Structural Functionalism and Symbolic Interactionism

• Max Weber (1864-1920)
  • Key Concepts
  • Ideal Types
  • Verstehen (interpretive understanding)
  • Rationality
  • Protestant Ethic
  • Authority
  • Bureaucracy
  • “Labour must, on the contrary, be performed as if it were an absolute end in itself, a calling. But such an attitude is by no means a product of nature”
• Ideal Types
  • analytical constructs against which real-life cases can be compared.
  • “pure categories” are not real
  • They are a conceptual yardstick for examining differences and similarities, as well as causal connections, between the social processes under investigation.
• Bridging the Gap
  • Between Marx/Durkheim/Weber and  the 1950s, what happened?
  • Chicago School
    • Focused on Urban Sociology
    • Interest in gangs, peasants, underclass, subcultures
    • Created foundations for symbolic interactionism
  • Frankfurt School
    • Critical Theorists
    • Rooted in Marxist theories
    • Created basis for conflict/postmodern theorists
• Structural-Functionalism
  • Parsons-General Theory of Social Action
  • General & universal laws of all behavior
  • All actions constrained by biology, environment, values and norms
  • Critiqued because of a bias toward conformity
    • E.g. women have to act in a certain way because that’s how families function best
  • Merton
  • Student of Parsons, but proponent of mid-ranged theories [rejecting the all-encompassing Parsonian model]
  • Innovation to escape anomie
  • Manifest vs. Latent Functions
  • Strain theory: deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve social goals

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• Conflict Theory
  • Follows from Frankfurt School
  • Competition for limited resources
  • Power differentials
  • CW Mills: The Power Elite
  • Are American leaders really elected democratically?
    • Money controls an interconnected group of political, economic, and military leaders
• Symbolic Interactionism
  • Herbert Blumer
  • People’s Interactions Ultimately Determine their Behavior
    • Self-Image Based on Others’ Interactions
    • Predictability of Behavior
  • Irving Goffman
  • Stigma
    • A negative social label that changes your behavior toward a person and also changes that person’s self-concept and social identity
    • Has serious consequences in terms of the opportunities made available—or not made available—to people in a stigmatized group
• Feminist Theory
  • Dorothy Smith- Standpoint Theory
  • authority is rooted in individuals' personal knowledge and perspectives, and the power that such authority exerts.
  • Judith Butler-Queer Theory & the performance of gender
  • We must challenge the ways that everything we know is experienced differently for men vs. women.
• Postmodern Theory
  • Knowledge is power, but also power is knowledge (Foucault)
  • Those with power control what, how, when we learn, and even in many cases who learns
  • Consider Abstinence Only Education
    • “sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth & you should save it for someone you love.”—Butch Hancock
• Crime Through Different Perspectives
  • Structural Functionalist
  • Crime is Functional for society
    • Solidarity
    • Social change
    • Strain theory
    • Subculture theory
  • How do we address crime in this theory?
    • Community ties
    • Clear sense of social order
  • Conflict
  • Crime is inevitable when there are power differentials
    • Those in power define what is criminal
    • Law enforcement penalizes those without power
    • Further victimization of those without power
  • Symbolic Interactionism
  • Labeling (Becker)
    • Person labeled as deviant is denied opportunities to engage in non-deviant behavior
    • Labeled person internalizes deviant label and acts accordingly
  • Differential Association (Sutherland)
    • People around criminals learn values, attitudes
    • People around criminals learn techniques

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