The concept of institution has several references in sample language. On the one hand, the foundation or establishment of something is called in this way and also what is founded. On the other hand, the body that performs a function of public interest, whether for charitable or educational purposes, is designated as an institution. For example, an institution that assists and supports homeless people.
It supposes a social concept that refers to all those structures that suppose a certain control mechanism or social order that are created precisely to facilitate human coexistence and that have to do with the development of group ties and ties in different circumstances or moments of life . Although the idea of institution refers us in many cases to specific establishments such as a school, a hospital, a church, the concept of institution is much broader than that and also applies to abstract social structures in which there are always It represents the human bond but that may not be visually represented by a building, as happens for example with the family, with the marriage. Structures developed by man to exercise social control
Main institutions
The idea of a social institution is one of the most important with regard to the social history of the human being. This is so since the institutions understood as transcendent social structures and superior to the individual themselves have existed since time immemorial, from the moment in which the human being began to live in community and needed some type of arrangement to favor coexistence. Thus, the family is considered one of the first institutions since it is it that orders and structures blood ties, establishing hierarchies and particular roles for each individual. As with the others, the idea of family transcends the individuals that compose it.
Other important institutions for today's society in addition to the family are, for example, the government, whatever its form, religion, marriage, education, science, hospitals, justice, prisons, factories and other productive institutions. , the army, the media, social organizations of various kinds that abound today and that have to do with the resolution of situations not taken into account by official or governmental institutions. In addition, other broader but always present institutions can also be art, language, the idea of nation.
And in the strict field of politics we must cite as very important institutions for social order and government management the division of powers, in those cases of democracies, the national constitution, among the most relevant.
In the case of constitutions, for example, most date from the time when the nation in question freed itself from some external dependence, that is, it ceased to be a colony to become a formal state.
Although many have undergone reforms throughout their history, especially linked to the wishes of the current rulers, it is important that we say that many times these modifications can threaten the social order and allow some situations that generate severe complications for life. of the community, for example, to enable the indefinite reelection of a ruler, with the disastrous consequences that this can have for democracy and the political alternation that a good democratic system always demands.
Likewise, the word is used to refer to behaviors, uses and customs that are deeply rooted in certain cultures, laws or regulations that have the mission of regulating a given organization or community.
Institutions exist in all societies and it would be impossible for them to function without them. Most of those that exist today are the product of the past, that is, they existed in the most remote times, and were renewed, but almost all of them come from certainly ancient times.
Be an institution in something
And there is a very popular expression that contains this word and that we use it a lot in our language: being someone an institution in some matter, which implies that that person has a relevant prestige in a certain area or social group.
