Society facts for kids

For other uses, see Society (disambiguation).

Clockwise from top left: A family in Savannakhet, Laos; a crowd shopping in Maharashtra, India; a military parade on a Spanish national holiday.

A society is a group of people who live together and interact regularly. These groups often share the same area, rules, and ways of life. Think of it as a big team where everyone is connected by shared ideas and customs. Societies help people work together to achieve things they couldn't do alone.

Humans are very social creatures. We naturally form groups and work with others. This cooperation helps us survive and thrive. Societies create rules and expectations for how people should behave. These are called societal norms.

Societies are different all over the world. They vary based on their technology and how they get food. Larger societies often have different social levels or groups. They can also have many types of governments and family structures. How people act changes a lot from one society to another.

What is a Society?

The word "society" often means a large group of people in an organized community. It can refer to a country or several similar countries. It also means "being with other people." For example, "they lived in medieval society."

The term comes from the French word societe, meaning 'company'. This word came from the Latin societas, which meant 'fellowship' or 'alliance'. It is related to socius, meaning 'friend' or 'ally'.

How We Understand Societies

Societies in Nature

Ants are social insects that work together for survival.

Humans are very social animals, much like bonobos and chimpanzees. This means we are naturally wired to live in groups. Human societies involve a lot of cooperation. We use language to talk, and people often have special jobs. We also build homes and communities that last for many generations.

Living in a social group helps members in ways they couldn't manage alone. For example, ants work together to find food and build their nests.

Societies in Social Studies

In social studies, there are different ways to understand how societies work.

Society as a Working Body

Some thinkers, like Émile Durkheim, saw society like a living body. Each person or group is like an organ, working together. When everyone does their part, society functions smoothly. This idea is called functionalism. It suggests that society is a separate level of reality, beyond just individual people.

Society as Competing Groups

Other thinkers, like Karl Marx, believed that society is often about different groups having conflicts. These groups might have different interests or resources. Marx thought that economic factors, like who owns resources, often cause these conflicts. He believed that changes in society often come from these disagreements between groups.

Society Through Shared Meanings

A different idea, called symbolic interactionism, looks at how individuals create society. It focuses on how people use shared language and symbols. These symbols help us understand each other and build our shared world. Our interactions then shape how we behave.

Some thinkers also believe that society is something we create together. It's like a two-way street: humans create society, and then society shapes humans.

Different Views Around the World

Not all ideas about society come from Western thinkers. For example, Ibn Khaldun, an Arab scholar from the 14th century, saw societies as having a clear structure. He thought nomadic (traveling) life had strong community bonds. Sedentary (settled) life, he believed, led to less social closeness and more interest in luxury.

José Rizal, a Filipino nationalist, studied colonial societies. He argued that the problems in his society were caused by colonial rule, not by the people themselves. He compared how people lived before and during colonial times.

Types of Societies

Sociologists often group societies by their technology and how they get food. We can think of them in three main types: pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial.

Pre-industrial Societies

In these societies, people mostly used human and animal power to produce food. They can be divided into smaller groups based on their technology.

Hunter-Gatherer Societies

San people in Botswana making fire by hand.

These societies got food by collecting wild plants and hunting animals every day. Hunter-gatherers moved often to find food. Because of this, they didn't build permanent homes or many lasting objects. These groups were usually small, often fewer than 50 people. Decisions were made together, and leaders were usually people with influence, not formal rulers. The family was the most important social unit.

Some researchers believe hunter-gatherers had a lot of free time. Others point out that they faced high death rates and conflicts.

Pastoral Societies

Maasai men performing a traditional jumping dance.

Instead of hunting and gathering, pastoral societies relied on domesticated animals like sheep or cattle for food. They often lived a nomadic life, moving their herds to new pastures. These communities could be larger than hunter-gatherer groups, sometimes thousands of people. This was because they lived in open areas, making it easier to connect. Pastoral societies often had extra food, special jobs, and different levels of wealth.

Horticultural Societies

Horticultural societies grew fruits and vegetables in small garden plots. They cleared land in jungles or forests for this. These societies used human labor and simple tools to farm the land for a few seasons. When the soil became less fertile, they moved to a new plot. They could return to the old land years later. This allowed them to build permanent or semi-permanent villages.

Like pastoral societies, having extra food led to more specialized jobs. There were craftspeople, religious leaders, and traders. This also meant they could create many different objects.

Agrarian Societies

Farmers plowing a field with oxen in the 15th century.

Agrarian societies used advanced farming tools, like the plow, to grow crops over large areas. More food meant larger communities and the growth of towns as trade centers. This led to even more specialized jobs, including rulers, teachers, craftspeople, and merchants. These people did not directly produce food.

Agrarian societies often had very clear social classes. Land ownership was a major source of wealth. This created a system where a small ruling class had power over the majority of farmers. There were also big differences between city dwellers and rural peasants.

Industrial Societies

An industrial train, showing how machines changed transportation.

Industrial societies began in the 18th century with the Industrial Revolution. They rely heavily on machines powered by outside sources to make many goods. Before, most work was about getting raw materials (like farming or fishing). In industrial societies, work focuses on turning raw materials into finished products in factories.

Industrialization led to population growth and the rise of cities. Better transportation and more goods meant fewer deaths. Factories and less need for farm labor caused people to move to cities. These societies often had capitalist economies, with some people gaining great wealth. Working conditions in factories could be tough. Workers sometimes formed unions to improve their conditions.

Industrial societies showed a big increase in human power over nature. New technologies also meant the potential for large-scale conflicts. Governments used information to manage their populations. These societies also had a greater impact on the environment.

Post-industrial Societies

Post-industrial societies are mostly focused on information and services, rather than making physical goods. In these advanced societies, more people work in service jobs like education, healthcare, and finance.

Information Societies

People gathered at the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva.

An information society is one where using, creating, sharing, and managing information is a very important activity. In today's world, information technologies like computers and the internet affect almost every part of life. This includes education, the economy, health, government, and even how people connect online.

Knowledge Societies

People working in a control room, managing digital information.

As access to digital information grew, the idea of a knowledge society became important. A knowledge society creates and shares knowledge to improve people's lives. It's different from an information society because it turns raw information into useful knowledge that helps society take effective action.

How Societies Work

Rules and Roles

Social norms are the shared rules for acceptable behavior in a group. These can be informal understandings or written laws. They strongly influence how people act.

Social roles are the expected behaviors and duties that come with a person's place in society. For example, a student has different roles than a teacher. People use symbols and language to understand and act out these roles.

Family and Relationships

An Egyptian family riding a donkey-drawn cart. Family relationships are very important in many societies.

Societies organize family relationships in different ways. These are based on connections by birth (like parents and children) and by marriage. There are also relationships like godparents or adopted children. These culturally defined relationships are called kinship. In many societies, kinship is a key way to organize people and pass down status or property. All societies have rules about who can marry whom.

Ethnic Groups

Ethnicity refers to groups of people who identify together based on shared traits. These can include common traditions, ancestors, language, history, or culture. There isn't one single definition of an ethnic group. People can also change their group affiliations. Ethnicity is different from race, which is based on physical features. Ethnic groups play a strong role in a person's identity and community feeling.

Government and Leadership

The United Nations headquarters in New York City, a major international political organization.

Governments create rules and plans that affect the people they lead. Throughout history, there have been many types of governments. They have different ways of sharing power and controlling the population. In early times, where people settled depended on things like fresh water and good soil. As communities grew, new ways of governing developed.

As of 2025, many countries have democratic governments, where people have a say. Others are autocracies, where one person or a small group holds power. Many countries also work together in international groups, like the United Nations.

Buying, Selling, and Money

A map showing the ancient Silk Road and other trade routes.

Trade, which is the exchange of goods and services, has always been a part of human societies. Early humans used long-distance trade routes to exchange tools and ideas. This helped them get more food and led to new cultural developments.

Early economies often involved giving gifts rather than just trading. The first forms of money were often valuable items, like cattle or cowrie shells. Today, we use coins, paper money, and electronic money. Economics is the study of how societies share their limited resources among people. There are often big differences in how wealth is divided among people in societies.

Conflicts and Peace

A painting showing Napoleon's army retreating in 1812.

People have long debated why humans sometimes engage in large-scale conflicts, like wars. Some think that conflict is a natural part of human behavior. Others believe that conflicts became common more recently, due to changing social conditions. Evidence suggests that organized conflicts became more frequent about 10,000 years ago.

While some violence has always existed, societies have developed ways to reduce it. Legal systems and strong cultural beliefs against violence have greatly lowered rates of serious harm in many places.