Q.As a member of society you must be interacting with and in different groups. How do you see these groups from a sociological perspective?

Not every group I move through in daily life counts as a 'social group' in the strict sociological sense — a crowd sharing a bus stop is only an aggregate, while a group I actually belong to needs continuous interaction, shared belonging and common norms.

As an individual, I am simultaneously part of several different groups — a family, a set of friends, a school or classroom, perhaps a neighbourhood, and various informal circles based on shared interest. A sociological perspective does not treat all of these as the same kind of thing simply because a number of people are involved in each.

The first sociological move is to separate a genuine social group from a mere aggregate: people who happen to share a place and time, like passengers waiting at a bus stop, share no real connection and are not a social group at all. Some of my everyday memberships sit at an intermediate stage too — a quasi-group, such as belonging to a particular age category or a broad social class, where I share a position with others but there is no organised sense of 'we' yet.

Applying the six defining features of a genuine social group — continuous interaction, a stable pattern to that interaction, a shared sense of belonging, common interests, shared norms and values, and a definable structure — lets me sort my own memberships more precisely. My family and close friend circle are clear primary groups: intimate, face-to-face, valued for their own sake. My school or workplace is a secondary group: larger, more formal, organised around a shared goal rather than emotional closeness. Some memberships (a school 'in-group' as against other schools, a peer group of similarly-aged people, groups I look up to as a reference point even without belonging to them) each work through their own distinct sociological logic — belonging versus exclusion, equal-status peer pressure, or aspirational modelling.

Seen this way, the various groups I belong to are not simply a random list, but a structured set of relationships, each shaping me differently depending on its size, formality, and the kind of bond it is built on.