Lecture 2: Theoretical Frameworks

What is a sociological theory?

abstract models that attempt to explain some aspect of the social world

Theories are tentative explanations of some aspect of social life that state how and why certain facts are related.

rigorous and systematic attempts at explaining the social world around us

Different theories lead to different types of research questions, research methods, and interpretations of the social world

There is no single theoretical approach which is accepted by all sociologists.

3 major approaches

Positivist sociology → structural functionalism; Durkheim

Interpretive Sociology → symbolic interactionism; Mead, social constructivism

Critical Sociology → Conflict; Marx, Critical race theory Du bois, Feminism; Hooks, Queer Theory; Butler

Positivist Sociology

Technical knowledge useful for controlling or administering social life (ex. how many immigrant are paying/not paying taxes)

Collecting data about different groups in our society

Apply the natural science methods to study social reality

Objective view of social reality

It is led by the 4 positivist rules: empiricism, value-neutrality, scientific method, and law-like statements

Uses statistics (quatitative methods)

Favor causal forms of explanation

Approach is deductive

Structural functionalism

Positivist Sociology

Origins: Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim

Tenets:

• Society is a stable ordered system of interrelated parts or social institutions

• Each social institution has a function that contributes to the continued equilibrium or stability as a whole

• Society as a human body

Level of analysis: Macrosociology

Emphasis: Stability, order, and equilibrium

Question: How do the institutions of society contribute to social stability?

Example: Solidarity and suicide (Durkheim) → important to try understand patterns (periods, age, demographics)

Robert Merton

Function and Dysfunctions

Able to identify which structures work out which ones don’t

Society is comprised of a number of structures (eg. institutions such as family, the economy, education, government, religion, etc) each of which fulfills important functions

Manifest function: an intended function of society’s structures (Eg. University → education, social mobility)

Latent functions: an unitended function of one of society’s structures (Eg. communication and connections, social stratification, education inflation)

Dysfunctional: one of society’s structures no linger fulfills its function effectively (Eg. universities could become obsolete)

Criticisms of positivism

Quantitative sociology reduces the rich complexity of social life to abstract numbers and statistics

Individuality is reduced to a set of pre-assigned roles and functions without any level of agency or capacity of self-creation

The context of social science is never neutral. Always carries intentionality, carries a political action/ statement

Law-like statements present a historical and determinsistic picture of the world

Functioning society: inequality, gender roles

Interpretive Approach

Social science methods needed to study social reality. We need it to come up with our own methods and very specific perspectives.

Social constructionist view of social reality. All different meaning are vuilt with our interactions with others, not a dized definitinon/meaning. getting created again and again.

believe that research cannot be value-free, objective, and repllicable, instead they emphasize verstehen

Favor interpretive forms of explanation

Use qualitative methods

Approach is inductive

Verstehen

interpretive/explanatory understanding → tries to understand the meanings of individuals attachs to various actions and events

Involves understanding the motivations of social actors by putting ourselves in their place, by attempting to see the world from their point of view

Social Constructivism

Interpretive Sociology

The categories, facts, world views, and cosmologies that make up the knowledge are dependent on their social, cultural, and historical context

It challenges the essentialist understandinds of the world

Symbolic Interactionism

Interpretive sociology

Origins: George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer

Tenets:

• We act towards things on the basis of their meanings

• Meanings are not inherent; rather, they are negotiated through interaction with others

• Meanings can change and be modified through interactions

Level of Analysis: Microsociology

Emphasis: Meaning, meaning-making, and social interaction

Questions: How is the self and society created through social interactions

Example: Use of marijuana (Becker), labelling

Critical approach

Power and emancipation

Social science methods needed to study social reality

Believe that research cannot be value-free objective and replicable, because poeople use research for their own political purposes

Emphasis is on social change (applied sociology)

Approach emphasizes proaxis (blending of theory and action, trying to build knowledge while also creating action) to promote social change

What are the different critical approaches?

1. Historical Materialism

2. Critical race theory

3. feminism

4. queer theory

Historical materialism

Origins: Karl Marx

Peoples everyday lives are structured by the connection between history, relations of power, and economic power.

How have specific relations of power and specific ecoonmic formations developed historically

Institutions, practices, beliefs, and social rules (norms), of everyday life are structured by the societys economic mode of productions

• the differnt historical wats human societies have acted upon their environment and its resourves in order to use them to meet their needs

Tenets:

• conflict and tension are basic facts of social life

• These conflicts are often between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, though other groups are in conflict as well

• Critical stance against existing social arrangements

Level of analysis: Macrosociology

Emphasis: competition, social conflict, and social change

Questions: How do privileged groups seek to maintain their advantages? How do subordinate groups seek to increase their advantages?

Class struggle

Means of production → anything that can create welath: proporty, factories, businesses, infrastructure

Bourgeoisie → the “haves” or owners in society. These are capitalists who own the means of production and employ the members of the proletariat

Proletariat → The “have-nots” or workers in society. These are the people who have no means of production and live by selling their labor power

Ideology

a system if beliefs, attitutdes, and values that reproduces the status quo of the bourgeoisie in society. Shapes what we see, how we think, what we experience and how we relate to the world

Consciousness

False consciousness → when the proletariat adopts the ideology of the bourgeoisie on their own

Class consciousness → when the proletariat recognizes they are being oppressed by the bourgeoisie and take revolutionary action

Critical Race theory

W.E.B. Du Bois

color line: racial segregation in the US and globally

double consciousness → the conflict or “two-ness” felt by african americans, who are both american (entitled to the rights of all Americans) and african (subjected prejjudice and discrimination)

Social construct of race → race is not biologically determined but socially agreed upon

Origins: multiple origins in various disciplines

Tenets:

• focuses on various aspects of racism (discrimination based on race)

• racial inequality between whites and non-whites is the result of individual and institutional discrimination

• existing patterns of racial ineqaulity can and should be changed for the benefit of all members of society

Level of analysis: Macrosociology and microsociology

emphases: racial inequality

Question: How can we promote racial equality in society/

Feminism

Bell Hooks

a movements to end sexism, sexual exploitation and oppression. implies that men are not the problem but the act of sexist thuknking and action is the problem. includes an understanding of systematic institutionalized sexism. Open-ended.

Origins: Multiple origins in various disciplines

Tenets:

• focuses on various aspects of patriarchy (the system of male domination in society)

• Gender inequality between men and women is the result of men hacing more legal, exonomix, political, and cultural rights than women

• Exisiting patterns of gender ineqaulity can and should be changed for the benefit of all members of society

• Emphasis on intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality, etc. in shaping gender inequality

Level of analysis: macrosociology and microsociology

Emphasis: Gender Inequality

Question: How can we promote gender equality in society?

Queer Theory

Origins: Judith Butler (multiple in various disciplines)

Behaviour determines identity, identity does not determine behaviour

Tenets: categories of sex. gender, and sexuality, should be viewed as social constructs

Level of analysis: macrosociology and microsociology

emphasis: sexual inequality

Question: How can we challenge and replace dochotomies such as gay/straight with more fluid notions of sexual identity?