Impact of Social Institutions on Caribbean People

• Social Institutions


  Influential societal frameworks that shape our lives
• Social Institutions

  • Represent a system of behavioral patterns that each society develops to meet its basic needs
  • Provide routine patterns for dealing with predictable elements in social life
  • Society shapes peoples' lives through norms, roles and values instituted and reinforced by these societal institutions
• Main social institutions that influence society

  • Family
  • Education
  • Religion
  • Justice system
• Functionalist Theory


  They see society as made up of a group of societal institutions (family, religion, education) that exists together and follow basic rules to provide peace, order and stability. If there is disorder, the various institutions will respond to preserve equilibrium. Change is suppressed as it is seen as undesirable.
• Conflict Theory


  They see the societal institution of society (family, religion, education) as oppressive and reinforcing hierarchy. They argue that the inheritance within the family, usually through the male line, serves to ensure that wealth and high status remain the domain of the elites.
• Family in the Caribbean

  Represents different ideas and beliefs that people of a certain community have about rearing children and socializing them into the norms of that particular society
• The unique experience of Caribbean society, with a myriad of cultural, economic, political and religious influences that, over time, resulted in a variety of types of family structure, none of which can be described as typical
• Main functions of a family

  • Socialization
  • Reproduction/Procreation
  • Emotional Support
  • Economic
• Socialization Function

  Teach the young the norms and values of their culture and society. Family provides the earliest set of concepts, values, knowledge and skills. No society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. Siblings and extended relatives all help to socialize children.
• Reproduction/Procreation Function

  Through procreation the family serves to provide new members to society and ensures the continuation of the human species in order for societies to survive. It also provides the framework for and means of regulating sexual activity and gratification within society.
• Emotional Support Function


  Family provides its members with love, comfort and help in time of emotional distress. Important to the mental, intellectual and social well – being of its members. Children need adequate love, care, affection and attention to develop health and stable personalities.
• Economic Function


  Family provides its members with certain basic needs, such as food, shelter and clothing and practical support in the shape of finance where possible.
• Due to the complexity of historical factors that have come to bear on Caribbean society and culture, such as slavery, colonialism, emancipation and indentureship, and the hybridization of Caribbean culture, the family in the Caribbean is a complex, fluid concept, sharing multiple creolized features brought by all the communities
• Such complexities make it difficult to define one 'typical' Caribbean family, instead of focusing on one it is suggested that we focus on the shared similarities of Caribbean families
• Main family types in the Caribbean

  • Nuclear
  • Extended
  • Visiting
  • Single parent
• Nuclear Family


  Mother, father and their unmarried children living under the same roof. Introduced by the white Christian colonizers. Nuclear family is viewed by colonial authorities as the norm or the ideal family form. other family structures were viewed as not proper or dysfunctional. Nuclear family unit re[resents the values of the rich and powerful in society. Matrifocal has become more mainstream and is mostly found among the upper and middle classes. For the working class it varies according the ethnicity and culture.
• Extended Family


  Several generation living together in one household. Several married siblings and their children, grandparents and other relatives. East Indians particularly Hindus and Muslims. Parichal in authority and is often patrilocal. Upon marriage the couple resides with the parents of the male spouse, strong kinship ties, arranged marriages and practice of endogamy are customary also strict gender socialization exists. Unique Caribbean experience has produced variants in traditional family structures.
• Single Parent Family

  Only one parent, either the mother or the father take responsibility for raising children. Matrifocal households far outnumber those headed by fathers. Early 1980s 44% of all households in Barbados were headed by a woman. The father may or may not have a role, financial or otherwise, in child rearing.
• Visiting Family

  Variation in the single parent family, involving mother and children living separately from the father, often in her parents' home and the father visits them. Parents are still in a sexual and often emotional relationship. Practice originated in slavery where planters forbade couples to form family units. Women took the responsibility while the father may or may not accept responsibility. This type of union is not generally approved in the Caribbean as it can be a source for many problem in society.
• Common – Law Unions

  A couple committing to each other in a lasting relationship without any form of registration of the marriage. Has a strict legal definition and due to their colonial past, territories have statutes concerning common law marriage similar to those in the UK. Term is widely applied to any long term relationship and there is such a high degree of recognition for this situation that these unions amount to an institution.
• The current structure of Caribbean families

  Strongly linked to the plantation system, particularly during slavery
• Colonization & Establishment of the Plantation System

  The white planters brought their families to the Caribbean and introduced and promoted the Western European idea of the nuclear family. It became entrenched in Caribbean society under colonial rule; because of the economic and social superiority of the whites during this period, the concept of the nuclear family was established as the 'ideal' family structure. This ideal survived into modern times, though in practice it is not the most common form.
• Slavery


  Planters did not allow their slaves to bond and marriage among slaves was banned. The practice of polygamy, brought from West Africa, influenced patterns of sexual activity among slaves, with men often fathering children by different women. Slave owners also often fathered children by female slaves. Slaves could be bought and sold at any time, which also mitigated against the formation of traditional family ties. However, they were allowed to procreate without forming a family unit. These factors all resulted in the formation of matrifocal households, visiting-type unions and common-law unions.
• Indentureship


  East Indians introduced the extended family in the form of a joint household – a strong patriarchal family structure with a stress on early marriage. During and after indentureship, the extended family remained dominant among the East Indians. This family type was deeply established in societies such as Guyana and Trinidad where there were very large numbers of East Indians present. Today this family form is predominant in rural areas. Many Indo-Trinidadians have chosen the nuclear families over the extended form as a result of social mobility.
• Emancipation and Migration


  After the abolition of slavery, freed blacks did not have access to land and other economic resources that were vital to their survival. As a result, some migrated to where land was more readily available. Later, the advent of industrialization created an avenue, mostly for male Afro-Caribbeans, as well as Indo-Caribbeans and Chinese-Caribbeans, to migrate (mostly to North America and Britain) in search of jobs to support their families. This mass migration perpetuated the already matrifocal feature of the Caribbean family. In addition, the efforts exerted by ex-slaves and their families to establish themselves as successful small-scale farmers resulted in children working or taking on child-rearing responsibilities for their younger siblings at a relatively young age. Thus, it is plausible to say that the economic hardships after slavery have also greatly influenced the structure of many lower-class Caribbean households.
• Independence


  Independence also brought with it changes to family dynamics: as more and more countries became independent in the Caribbean, there were more opportunities for social mobility. Education became the key to attaining upward social mobility for people desirous of improving their socioeconomic lives. Social mobility, together with accepting upper- and middle-class ideals, is the main reason why more people adopted the nuclear family. Thus, it is the ideal family type practiced among the upper and middle classes in Trinidad and Tobago.
• Modernization


  Modernizing influences have come to bear on the institution of the family. Modernization has resulted in governments recognizing common - law unions in the Caribbean. Legislation has been passed to recognize children and spouses in this union. Children are now legally entitled to inherit family property and so on. Sociologist T.S. Simey argues that common law union in the Caribbean is 'faithful concubinage'. Changes in gendered roles within the family structure have also been brought about by marriages becoming more egalitarian, with more women achieving a higher level of education and jobs.
• Indo-Caribbean Families


  Typically patriarchal. Fairly strict guidelines govern marriage practices and there are strong kinship ties among communities, making them close-knit. Extended family is the main family structure with several generations living in the same household. Today, global tendencies and equal education opportunities see more equality among the married partners, hence the formation of nuclear type families or at least a moving away from the 'classic' extended family type.
• Afro-Caribbean Families

  Typically matrifocal the male figure is often absent or marginal. These families are usually more affected by poverty than nuclear or extended. Another common feature in Afro - Caribbean families is child-shifting (care of children by extended family or a close community member). These features have been argued to be the result of the plantation system during slavery. They have persisted post-emancipation, along with the West African culture of polygamy.
• White Creole Families

  Usually follow the (colonial) Western family pattern of married partners and a nuclear family.
• Chinese-Caribbeans, Jewish-Caribbeans and Syrian Lebanese Families


  Also generally tend to have extended patriarchal families, though these communities may have family forms that differ in cultural detail from the mainstream forms.
• Family can determine one's social and economic identity. Children are born into their parents' social class, race and ethnicity, religion and so forth. A financially advantaged or disadvantaged background can determine a child's economic adult life.
• Recent studies have shown that stereotypical representations in the Caribbean are decreasing in frequency in today's society mainly because of the increase in global social mobility, in which education opportunities play a large part.
• Factors affecting Caribbean families

  • Migration
  • Poverty
• Migration

  • The Caribbean region has always had a high degree of migration especially to the USA and Europe. Research shows that such mass migration has major consequences to family life.
  • Children and families are uprooted from their local communities and relocated in foreign places (usually in urban areas in New York, London or Paris).
  • Children are left behind in their Caribbean communities by parents in search of employment in the US or Europe. Although these 'barrel children' are left in the care of the extended family, they experience feeling abandoned, lonely or unloved.
  • Parents (often mothers) often accept poor work conditions so that they can earn money to support their families left behind.
• Poverty

  • Research have shown:
  • Unemployed Caribbean women are willing to get involved in sexual relationships for financial help, this results in successive relationships, which helps to provide the means for family survival rather than stability. The male partners are often foreign tourists (USA & Europe).
  • Increase of tourism in the Caribbean has given rise to a form of sexual tourism with holiday companies advertising the 'exotic' beauty of the islands and their women. This form of tourism is associated with HIV transmission, and other sexually transmitted diseases, which has catastrophic implications for health outcomes.
  • Foreign tourists father children with local women, without providing any emotional or financial support. This has a major impact on both the women left behind and the children, who often grow up lacking a sense of belonging and identity, as well as facing a lifetime of financial and possible health difficulties.
• Education plays an important role in the socialization process: it transmits norms, values and beliefs that work to underpin a society. It has also played a key role in the facilitation of social mobility.
• The development of education in the Caribbean needs to be viewed within the context of the region's colonialist past.
• Stages of education in the Caribbean

  • Pre – colonial Education
  • Pre – emancipation Education
  • Post – emancipation Education
• Pre – colonial Education


  Informal education within Amerindian societies. Passing on survival skills from 1 generation to another, based on gender: women taught girls domestic skills while men taught boys hunting, fishing and building shelter.