In order to understand the social world around us, it is necessary to employ theory to draw the connections between seemingly disparate concepts. Another example of sociological theorizing illustrates this point. In his now classic work, Suicide , Emile Durkheim was interested in explaining a social phenomenon, suicide, and employed both data and theory to offer an explanation.
By aggregating data for large groups of people in Europe, Durkheim was able to discern patterns in suicide rates and connect those patterns with another concept or variable , religious affiliation.
Durkheim found that Protestants were more likely than Catholics to commit suicide. When Durkheim introduced the ideas of anomie and social solidarity, he began to explain the difference in suicide rates.
Durkheim argued that the looser social ties found in Protestant religions lead to weaker social cohesion and reduced social solidarity. The higher suicide rates were the result of weakening social bonds among Protestants. The discovery of the cause and effect relationship is the major component of the sociological theory.
There are many theories in sociology, but there are several broad theoretical perspectives that are prominent in the field. These theories are prominent because they are quite good at explaining social life. They are not without their problems, but these theories remain widely used and cited precisely because they have withstood a great deal of criticism.
In fact, it is probably more useful and informative to view theories as complementary. One theory may explain one element of society better than another. Or, both may be useful for explaining social life. In short, all of the theories are correct in the sense that they offer compelling explanations for social phenomena.
The functionalist perspective attempts to explain social institutions as collective means to meet individual and social needs. It is sometimes called structural-functionalism because it often focuses on the ways social structures e. Functionalism draws its inspiration from the ideas of Emile Durkheim. Durkheim was concerned with the question of how societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. He sought to explain social stability through the concept of solidarity, and differentiated between the mechanical solidarity of primitive societies and the organic solidarity of complex modern societies.
According to Durkheim, more primitive or traditional societies were held together by mechanical solidarity; members of society lived in relatively small and undifferentiated groups, where they shared strong family ties and performed similar daily tasks.
Such societies were held together by shared values and common symbols. By contrast, he observed that, in modern societies, traditional family bonds are weaker; modern societies also exhibit a complex division of labor, where members perform very different daily tasks. Durkheim argued that modern industrial society would destroy the traditional mechanical solidarity that held primitive societies together. Modern societies however, do not fall apart.
Instead, modern societies rely on organic solidarity; because of the extensive division of labor, members of society are forced to interact and exchange with one another to provide the things they need. The functionalist perspective continues to try and explain how societies maintained the stability and internal cohesion necessary to ensure their continued existence over time.
In the functionalist perspective, societies are thought to function like organisms, with various social institutions working together like organs to maintain and reproduce them.
The various parts of society are assumed to work together naturally and automatically to maintain overall social equilibrium. Because social institutions are functionally integrated to form a stable system, a change in one institution will precipitate a change in other institutions. Dysfunctional institutions, which do not contribute to the overall maintenance of a society, will cease to exist.
In the s, Robert Merton elaborated the functionalist perspective by proposing a distinction between manifest and latent functions. Manifest functions are the intended functions of an institution or a phenomenon in a social system. Latent functions are its unintended functions. Latent functions may be undesirable, but unintended consequences, or manifestly dysfunctional institutions may have latent functions that explain their persistence.
For example, crime seems difficult to explain from the functionalist perspective; it seems to play little role in maintaining social stability. Crime, however, may have the latent function of providing examples that demonstrate the boundaries of acceptable behavior and the function of these boundaries to maintain social norms. Functionalists analyze social institutions in terms of the function they play.
How does it contribute to social stability? By delineating the functions of elements of society, of the social structure, we can better understand social life. Functionalism has been criticized for downplaying the role of individual action, and for being unable to account for social change.
In the functionalist perspective, society and its institutions are the primary units of analysis. Individuals are significant only in terms of their places within social systems i. They point out that, unlike human beings, society does not have needs; society is only alive in the sense that it is made up of living individuals.
By downplaying the role of individuals, functionalism is less likely to recognize how individual actions may alter social institutions. Critics also argue that functionalism is unable to explain social change because it focuses so intently on social order and equilibrium in society. Following functionalist logic, if a social institution exists, it must serve a function. Institutions, however, change over time; some disappear and others come into being.
The focus of functionalism on elements of social life in relation to their present function, and not their past functions, makes it difficult to use functionalism to explain why a function of some element of society might change, or how such change occurs. Conflict theory sees society as a dynamic entity constantly undergoing change as a result of competition over scarce resources.
Identify the tenets of and contributors to conflict theory, as well as the criticisms made against it. The conflict perspective, or conflict theory, derives from the ideas of Karl Marx, who believed society is a dynamic entity constantly undergoing change driven by class conflict.
Whereas functionalism understands society as a complex system striving for equilibrium, the conflict perspective views social life as competition. According to the conflict perspective, society is made up of individuals competing for limited resources e. Competition over scarce resources is at the heart of all social relationships.
Competition, rather than consensus, is characteristic of human relationships. Broader social structures and organizations e. Wright Mills is known as the founder of modern conflict theory. In his work, he believes social structures are created because of conflict between differing interests. Sociologists who work from the conflict perspective study the distribution of resources, power, and inequality.
While functionalism emphasizes stability, conflict theory emphasizes change. According to the conflict perspective, society is constantly in conflict over resources, and that conflict drives social change.
For example, conflict theorists might explain the civil rights movements of the s by studying how activists challenged the racially unequal distribution of political power and economic resources. As in this example, conflict theorists generally see social change as abrupt, even revolutionary, rather than incremental.
In the conflict perspective, change comes about through conflict between competing interests, not consensus or adaptation. Conflict theory, therefore, gives sociologists a framework for explaining social change, thereby addressing one of the problems with the functionalist perspective. Predictably, conflict theory has been criticized for its focus on change and neglect of social stability. Some critics acknowledge that societies are in a constant state of change, but point out that much of the change is minor or incremental, not revolutionary.
For example, many modern capitalist states have avoided a communist revolution, and have instead instituted elaborate social service programs. Although conflict theorists often focus on social change, they have, in fact, also developed a theory to explain social stability.
According to the conflict perspective, inequalities in power and reward are built into all social structures. Individuals and groups who benefit from any particular structure strive to see it maintained. For example, the wealthy may fight to maintain their privileged access to higher education by opposing measures that would broaden access, such as affirmative action or public funding. Symbolic interactionism looks at individual and group meaning-making, focusing on human action instead of large-scale social structures.
But exploring a few examples of sociological theory can better provide a sense of the range of ideas explored by sociology, as well as prepare you for exploring some of its more complicated ideas in-depth. A theory is a set of principles that helps us to explain something about the world. For example, the theory of evolution helps us explain an enormous variety of evidence about the world, from the fossil record to questions about DNA.
For example, gradualism holds that evolutionary changes are slow and gradual, while punctuated equilibrium argues big changes occur in short spurts that are far apart. In the same way as other scientific theories explain the world, sociological theories provide us with a framework for explaining the social world around us.
They might ask questions about the nature of social order or about the kinds of processes that influence social change. There are also many different types of sociological theory, which look at a wide range of social problems and issues.
The three major sociological theories that new students learn about are the interactionist perspective, the conflict perspective, and the functionalist perspective. And each has its own distinct way of explaining various aspects of society and the human behavior within it. Taking a moment to compare and contrast sociological theories can provide further context.
For instance, macro-sociology might consider how a social problem like poverty would be influenced by various social institutions. By contrast, micro-sociology is focused on the dynamics involved between smaller groups of individuals.
The interactionist perspective is a good example of micro-sociology. This theory is sometimes called the symbolic interactionist perspective because it argues that our behavior is deeply influenced by definitions and symbolic meanings.
And it is our symbolic interactions with other members of the community which creates those definitions and meanings. Our sense of self, being influenced by social interaction, is also influenced by the way others choose to label us.
Because the labels others give us provide us with a new view of ourselves. As such, the interactionist perspective emphasizes the fact that humans react to their perceived definition of their circumstances, as opposed to what you might call an objective evaluation.
If we were absolutely positive the world was ending at a particular time and date, whether or not it was a true belief, it would influence our behavior in a significant way. As a result, the things we consider real are capable of being real in consequence, even if our beliefs are incorrect.
Verbal conversations, in which spoken words serve as the predominant symbols, make this subjective interpretation especially evident. Conversation is an interaction of symbols between individuals who constantly interpret the world around them. Of course, anything can serve as a symbol as long as it refers to something beyond itself. Written music serves as an example. The black dots and lines become more than mere marks on the page; they refer to notes organized in such a way as to make musical sense.
Thus, symbolic interactionists give serious thought to how people act, and then seek to determine what meanings individuals assign to their own actions and symbols, as well as to those of others. Consider applying symbolic interactionism to the American institution of marriage. American society attaches general meanings to these symbols, but individuals also maintain their own perceptions of what these and other symbols mean. Much faulty communication can result from differences in the perception of the same events and symbols.
The perspective also receives criticism for slighting the influence of social forces and institutions on individual interactions. Functionalists believe that society is held together by social consensus , or cohesion, in which members of the society agree upon, and work together to achieve, what is best for society as a whole. Emile Durkheim suggested that social consensus takes one of two forms:. The functionalist perspective achieved its greatest popularity among American sociologists in the s and s.
While European functionalists originally focused on explaining the inner workings of social order, American functionalists focused on discovering the functions of human behavior.
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