ABSTRACT
While often opaque, the concept of structure has been essential to the study of society from the very beginning of sociology as a discipline. Throughout the twentieth century a plethora of structuralisms emerged. Today there are far too many of them in the social sciences to make our way through the theoretical mire without some road posts. Aside from the structuralisms associated with linguistics, psychology, and sociology, there are philosophical, mathematical, and anthropological structuralisms. This chapter examines the type of structuralisms that most affected social thought and that will eventually lead us to poststructuralism.
