In my classes I usually use this term to refer to those social artifacts that comprise the historically-rooted institutionalized and seemingly “natural” relationships that systemically bind a whole together, but whose construction, while the prerogative of those with a monopoly over power and to which the powerless are in thrall, is often transparent to neither with the passage of time once it is completed. At the social level, generally speaking, structure and agency has a dialectical relationship: meaning one assists in shaping the other. At the individual level, structures of society interfere with individual agency. By the way, structures are not always human-made. The climatic environment is an example of a structure too.[1] At the simplest level, structure can be considered as a metaphor for those relatively enduring aspects of society that allows it to retain some degree of functional coherence akin to the structure of, say, a building (the walls, roof, and foundation). From the perspective of daily life, this concept also has considerable significance for the individual because structures will have an impact on how we go about negotiating the vicissitudes of daily life. If you are still confused by the concept of structure, then consider it, for example, in the context of oppression (be it racial, class, gender, and so on) where structure is captured by such terms of street lingo as “the Man,” or “the System,” or “the Establishment,” or even just plain “society.”[2] See also Social Structure.
[1]. This definition draws on the structuralism of Louis Althusser and the concept of structuration first articulated by Anthony Giddens. See, for instance, Althusser (1972), and Giddens (1986).
[2]. Another way of comprehending the concept of structure (and agency), at the individual level, is to do an exercise that may be worth your while: Ask yourself this question: What factors are helping or preventing me from doing well in this school? Make a two-column list of factors where in the first column you will list factors that are completely within your control, and in the other column list the factors that are not within your control because of your circumstances. Factors that are within your control are factors of agency while those that are not are factors of structure. Here is an example: if your family income is such that you have to work to earn money while in school then it means that you will have less time to devote to your classes. Your family income is, of course, not within your control; it is a matter of your class/race/gender background—in other words, it is a structural factor. However, you can also create structures through your own agency or volition which can then have an impact, further on, on your agency regarding your school performance. So, here is example to illustrate this latter point: if you decide to hang out with peers who do not care about doing well in their classes then you have created a friendship structure that will have a negative influence on your approach to your classes in terms of time, discipline, and ambition. From the perspective of society as a whole, you can use this same method of analysis (figuring out factors of structure versus agency) to determine why certain groups in this society are doing better than others.