DIISS-PPT-week-4-6

This document introduces three major sociological theories:

1. Sociological Theories Overview

  • Goal: To analyze contemporary social issues using diverse theoretical perspectives, highlighting how each offers unique insights and reveals the socially constructed nature of meaning.

  • Theories Covered:

    • Structural-Functionalism

    • Marxism

    • Symbolic Interactionism

2. Structural-Functionalism

  • Core Concept: Views society as a system of interconnected parts, emphasizing stability, consensus, and social order.

  • Key Thinker: Exemplified by Robert Merton.

  • Functionality: Institutions (e.g., schools, hospitals, churches) contribute to social order by fulfilling specific functions.

    • Manifest Functions: The recognized and intended consequences of a social pattern.

    • Latent Functions: The unrecognized and unintended consequences of a social pattern.

  • Dysfunction: Failure of these institutions to perform their functions leads to negative consequences that disrupt social order.

  • Analogy: Society is like a biological organism where each organ has a specific function for the overall health of the body.

3. Marxism

  • Core Concept: Focuses on social, political, and economic theories centered on the struggle between classes.

  • Key Thinkers: Developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

  • Central Conflict: Particularly between the proletariat (working class) and the bourgeoisie (capitalist class), stemming from industrialization.

  • Societal Basis: Posits that society is fundamentally based on conflict arising from economic inequality.

  • Key Theory: Introduces the base and superstructure theory - where the economic base (means and relations of production) determines the superstructure (culture, politics, law, religion, education).

  • Additional Concepts:

    • Highlights economic determinism, where economic relations largely shape all other aspects of society.

    • Introduces the concept of alienation, where individuals are estranged from their labor, products, species-being, and other people under capitalism.

    • Ultimately seeks a classless, communist society through revolutionary change.

4. Symbolic Interactionism

  • Core Concept: Emphasizes linguistic or gestural communication and its subjective understanding, stressing that reality is not fixed but is continually constructed through social interaction.

  • Focus: Highlights the role of language, symbols, and shared meanings in shaping individuals as social beings and influencing their behavior.

  • Human Behavior: Influenced by definitions and meanings created and maintained through symbolic interaction with others.

    • Involves interpreting each other's actions rather than merely reacting to them.

    • Mediated by symbols ( \text{e.g., gestures, words, objects} ).

  • Level of Analysis: Primarily a micro level theory, examining face-to-face interactions and the meanings individuals derive from them.

  • Sub-Theory: Cooley's Looking-Glass Self Theory

    • Explains: How individual identity develops based on perceived judgments from others.

    • Process Involves:

      1. Imagining how we appear to others.

      2. Imagining how others judge our appearance.

      3. Developing self-feelings (pride or shame) as a result of these imagined judgments.

  • Key Idea: Meaning is not inherent but is created and negotiated through interaction, making social life fluid and dynamic.