Major Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology (Notes)

Overview: Society is a stable, orderly system with interrelated parts, each serving a function for overall stability.
Key elements:
- Social structure: Stable patterns in social institutions.
- Social function: Consequences for society's operation.
- Manifest functions: Open, stated, conscious functions. Example: A university's manifest function is to educate students.
- Latent functions: Unconscious, unintended functions. Example: A university's latent function might be to connect people for future job networking or marriage.
- Dysfunction: Disruptions to social systems or stability. Example: High crime rates can be a dysfunction, disrupting social order.
Robert Merton (1968): Distinguished manifest/latent functions and dysfunctions.
Overall Example: Families socialize children, which helps societies survive by ensuring new generations learn societal norms and values.
Evaluation: Favored in mid-1900s; focuses on stability, potentially overlooking conflict; less utilized today.
Notable Figures: Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer.

Core Idea: Social behavior is understood through conflict and tension between competing groups struggling for scarce resources (e.g., politics, budget disputes, negotiations, financial matters).
Keywords: Inequality, power.
Stance: Society is structured to benefit a few at the expense of the majority.
Marxist View (Karl Marx):
- Conflict is inherent in life.
- Social institutions maintain privilege/subservience.
- Emphasizes social change and resource redistribution.
- Example: The struggle between the working class (who create wealth through labor) and the capitalist class (who own the means of production) for control over resources and profits.
Types of Conflict Theory:
- Gender-conflict theory: Inequality and conflict between women and men. Example: The ongoing fight for equal pay or political representation between genders.
- Race-conflict theory: Inequality and conflict between different racial/ethnic groups. Example: Systemic discrimination faced by minority groups in areas like housing or justice.
Notable Figures: Karl Marx, W.E.B. DuBois, Jane Addams, Harriet Martineau, Ida Wells Barnett.
- Ida Wells Barnett: Journalist and activist for racial equality.
Evaluation: Gained traction recently; focuses on inequality but can ignore shared values; sociologists use it for societal change; critics see it as overly negative.

Core Idea: Explains society by generalizing about everyday social interaction in small groups.
Microlevel analysis: Focuses on small-scale interactions.
Keyword: Symbol – Anything that represents something else (signs, gestures, or words) to derive meaning from social situations. Example: A handshake can symbolize a greeting, an agreement, or a farewell depending on the context and shared understanding between individuals.
Impact: Individual personalities and self develop from social experience.
Overall Example: Two friends interpret a text message containing an emoji. The meaning of the emoji isn't inherent but is shaped by their shared history and understanding, influencing their subsequent behavior.
Notable Figures:
- George Herbert Mead (1863–1931): Founder; emphasized micro-level behavior.
- Erving Goffman (1922–1982): Developed Dramaturgical approach, comparing life to a stage.
Overall Evaluation: Highlights how people create/interpret social reality and everyday meaning; can underemphasize larger structures, culture, class, gender, and race.

Macro-level approaches: Structural-Functional, Social-Conflict (including Gender-Conflict and Race-Conflict).
Micro-level approach: Symbolic-Interactionism.
Levels of Analysis:
- Structural-Functional: Macro-level.
- Social-Conflict, Gender-Conflict, Race-Conflict: Macro-level.
- Symbolic-Interaction: Micro-level.
Images of Society:
- Structural-Functional: A stable system of interrelated parts working orderly, with general moral agreement.
- Social-Conflict: A system of social inequalities based on class, gender, race; benefits some while harming others; inequality drives change.
- Symbolic-Interaction: An ongoing process where people interact using symbols; reality is variable and changing.
Core Questions:
- Structural-Functional: How is society held together? What do parts do to make society work?
- Social-Conflict: How does society divide? How do advantaged/disadvantaged groups protect/challenge privilege?
- Symbolic-Interaction: How do people experience/shape reality? How do behavior/meaning change?

Structural-Functionalist: Interrelated parts work to maintain stability.
Social Conflict: Society has social inequality; life is a struggle for scarce resources.
Symbolic-Interactionist: Behavior is learned in interaction; reality is socially constructed through meaning.

Structural-Functional Approach: Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer.
Conflict Approach: Karl Marx, W.E.B. DuBois, Jane Addams, Harriet Martineau, Ida Wells Barnett.
Symbolic-Interactionist Approach: George Herbert Mead, Erving Goffman.