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CARIBBEAN STUDIES NOTES

IMPACT OF SOCIETAL INSTITUTIONS ON CARIBBEAN PEOPLE

In order to minimize conflicts, a society needs to agree on certain arrangements


social institutions. Social institutions (may be analysed according to functionalist,
Marxist and interpretive views) are the set of values and beliefs of a society, which
direct the lives, interactions, and thoughts of the people. Social change is brought
about when dominant and peripheral (or marginal) institutional ideas and beliefs
compete with each other over time.

Each institution becomes tangible and concrete through the organisations that
members create to fulfil these ideas and beliefs. Non-adherents are also part of an
institution; they form an opposing or peripheral group.

Socialization is the process through which the cherished ideas and beliefs of one
generation become the cherished ideas of the next. Based on values, norms arise. The
status of a person decides his/her role according to institutional beliefs about how
such a person should act.

The Family

The social institution of the family represents the cherished ideas and beliefs that
people have about rearing children and socializing them into the norms of their
society. African families are mainly matrifocal (the mother is the centre of the family)
while Indian families are historically patriarchal (rule of the father). In patriarchal
families, matrifocal elements may occur.

During colonial rule and today, the nuclear family was and is seen as the ideal to
which the society should aspire. The other types of unions were diagnosed as
disorganized families or unstable unions which are inferior to the nuclear family.
This led to the acceptance of gender stereotypes with the male being breadwinners
and authority figures and the women being homemakers and caregivers.

Theories explaining the presence of multiple family forms:

African retentions

Slavery

Economic thesis
However, they seek several successive relationships, not a burdensome one.

Gender inequality
In the Caribbean, the extensive network of kin constituted the family, not the
household. The practices of ritual godparenthood and fictive kinship show the
importance of kin in different types of Caribbean family, especially Christian families.
Cooperation, support and caring for family members are normal parts of family life,
including the practice of child shifting. Some pieces of land are known as family
land whereby ownership is by all family members and can be used by various
members according to needs. Extended families are common among Indian
households as these previous indentured labourers did not experience strong attempts
to muzzle their cultural traditions and practices as did the African slaves.

The family provides the function of reproduction, socialisation and economics and
financing and love and a sense of belongingness. From the conflict perspective, it can
be seen that labour has tomove to where employment is located, leaving behind the
extended family. The exploitation and oppression of workers leads to the oppression
of their families. It also facilitates the sexual division of labour (men work outside and
women stay home). It is argued that the assigning of roles through institutional values
has led to family oppression, abuse and violence.

Impact of family on Caribbean society and culture:

Individuals

Groups

African families The kinship network among these are strong. Relatives and close
friends are expected to help each other in times of need, creating a huge support
network. People in the diaspora send money back home or sponsor family members to
become new migrants in the metropole.

Muslim families Polygamy is practised, according to Islam. It increases the


complexity of the notion of kin and the extended family in Caribbean society and
culture. However, this is not widespread in the Caribbean. The dominant ideas and
beliefs that privilege a nuclear family marginalize those groups who do not follow
such norms.

Women Women are seen primarily as mothers and caregivers. They also usually
work outside the home. These institutional ideas are responsible for gender
socialization.

Institutions

Family Although the nuclear family has long been privileged as the ideal form of
family, the institutional ideas of family are more accepting of different families. The
idea of the nuclear family has now expanded to include single-parent families, same
sex families and reconstituted families.
Education Educators continually call for parental involvement as it is known that a
childs academic success is based largely on support received at home.

Religion It is from the family that members learn about religious practices. It is the
responsibility of the family, for example, to get a Christian child baptised and to take
him/her to church. The extent to which the family engages in religious activity will
affect the religious perceptions of its members. If the elders of the family are of
different religions, children may either be socialised into one, neither or both.

Education
Education is concerned with socializing members of society into the norms, values,
knowledge and skills that a society deems important (functionalist perspective).
Informal education (primary socialization) refers to the learning about living and
surviving in society into which one was born while formal education (secondary
socialization) refers to the transmission of knowledge and skills in social
organizations such a schools. It is concerned with what the young should know and
how learning should take place.

Education may be seen as providing order, rational ways of behaving, equal


opportunities to betterment, a socially approved rite of passage and a means of
accessing extrinsic rewards. It may also be seen as a source of conflict (only the more
privileged will reap rewards), a source of low self-esteem resulting from failure and a
method of increasing inequities.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Under slavery, formal education was largely for the children of the Europeans.
Education for the enslaved was limited to religious education (from the Spanish).

The 1834 Emancipation Act ensured that through the Negro Education Grant that
elementary schools (education was not expected to go further than this) would be built
throughout the British Caribbean.

Only the elements of reading, writing, arithmetic and a little geography were offered.

The Bible was the main text.

The curriculum was steeped in English values, songs, poems, stories and customs.
The history and culture of other ethnic groups were not considered as there was the
strong feeling that only deeper understanding of western culture could help us to
develop into a modern nation.

A few secondary schools which charged fees were established. They were based on
English grammar schools and a classical curriculum. The elites sought to block the
former enslaved and their descendants from accessing secondary education.

Some persons (mostly males) who attended these schools were able to attend British
universities and became involved in efforts at decolonization.

Education became a means of social mobility.

The idea was that only children who are bright and show aptitude for academic work
should be educated at the secondary level and beyond, leading to the advent of
Common Entrance exams.

The institution of education is intertwined with that of religion, as there is great


competition to gain access to high-achieving dominational schools.

Two less dominant ideas about education are that:


Students with disabilities should be educated with everyone else so that they can be
integrated into society.

Schools are dangerous places for children and foster a hatred for learning among
students and a disability to think critically. Those with this idea home-school their
children.

PURPOSES OF EDUCATION

Aftermath of slavery

To the British to inculcate British values and customs to make governance easier

To the colonised a means of social mobility

In contemporary society

A differentiating function whereby young people were characterised according to


academic ability and placed in different types of schools in order to organize their
opportunities and life chances.

Social cohesion and harmony enabling the people of a society, especially a plural
society, to come together as they would have all experienced a common curriculum

As a means of economic development the inculcation of human capital with skills


and knowledge would eventually lead to the production of an educated workforce and
economic development

As the means and end of human development people could be given the
opportunities, via education, to develop themselves; this belief includes the inclusion
of all, a Caribbean focus of the curriculum and the learning via interaction with
students

IMPACT OF EDUCATION ON SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Individuals
However, for underachievers (for various reasons), the institution of education has
engendered feelings of low self esteem and very little is put in place to re-orient the
student who has left school without credentials.

Groups

Institutions

Religion

The common idea and belief across most religions is that there are sacred elements
which should govern our lives, as opposed to the profane things of this world.

Religion includes:
The prescription of ideal behaviours

Collective worship involving rituals and ceremonies which impact on the afterlife

Reverence of a supernatural body or teacher

Religion often has to contend with secular values practices and behaviours which
seek to promote non-religious ideas.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Religion is seen as having the function of preserving order and social cohesion by
engendering unity and social solidarity (especially if part of a mainstream religion). It
helps members to feel a sense of belonging, to provide support and guidance, and to
create a community of believers of certain values

Through syncretism and hybridization, the subjugated Caribbean people mainly


Amerindians and Africans recreated the social institution of religion. Their
conversion to Christianity was an interpretive activity whereby the subject people
adopted the religion but hybridized many of its forms and practices with their own.

Caribbean people accepted membership into one of the major religions of Europe or
one of the Protestant religions, whose leaders came later as missionaries. Countries
where the Spanish and French were dominant have a dominant Roman Catholic
Church.

Religion is influenced by the stratified nature of society.


the monarch was not head) were formed in Europe after continuous criticism of the
Catholic Church.

In the aftermath of emancipation, there was a full flowering of syncretic religions that
had their first genesis under slavery. Grassroot religions were strong but their practice
made the colonial authorities uneasy.

In slavery days, obeah was outlawed because of its association with the slave
resistance.

The Spiritual Baptist Prohibition Ordinance of 1917 prevented practising of Spiritual


Baptism in Trinidad. It was eventually repealed in 1951 and 30 March is celebrated as
a national holiday Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day. The Anti-Shaker Ordinance of
1912 was also passed in St. Vincent.

The institution of religion (especially in the form of syncretic religions) has always
held strong resistant elements that were opposed to colonialism.
Rastafarianism was formed in the 1930s in Jamaica with roots which lay in Myal and
Revivalism traditions and the philosophy of Marcus Garvey. It is a millenarian
movement which has belief that Jah will personally reign on Earth, in Ethiopia in the
end times and save his chosen people. Rastafarianism calls for introspection about
our absorption into mainstream capitalist values.

The influx of indentured labour brought Hindus to Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname. In
Trinidad, the different Hindu sects (e.g. Sanatan Dharma) own schools today. Many
Hindus converted to Presbyterianism owing to the efforts of the Canadian Mission
who went as missionaries into the sugar estates in the nineteenth century. They also
founded schools and a teachers college.

One dominant idea of religion in the past was that Christianity could be an asset in
bettering yourself.

Muslims were also imported as indentured labourers and relatively few were
converted by the Canadian Mission. The Indian Muslim community is being widened
to include African converts. In Trinidad, the different Muslim organizations (e.g.
Trinidad Muslim League) own and manage schools. The Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, a
black Muslim group, was responsible for the 1990 uprising.

In the latter years of the twentieth century, Evangelical, Fundamentalist and


Pentecostal faiths came from the US. The conversion to these faiths represented
resistance to colonialism in the rejection of mainstream Christian churched. They
focus on emphasis on personal morality and salvation and a rejection of the secular
world.

Religion helps members to feel a sense of belonging, to provide support and guidance,
and to create a community of believers of certain values

IMPACT OF RELIGION ON CARIBBEAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Individuals

Groups

Institutions
Bahais find it extremely complicated to function in a nation state as they believe in
one global society.

Religions may keep families together where the members are of religions which ban
divorce.

As discussed earlier, many elite schools are denominational schools where the
institution of education meets the institution of religion.
Religion has the potential to generate conflict. This is possible based on those ideas
that do not tolerate or recognise other religions or privilege the religions of dominant
groups. There is also within-group diversity whereby groups have different beliefs
such as the Charismatic Movement in the Roman Catholic Church.

Justice System

The justice system refers to the ideas and beliefs in a society about protecting and
preserving the rights and obligations of citizens. The social organization of justice
consists of the:

Political framework

Legal framework

Judicial framework

The notion of basic rights of humans by virtue of being human is only a recent idea.
Europeans did not regard others as having the same rights as they did and other
groups did not regard each other as equals. The protection of human rights was
brought to the fore after the Second World War and is done to promote justice,
fairness and social stability. The United Nations was also created and the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) has guided the constitutions of
many Caribbean countries.

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

1.

2.

3.

4.

Caribbean justice systems are inherited from that of the English but the administration
of these differs from the rhetoric. Practices are fraught with self-interest,
discriminatory features and fraud.

Functionalists understand the justice system as important in preserving social order


and stability. Thus, being far and equitable in our dealings with each other should
ensure that discontent is minimized in the society. Marxists view the economy as the
reason for entrenched inequities as capitalism stratifies the population. Those who
wield power are those whose interests are dominant and seldom receive the full brunt
of the law when caught wrongdoing. Interpretive sociology focuses on how people are
experiencing living in a society as citizens but not enjoying the same rights as others,
and what strategies they use to cope with, or overcome, the inequities.

IMPACT OF THE JUSTICE SYSTEM ON SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Individuals

Groups

Institutions

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