theories

functionlism - introduction

• emile durkheim and talcot parsons

• macro stuctural theory

• sees society as based on conseunus and agreement amoung its memebers about values and norms

• economical, political and social organisation through interdepdent social institutions

• objective knowledge of the functioning of society and this knowledge can be used to improve society

organic analogy

• parsons - 3 ways in which the human body and society are the same

• systems - self regulating and have interdepdent parts that fit together

• systems needs - the organs of the body have neds that must be met to survive society has similar needs and uses socialsation to survive

• functions - body and socities meet their needs - for example the economny meets the need for food and shelter

• example davis and moore role allocation

however analogy isnt an explaination in itself

• it is rather a comparision to an other system which does not give understand understanding of that which is being explained - parsons does not explain the stucture of society so much as he desribes the workings of the body

• the new right - interconnectedness of societial insitutions giving credbilitly to the functionlist explainations

• economic support of families anre declining personal responsibility, the growth of single parenhoods decreasinig our levels of socialsation

• there is some debate over whether functionlists would view family diversty as problematic

functionlists can show how an individual is intergrated into society

• people are intergrated via socialsation through family and education but also through social control such as postive and negative sanatcitons

• peoples behviour thus becomes relatively predictable - they will go to school, they will then work for the rest of their libes

• examples - educations role and mandate of british values through education policies

evaluation

• functionlists view society as very collectivist, subsquent theories have rather promoted change, for example feminists and the patricahry

• functionlists suffer from temporal validty

• for example feminists question the biological deteminism of the sex role theory and challenge the metanarratives of society within our post modern society

• failure to recognise the dysfunctional or harmful aspects of some instutions e.g socialsation of children

functionlists can expplain how social order exists in society today

• durkheim believed that people are naturally selfish and so without collective consciousness froom socialsation society would fail

• through institutions within society individuals internalise the values of society which mean bonds are formed with others

• durkheim and the role of religion in integrating function in any society

• also the function of crime and deivance and the postivies it can have

pro evalution

• hirschi - important in understand our crime and deviance, social control is achieved through the 4 bonds of attachment - keep people closely linked to the value consesus

• marxists would support that there is value consensus however this it because of ruling class oppression - gramsci and hegemony in the media

functionlism had allued itself to postivism - can enable us to see causal relationships that exist today in society

• industrialsation inspired people to believe that the ere a rational explanation for everything

• comte argues that social science should try and give the highst level of a scienctific explanation in establishing human society

• exntention of the enlightenment project

• explanations that could provide the basis for political action - social world existed externally to individuals and acted as forces upon them

• quanative data is a good way to gather this

this methodology is aparent in contempary contexts

• interpretivists criticse functionlists for having an over socialsied determinstic view of society they ignore personal angecy

• there is a desriptive value in quanative data

• establishing patterns does not have explananatory value

• this can only be achieved by maintianiing the meaning given to events and actions by individuals therefore methids of data collection have to perseve these meanings

• durkheim inferred the causual elements of sucide, interpretivists approaches have shown the social contructiion of statics

functionlists fail to acknowledge the power issuses that are intergral to institutions of society

• in the case of mertons explanation of crime he points to how members of society are placed at different postions

• but talyor critises merton for failing consder who makes the laws and who benefits from them

postmodernists would argue that society is so fragmented and individualstic there is no whole shared collective value consesus

• there can be seen individualism

• spiritual marketpplace vs the decline of a unfiying church in 2021 46% of people indetified themselves as christian compared to 59%

• so if the basis of social order is through the value consenus then society would be in a constant state of turmoil however it is not

• post modernists argue that people are parts of a lot of different institutions - judaism, islam christianty are all conflicting religionsyet all prevalent in society

• functionlisrs cannot adequately expplain social order in the modern society today

introduction to marxism

• individual motovations are linked to wider stuctural content

• top down theory where conflict is key

• nep marxists have attempted to overcome major criticsms - such as the little acknowledge that there is of the dymanic interactions that individuals have witin it and given more insight into the impact of industrialsation and mass communications

a major contribution to our understanding of society proposed by marx ws how the economic basis of society determined its social stucture and relates to change

• historical realism theory

• primitive communism

• society becomes more complex economically as the means of production advances

• relations of production - contepory society had reached the mode of production stage capitalism

• clear division between two classes

• and the working class are explioted

this can be applied to transnational corportations

• has led to the development of a class of super rich and highly influneital figures

• for example amazon was worth $2.4 trillion

• but their tax aviodnece have cost uk citzens £433 million

• £14 billion to the uk total GDP from 2024 - 2028

failure to recognise human agencey and free will

• weber - calvinistic prostesantism that spawned modern capitalism, not capitalism shaping religion

• marxs predictions that expliotation would lead to revolution in advanced capialist stuctures - historically it has been economically challenged countries such as russia in 1917

• neo marxists such as gramsci argue for humanistic marxisim - the transtion from capitlism to communism will never coome out simply as a result of ecnomic forces

• hegemony - ruling classes maintian their postion, state agencies like the police ca force other classes to accept its rule or perhaps even more consitently.

• ruling clas hegemony however is never fully complete - this is because the state needs maintencne e.g the wealthfare state but also workers have a dual consience as they can develop thinking that challenges expliotatiion and forces change

the role of class a key determinant in the experience and behaviour of individuals and groups

• class is defined as - a group of people who share the same socio-economic status whose social position in society is based on factors like occupation, wealth, education and income

• upper classes, middle classes, working classes and lower classes

• using the postivist apperoach to track enduring trends related class status in fundemental aspects of development

• for example bourdeiu theory of cultural capital and how this imapcts the chances of education for young people

issuses with class

• marx has a simplistic one dimential view of inequalitly, weber arfues that status and power differences can also be a source of inequalitly - you do not have to own the means of production in order to have power - for example in former soviet countries

• feminists and the patricahry

• class needs to be regarded as more complex and subdivide the proltetriat group into skilled and unskilled

• class porlasation has not happened, the indstruial middle class has grown and wc shrunk

• how revelent really is class today in shaping a persons identity, postmodernists see class status as more blurred and less relvent

marxists have contributed to our understandiing of how power can be maintianed through false consciounes

• dominant institutions such as religion and education can justify the prevealing conditions they control mental production such as ideas

• creating false consiousness workers are unable to recognise expliotation

• some have class conscience and engage with class conflict such as strikes and poltical protest - all are in stare of alienation having engage with mindless, and repetive tasks

critques of tradtional marxism

• athlusser has critques of tradtional marxism, thinks that superstucture and infastucture are not nesscearly linked with one another

• people were simply forced to cooperate then they would reject the system therefore people are rather manupliated into apprieactiing it instead

• a repressive state apparatus rather exists where capitalism is carefully mainted through manipluating people into accepting the unfair system

• but marx does acknowledge that men make their own history and that the working classes would free themselves by their own conscience efforts, indicating that he did give a role to conscience efforts

accepting stuctural casarion has contributed to the formulation of government and government policy

• marx would become the basis of communism

• eastern blockm china

• selective tripartied sytem moving towaeds comprehensivasation

• more equalitly of opportuinity

• hugely signficant in actually helping to shape our modern world

Feminism

• society is dominated by males

• orgins in 18th century enlightenment and later 19th century sufferagettes campaign for the right to vote

• second wave feminism 1960’s and was on a global scale

• third wave 1990’s - involved more nunance debates of class and gender

• mainstream analysis of the male stream, all feminsts oppose subordination but disagree on its cause and how we should ultimately overcome it

liberal feminsits

• freedoms of indivduals and their civil rights

• believe that everyone is equal

• women can achieve gender equalitly through refformism and gradual changes in society

• campaign for cultural change - targetting tradtional sex role theories

• liberal feminsts reject the idea that biological differences make women less

gender socialising, stereotyping and anti discrinmation legislation

• they distinguish between sex and gender and the challenge to the constratinats of tradtional sex stereotypes

• sex - biological differences

• gender - culturally contructed ideals of the mascline and the femine

• to achieve gender equalitly, socialsation patterns must change

• seek to promote appropraite role models e.g - fathers taking responsiblitly for the family

• over time such actions will lead to and produce cultural change

• men will also benefit- they will be released from the contraints of masclinity

evaluation of liberal feminism

• studies produced have given evidence to the extent of gender inequalitly and their work helps to demonstrate gender differences rather than biological determinism

• liberal feminists are critisced for being over optomistic, they see obstacles as simply just prejeuces of individuals

• sylvia walby - argues that they offer no overal explanation for the overal stucture of gender inequalitly - they ignore the possiblitly of deep seated cultures such as the patriacrhy and capitalism

radical feminism - patriarchy, sexual politics and seperation

• radical feminism emerged in the early 1970’s

• patriachry is universal, male domination exists in all societies firestone argues this lies in childbearing and caring

• fundemental divison and conflict in society underpinning inequalitly

• all men opress all women

contribution - the personal is political

• opression is direct and personal - it can happen in the private sphere such as the family

• all relationships involve power, men dominate women through relationships - known as sexual politics

• expression of sexual or phyiscal violence has the effect ofcontrolling women

• brownmilller - fear of rape is so powerful deternent agaisnt women going out alone at nighttime

• more than just biological urges to look at its social contruction - porn displays women as passive sex objects

• rich - women are forced into a narro and unsatifsying comulsory heterosexualitly and there are sanctions for alternative

radical feminists solutions

• personal and sexual relationships must be transformed

• seperatism → living apart from men and creating a culture of female indepdence free from patriarchy - greer 2000 argues for the creation of all female matricoal households as an alternative to the heterosexual family

• consciousness rasing - women come to see that other women face the same problems - this may lead to collective action such as reclaim the night marches

• political lesbianism - heterosexual relationships are inevitably oppressive because they involve sleeping with the enemy and that lesbianism is the only non oppresive form of sexualitly

evaluation of radical feminism

• draws attention to the political aspect of previously closed to view examination of the personal as political

• marxists → class is the primary form of inequalitly not patriachry

• no explanation why female subordination takes different forms in different socities, it also assumes all women arre in the same position e.g ethnicty and class

• pollert 1996 → the concept of patriachry is of little value in explaning womens postions because it involves a circular arguments - e.g = male violence is explained as patriarchy while patriarchy is being seen as maintained by male violence

• critics argue that vague uptopian notions of seperation are unlikely to be achieveable - somerville argues that heterosexual attraction makes it unlikey that the nuclear family will be replaced by same sex households

• patriarchy may already be in decline, liberal feminst argue that womens postion

marxist feminists

• see the subordination of women as rooted in capitalism - although individual men may benefit, the main beneficairy is capitalism

• womens primary role is as an unpaud homemaker putting them in an economically depdenable situation

• women as a source of cheap and expliotative labour

• women as a reserve army of labour

• women reproduce the labour force

• women absorb anger - ansley describes wivs as ‘takers of shit;

• thus is it in the interests of women to overthrow capitlasm

barret - the ideology of familism

• womens subordination performs important economic functions for capitalism

• barret argurs that we must give more emphasis to womens conciousness and motivations and to the role of ideology in maintaining their opression

• the nucelar family ideal encorauges women to believe that they can attian fufiliment through mothergood and intamicey

• overthrowing capitlaism is essential in womens liberation but so should be ideology of familialism, we need to free the sexes from restrictive stereotyps

• mithcell - uses pyschology to enhance this verion of wimens realitly ideas of feminity are deeply implanted into womens minds

evaluation of marxist feminism

• valid in drawing attention to womens subordination in terms of capitlaism, this advances the understanding that stuctural factors must be included for understanding society

• cannot account for female suboridnation in non capitlaist countries

• unpaid domestic labour does not benefit capitlaism not explained by women and not men who perform this - Hartmann argues marxism is sex blind

• not proven that unpaid domestic labour is in fact the cheapest way of reproducing labour power - it may be cheaper through the market or state funded nursies

dual systems feminism

• combines marxist feminism and radical feminism together

• hartman - patriachral capitalism

• patriachry is manifested in a specfic form in capitalist socities - look at women and their unpaid labour + their paid work - these systems reinforce each, econimic depdence on men occurs

• walby - patriachry and capitalism do however clash in interests - c wants cheap labour and p wants domestic work. but in the long run capitlaism is more powerful, hence why segration needs to occur

• pollert - p is not actually a system, rather a dynamic of profit making

difference feminism and poststucturalism

• this approach does not see women as a single homogeous group, their experiences of the patriacrhy vary due to race and class ect

• feminism has claimed a false universality for itself poingin out that in realitly lib feminism was just about mc white women

• black feminist view the family as a source of resistence agaisnt racism

• problem of essentialism

• this fails to reflect women diversty

poststuctural feminism

• butler and scot - concered with discourses and power/knowledge

• there are many competing discourses - e.g science and religion

• the powet to define others is a discourse than then gives power over those being defined

• butler argues that by attachment to enlightenment ideals - reason, humanity and progtress seen as whiten western mc male discourse

• white, mc + western women have dominated and fasely claimed to repressent all women

• no fixed entity or essnence of womanhood

• butler argues that poststrutalism offers a way of emcompassinf differences as it would enable femnists to deconstruct patriacrhy and take into account the range of experiences of different women

• each discourse provokes its own form of resistance and strugglw with its own aims and demands

• by rejecting essentialism and stressing the variety of discourses, poststuctrualism recognises and legitimates the diversity of womens lives rather than excluding some

evaluation of poststucturalist feminism

• walby agrees that there are differences but there are also important similarities, they are all faced with patriachey, compared with men they are all at the increased risk of domestic violence and sexual assult

• dividing women into subgroup may weaken feminism

• segal - any notion of real objective social norm is lost, oppression is not just about discourses but rather real inequalitly, therefore femism should contuine to focus on the struggle for equalitly and wealth

the new right

• collective term for the right wing ideology that embraces neo liberal economic policy

• maragret thatcher + john major

• came to power as a reaction to economic failures national pride and traditional values

neo liberalism

• minimize state intervention to allow buisness to grow and innovate without the need for regulation from government bodies

• included having goods and services usually provided by the state run by priviate compaines a process called privitasation

• gov run → state run by beingsold of and bough by private investors

• the new right did thus because these sevices were not profitable and cost the tax payer billions of subsides by selling to buisness with expertise

neo conservative social policies

• nr promoted neo conservative social policies to tackle soome major problems such as rising unemployment

• traditional values should be transmitted through its institutions

• golden age before the 1960’s

• problematic individuals who were not intergrated into society correctly

• their focus was on restoring the norms and values

conseusus theory or not

consensus theory

• alongside functionlism

• need for sociteal cohesion, shared values and beliefs collective

• they support government policies which try to and change society

• neo-liberal econonmics and traditional conservative ideas

not

• its obersvations on those groups and conflicting norms

• dysfunctional

• welfare state undermined the key insitutions that create the value consnesus and ensure social solidarty

• e.g - the family, welfare policies undermined the key instutions that undermine the traditional nuclear family patricuarly by creating a large increase in lone parent families - leads to inadquate socialsation

new right + education

• essential for secondary socalisation

• e.g - british values in 2013

• it views that state as inadquarte, see state education - e.g one size fits all approach and disregarding local needs and opinons thereby underperforming in exams providing an insufficent skilled workforce and therefore hindering the economny

• policies - highlighting the marketsation of education as solving these probles by encouraging competition between schools through empowering parents to buy education that will meet pupils needs - tis will lead to standards of achievement increasing

problems with new right and education

• critisced by marcists who see capitalist culture as being imposed on socirty rather than a consesus culture

• postermodernism - meta narratvies fail to deal with a contempary diversity. narrow curriculym fails to engage and prepare students in a rapidly changing globalised world

• gerwitz and ball - competition between schools as benefitting the mc who use their cultural and economic capital to acess better schools

crime

• nr sees it as a serious problem

• crime is a product of…

• biological differences

• inaffective socialsation

• rational choice

the family

• major - back to basics campaign

• redwood - living in a nuclear family was the most desirable outcome for society

• tackle welfare - only way out of poverty was to work, cut back unemployment benefits whilst increasing incesntives like lowering income tax

• blamed idle young men as the problem due to socialsation in single mother households

• developement of the CSA - collecting maintence from absentee fathers enforced financial responsiblitly

• but fail to acknowledge repressive aspects of the family that are linked to tradtional roles

• ignoring issues such as dysfunctionaltiy such as domestic violence

• focus on the negative like absence of father vs strong maternal role models influential on the development of boys and girls

modernity

• 19th + 20th century western socities characterised by major technological, social and political advances the nation state a bounded political entity whose population share the shame lanauge and culture was a key unit of modern society

• capitalism and industrialism are also essential features supported by science and techology these contribute to the decline of religion and the rise of individualism we experience greater personal freedom and move beyond custom and tradition

• rational, progressive thought that sociology was born

• the main modernist approach are marxism, functionalism and social action theory

• stuctural approaches → complete theory of society, functionalism and marxism and their ofshoots are the 2 main stuctural theorists - start from the same position but come to very conclusions (functionalism - consensus theory marxism - conflict)

• social action theories - how society is built up from people interacting with each other and meanings

postmodernity

• 70’s - acceptance how stuctural theories haf failed in their attempts to provide adquate explanations about the nature of society

• late modernity - developed and changed with new aspects but tradional theories are considered to be worthwhile and can be adapted

• postmodernists argue that we have moved into a new set of economic and social circumstances based largely on communication and image and thererfore traditional sociological models have no value at all.

• challange of globalsation to the nation state

• technological changes

• economic changes

• political changes

• changes in culture and idenitiy

postmodernism postivies

• its concepts can address siginficant developments

• a new set of economic and social circumstances has occured due to technological, economical, political and cultural changes

• culture and idenity differ fundementally from modern societies

• confronted by the array of different messages undermines peoples faiths in meta narratives

• it challenges wheter there are sure foundations to knowledge

• challenges the validty of all embraciing theories or meta narratives

• postmodernists demonstrate the value of taking a relativist position

critiscms of postmodernism

• marxists argue that it ignores power and inequalitly

• we can only construct our indeities if we have the means to do so

• it underestimates the abilitly of audiences

• in denying there is an absoulte truth it becomes valid to deny the morally indefensiable

• postmodernism is illogical

• fails to explain how changes to todays society came about

• overly pessmitistic about objective knowledges role in improving society

• theories of late modernity argue that postmodernists are incorrect about a new era, it is still possible to discover objective knowledge and use it to improve society

jean baudrillard

• society is no longer based on the production of material goods but on the buying and selling of knowledge in the form of signs and images which are not necessairly rooted in a physical reality

• this is hyper realitly signs substitue themselves for realitly but they are meaningless.

• baudrillard is particuarly critical of tv as the main source of simulcra and our inabilitly to distinguish between image and realitly

late modernity

• giddens - defining characterstics of society is rapid

• disembedding - we no longer need face to face contact for communication

• reflexitivity - more individualistic, there is no set tradition or custom to how we should act

• contuinal reevaluation of society leads to it becoming increasingly unstable and subject to change

• giddens believes that we can intervene and improve things such as nuclear war, destablised capitalism and global warming

• beck - individualisation and risk consiousness are now central ideas of our culture, knowledge comes from our mass media which can give a distorted view of the risks we face - beck looks to new political movements such as environmentalism to challenge to direction of tech and industrialism

postivies

• show that a rational analysis of society remains possible and knowledge can be used to decrease risks

• the concept of relfexitiy suggests that we reflect on our actions and then arer free to reshape our lives

negatives

• it is the pursuit of capitalism rather than technology that is the source of risk

• enivronmentalism and other movements are too fragmented to challenge capitalism

• david harvey believe that society has moved to postmodeirty, but we firstly need to know its relationship to capitalism - it has grown out of economic crisis, where culture and indenity become comodified