has ability to form new social groups and through them to their interaction with the macro-level entities. In modern society,regardless of his social and political structure increasing human desire to be in an environment of ‘’their’’ loved herspirit, history, language, specialty and other chararacteristics of associations of people in social groups like-minded fellow belivers and representatives of some styles life such groups in modern sociology is often called the reference. These groups serve for the individual model, the system timer to measure himself and ‘’others’’ and one of the foundations of certain social attitudes,behaviors and values. When using a computer language, meso-level of sociological analysis or dual interface supports integer,which merge upper and lower level. If Ukrainian sociologists have shown interest in the dominant social groups and communities a level of social reality, even in 20-ies of XX century. In modern sociological thought of the West similar interest emerged much later. The famous American scholar N.Smelzer says that only the beginning 90-ies of XX century in the United States was formed association of sociologists called meso, it grew from dissatisfaction of the researches of the country macro-micro ways separation and loss of so-called ‘’middle’’, which they believe is a critical link between individual and social. The focus of this research team is now focused on the phenomena ofa level-groups,organizations, social movements and so on and on priority needs of their study. However, the situation in the world sociological thought in the last quarter of the twenties century.Significantly changed due to the influence of globalization. This globalization of its destruction of borders between state caused a fundamental review of the subject field of sociology, led to the need for revision of current theoretical ideas about the main unit of analysis, determined the search of new research technology. The most important may be consider a general belief of sociologists that huge social change,for example. XX-the beginning. XXl century lead to the gradual formation of a higher level of social reality-humanity as one global meha-system. American sociologist N.Smelzer in 1995 put forward and substantiated position on the creation of the world community with the globe and new global realities that should explore global sociology, first destroying the unity of the nation state and national society, increasing the number of transnational actors and interconnection complexity connections and relationshaips between them.The formation of a global sociology of sociological analysis requires transfer to a new and higher meha-level,calling in the subject feld in terms of infinite variety of the social world-a world without border with its new transnational spaces,new dimensions of time that has the ability to equally shrink and expand,with new risks and increasingly of regionally global communication networks are the subject of global transformations as first ‘’World Wide Web’’ Internet. Thus,starting from 30-40-ies of XlX and the 80-ies of XX century sociology developed as a science of society in its national-state and regional borders and used the micro-,meso- and macro level analysis of social reality. In the first case the main unit of analysis and the dominant subject of scientific interest sociologists person was in the second-social group/community, in the third –a particular society in its geographical constraints,economic independence and political lintegrity, social solidarity and cultural identity. The rapid proliferation of globazition has caused the need to switch to meha level sociological analysis of humanity with its basic unit of analysis and the subject of research as a global meha system which is now in the making.

Oksana Venslavovych

Question 3. Sociology as a science of social communities

Contemporary sociology has at least four levels of sociological analysis of social reality: micro-, meso-, macro-and mega levels with the corresponding four units of analysis: individual, community / social group, society in its national and state borders and mega community or global world society that is formed by the processes of globalization.

Formation of Ukrainian sociology began in the early twentieth century. It has its original face and its specificity. These peculiarities are caused by (predetermined by) the issues of mega level of sociological analysis being put into the first place. They are mainly concerned with the formation and functioning of social communities, which are formed by people and make up any particular society. In terms of sociology a social community is a particular social group, an existing aggregate of individuals that can be empirically fixed, and which is characterized by a relative integrity. Social communities arise throughout the process of historical development of mankind at all its levels and differ with a huge variety of diverse forms and meaningful links within them. They are the product of activities of people who during their lives are members of existing communities and create new ones. In the early stages of human development people united into families, genera and tribes based on incest relations. In these primitive communities they were searching for a protection from wild animals, natural forces or external enemies. In other words in the early stages of the development of mankind people tended to create communities rather guided by the external factors, the desire to ensure their existence and to survive in a hostile and threatening world.

With time, other motives appeared, the unification became based on common industrial interests and needs, religious believes, political views, personal preferences etc. In other words, with the development of the society, external objective factors, which have caused the creation of the primitive communities, increasingly yielded to the internal subjective (i.e. depending on person) aspects of human coexistence.

According to Ukrainian sociological tradition the centre of social life of the Ukrainians has long been considered to be a community. The community had existed since the ancient times and acquired various social and legal meaning. At first the communities were the main territorial-administrative units connected with one dwelling; there were also religious communities, the community of shared property and others. A characteristic feature of communities was self-government (public assembly), which operated in the cities and villages of Ukraine for a long historical period of time. Later on, the communities within the meaning of territorial and administrative units yielded to communities as centers of national, cultural, social and political life of the Ukrainian intelligentsia (2^nd half of the XIX – the beginning of the XX century). Thus, for the Ukrainian nation throughout the whole history of its existence the social life was built around the community, through them an average person stepped into this life and managed (provided) links with broader social institutions such as state or political parties and movements.

This is also reflected in the Ukrainian sociological thought and the activities of local sociologists, one of the first purely social institutions was called Ukrainian Institute of Sociology (Український інститут громадознавства) (set up in Vienna by M. Hrushevsky in 1919 and later moved to Prague, where it functioned from 1924 to 1945). Thus, in the interwar years among Ukrainian scholars, social scientists who were in exile, an understanding of sociology remained as a science of the social community, and sociology itself was called hromadoznavstvo.

Apparently, this also explained by the fact of the huge interest in sociology of Ukrainian scientists and social and political activists in exile, who were creating there the first sociological centers (faculties and departments of sociology), since in Soviet Ukraine sociology was proclaimed bourgeois science and virtually stopped existing, partly restored only after the so-called "thaw" beg. 60-ies of XX century. M. Hrushevsky (prominent Ukrainian historian and president of the Ukrainian People's Republic), M. Shapoval (politician and Minister of Land Affairs in the government Hrushevsky) and representatives of other professions and tastes among Ukrainian emigrants turned to sociology, hoping to clarify the real state of Ukrainian society as well as the possibility of the development of Ukrainian community to the condition of being able to have its own independent state.

The specific feature of Ukrainian sociology is its primary reference to the problems of communities and social groups and, therefore, the use of the Meso level of sociological analysis to clarify and expand the definition of sociology.

Sociology is the science of the formation and functioning of social communities that make up a separate society and humanity in general and between which there are certain social relations and interactions, as well as the social man, the creator of these communities and the main subject of historical development.

Iryna Orlovych

Question 4. Types of social communities

If to consider sociology being a science about social communities that are created by people and with the help of which a person enters public life and makes connections and relations with wider social institutes (e.g. country or political movements), it is necessary to find out, which meaning sociologists put into this concept and which changes, caused by the processes of globalization, characterize the development of modern communities.

Thus, social community in a Short sociological dictionary edited by V. Volovych is determined as relatively permanent totality of people, united by common signs; this is a social organization that fulfills common economic, political, cultural and other tasks and has a certain social organization. Society consists of numbers of different communities, types of which are distinguished by different criteria.

1. When talking about the oldest communities, we mean communities created on ties of blood: household, family in a wider meaning of the word.

2. By social-demographic criterion such organizations as men, women, youth, seniors etc. are distinguished.

3. By the principle of settling and occupied territory settling and territorial-regional communities are investigated: this can be the population of a city, a village, certain region (e.g. Eastern or Western Ukraine).

4. These are also the communities based on the ground of cultural-historical and ethnic originality: people, nations.

5. By the criterion of distribution according to work and occupational activities certain classes, layers and statuses are distinguished.

6. The use of the criterion of unity of goal-seeking activity gives the opportunity to pick out, for example, the adherents of some political ideas, members of religious organizations, creators of art movements and styles, non-registered organizations of different kings etc.

7. Under macrocommunity we can consider the whole society of one or another country (e.g. Ukrainian society).

8. By the thoughts of many modern sociologists, mankind is the megacommunity of the global character.

Thus, the quantity of communities is increasing in course of time that assures the growing activity of a man in creation of different forms of human life together.

Sociology records certain distinctions between communities, they differ by:

- quantative structure (the smallest social community – a family – consists of two people, an the biggest – mankind – numbers 6.5 billion of population);

- time of existence (from a few hours, as for example the community of football fans on the football match, and to the millenniums, if we talk about the age of the mankind);

- the principle of joining (community of interests and taste or the way and character of spending free time can represent these principles);

- the level of unity and system of organization (from non-registered groups to the organizations and parties with their statuses and programs);

- character of activity (directed for the good of society or antisocial, crucial referring to it; spontaneous or goal-seeking; passively-contemplative or actively-transformative etc.).

A person enters these communities from the very beginning of his/her life, and after a while creates new, according to the conditions of his/her evolution and existence. Thus the individual can enter different communities simultaneously. For example, students of higher educational establishments can be at the same time the representatives of some family, nation, settling or regional community, the members of some political party or adherents of some political idea, be a part of different public (including student) organizations, be the members of sport community (take part in the activities of some sport section), fan-club, be the members of different Internet-communities such as “Odnoklasniki” or “Vkontakte”, be the representatives of certain social networks etc.

The development of the processes of globalization also has put its imprint on the creation and functioning of social communities at the end of XX – at the beginning of XXI century. We can group the qualitatively new characteristics of the social communities of globalization period the following way:

- if during the former eras of human existence the social communities were tightly connected with certain territory and existed in the boundaries of the particular national country, then new communities of the global world are by their nature transnational, that is to say they are created in the global social spaces and unite people of different nations and people from different countries of the world. These new global communities can be built on the ground of common religious beliefs, продукування? of knowledge, styles of living, political likes and dislikes etc. It is possible to consider migrants, that are not tied to only one place of living and looking for a job or political shelter move from country to country and that are united by the connections of a new type, being such a transnational community. The new quality of these communities lies in the fact that they often don’t predict the direct contacts between their members, they are imagined or virtual (for example numerous Internet-communities). Their main features are short life, anonymity, flexibility, the ability to appear and disappear according to the changeable requirements of their users;

- if in the past local social communities, as a rule, didn’t cross the national-state boundaries of their country, then in the conditions of globalization a part of local communities has started globalization. Such a phenomenon of the modern world sociologists call “glocalization” and provide us with the example of non-isolated groups of people that are the users of the “ethnic” (as Chinese for example) supermarkets all around the world; are the participants of Brazilian-like carnivals away from Brazilian boundaries; are the members of Islamic or terrorist organizations and even the representatives of student communities that nowadays in acknowledged centers of education consist of people that are of different countries extraction. Another part of local communities, just the opposite, in the course of time demonstrates the tendency to weakening, dispersion, reduction in sizes and influences. Here the example of city communities is most frequently used, where zones of social interaction are being reduced, and also the existence of ghetto zones in the best developed cities of the world, in which the poorest population that almost doesn’t have the access to the places for having rest, distribution of high culture, centers of university education and so on lives

Thus, a person creates and enters different social communities from which some society or mankind on the whole consists of. With the course of history the character of communities is changing, the element of subjectivity isincreasing in them. It is about the fact that in the past a person, as a rule, was a passive participant of some communities, and they in their turn – were the objects of influence, manipulation or political pressure that was best seen in the Soviet society, where the one only ideology, only party and dictatorship of one class dominated. The beginning of XXI century assures the growth of role of communities, increase of the activity of their members, the growth of factors of their self-organization, self-management and self-perfection.

Therefore, one of the signs of present day is the increase of the level of inner organization of these communities, forming of the germs in their boundaries, and in a while partly or fully registered social institutes. In relation to the history of Ukraine, it finds its display in the long-term process of formation of the great social community of Ukrainians with the further striving of its representatives to create and build up their own country, to form multi-party system etc.

Maria Mykytska

Question 5. Social institutions and their functions

With an increase of the scale and structural complexity of social communities, the need to establish a number of social institution manifested itself. Social institution in sociology may be defined as a historically stable form of organization and regulation of common human activity, they enable functioniong of communities and society as a whole, provide for socialization of individuals, namely help to introduce them into society and to fulfill certain social functions and roles. Social institutions – are the mechanisms of self-organization of life in the society and social interaction of various communities of people. One of the founders of sociology, as an independent science, British scientist Herbert Spencer is the first, who introduces this concept in sociology. He distinguishes five major social institutions that are created within communities in order to organize effectively their internal life as well as their relations with other institutions and communities:

· Domestic or family institutions that create the smallest social community - the family, the purpose of which is to organize family life, to provide for parenting and preparation of children for adult life;

· Ritual or ceremonial institutions that establish patterns of everyday social behavior, as well as customs, rituals, etc.;

· Political institutions (government, political parties, institutions of justice, the army) that maintaine political interests and relations existing in a particular society;

· Religious institutions that provide consolidation of society, establish moral norms and principles of human coexistence;

· Professional and industrial institutions (guilds, corporations, trade unions) that are set up on the basis of division of labor.

As a rule, social institutions consist of:

• set of norms, social roles, statuses, regulations and orders;
• patterns of behavior that are supposed to be obeyed;
• system monitoring their compliance;
• special institutions, that are engaged in this activity.

With the development of society some social institutions lose their significance or as their role in social life starts to decline (this we can observe in the case of ritual-ceremonial Institute) they turn into"institutions-soothers"(definition proffered by contemporary British sociologist E. Giddens). Other social institutions, on the contrary, strengthen their social position. Besides, in the course of time new institutions emerge. Sometimes the process of creating new social institutions takes decades, this is because people as social beings seek for appropriate forms which can help organize their coexistence. However, nowadays the duration of this creating process has greatly reduced. In many countries, including Ukraine there exist simultaneously remnants of the old social institutions, old patterns of behavior, norms and laws that were inherited from the times of the USSR, and absolutelly new sprouts. Moreover, in the modern world it is a common occurrence when the social life creates new social groups, movements and initiatives, but social institutions that make them organized are not yet created. In these cases, social efficiency of those unorganized institutional formations remains insufficient and they are not able to bring considarable benefits for their participants.

Classifications of social institution are built according to certain criteria. The first typology is based on the criterion of purpose and sphere of activity. It is presented in Table 1.

№	Name of institutions	Види соціальних інститутів і типи дій	Areas of their work
1.	Economic	Property, money, banks, business associations, etc.	Provide for production and distribution of social wealth, regulate currency
2.	Political	Government, parliament, court, prosecution, etc.	All are related to the establishment, implementation and maintenance of a certain form of political power, protection and reproduction of ideological values
3.	Cultural-educational	Science, education, family, religion, art institutions	Promote the assimilation and reproduction of cultural, social values, socialization of individuals, their entry into public life
4.	Social	Social movements and associations, social funds, charities, voluntary organizations, interest clubs, and so on.	Organize voluntary association of people, regulate everyday social behavior and interpersonal relationships

According to the method of human behaviour regulation there can be distinguished formal and informal social institutions. Formal institutions conduct their activities on clear principles (laws, decrees, instructions), they perform administrative and supervisory functions based on specific sanctions, connected to incentives and penalties. These institutions include gevernment, army, school, etc. Informal institutions have no clear regulatory framework, social control is established through the rules existing in public opinion, traditions, and customs. They embrace different cultural and social foundations, associations of interest, and so on.
All social institutions fulfill certain social functions, in other words, they play certain roles in life of an individual, community or society as a whole. In an aggregate form all these functions are given in the Table 2.

№	Name	Meaning
1.	The function of establishing and reproduction of social relations	Providing the stability of social structure through rules and norms of behavior fot members of communities with the help of appropriate social control
2.	Regulatory function	Regulating relations between members of society in general and specific social communities in particular by developing specific patterns of behavior, the way person fulfills other people’a expectastions.
3.	Integrative function	The processes of cohesion, interdependence and mutual responsibility of members of social communities and society in general that takes place under the influence of institutional norms, rules, sanction, and systems of social roles.
4.	Transmitting function	Transmitting social experience to new generations of certain communities and the general public through the mechanism of socialization and acquisition of values, norms and social roles.
5.	Communicative function	Dissemination of information and various forms of communication (a) within a particular institution as a means of management and monitoring of norms and (b) outside the institution in its interaction with other social institutions.

Social institutions should not overlap and substitute for each other in their activities. However, if this still happens and one of the social institutions takes over functions of other institutions that are totally alien to him - the natural division of functions between them is destroyed, and the state of social equilibrium is disturbed, which may even lead to destruction of the existing social order. This happened, for example, during the USSR when the soviet government and Communist Party (a political institution) usurped almost all the commitments of other social institutions, brutally interfering in life of every person, every family, imposing Soviet rites and suppressing church life, building socialist economy, which purpose was not to meet the needs of people, but to strengthen the military-industrial complex, transforming trade union into the "school of communism" and depriving people of their rights of social work protection. As a result, there suffered not only a person, whose life was completely regulated and dependent on state, but society in general. Only now and still with great difficulty the process is getting to normal namely, it slowly returns to open, civil society with an extensive network of social communities and institutions with a bigger range of self-organizing and self-governing functions.
In general, the most visible for the modern societies are the activities of political, economic, social, educational, scientific and religious institutions (sociologists usually combined the last three into one group of cultural institutions).

Sofiya Olijnyk

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