schools of thought U.1 L.3

  • school of thought : a set of ideas/opinions about a matter that are shared by a group of people (common beliefs)

  • cultural relativism : franz bos, ruth benedict, margaret mead, a persons beliefs/values/practices should be understood based on that persons own culture, rather than being judged against the criteria of another

  • structural functionalism : talcott parsons, robert merton, society is a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability, addresses society in terms of the function of its elements (norms, customs, traditions, institutions)

  • institutions : established organizations/practices built around specific purposes, provide structure and stability to social, economic, political and cultural systems (ex. police, schools, banks, churches, marriage)

  • cultural materialism : marvin harris, the physical world sets constraints on human behaviour, which is part of nature and can be understood by using the methods of natural science, used to explain and analyze societal development and some problems of capatalist societies

  • feminist anthropology : erminnie platt smith, alice cunningham fletcher, matilda coxe stevenson, many of them were published under their husbands names, and many were self-taught of were the wives of anthropologists and worked with their husbands

  • it wasn’t until the 1970s that these women were recognized with their own sub-discipline of anthropology

  • psychoanalytic theory : sigmund freud, the unconscious mind can be unlocked through dream analysis and hypnosis, the unconscious vs. conscious mind, the unconscious mind has more influence than our conscious mind on our personalities and behaviour

  1. ID : encourages us to seek physical satisfaction

  2. superego : prompts us to do the moral thing, not the one that feels best

  3. ego : the referee between the two and deals with external reality, the most conscious self

  • behaviourism : john b. watson, benjamin spock, by indentifying the factors that motivate human behaviour, psychologists can predict and control it, they can treat patients with problem behaviours

  • learning theory : ivan pavlov, b.f skinner, albert bandura, abraham maslow, by controlling the way in which humans learn behaviour, society can have a great influence on their ultimate personalities

  • structural functionalism : bronislaw malinowski, a.r radcliffe-brown, talcott parsons, to understand a society, we must study how the society works to meet the needs of its members, not how it is changing

  • neo-marxism : bertell ollman, economic power which is the basis of political power, is the key to understanding societies

  • symbolic interactionaism : george h. mead and charles cooley, the human brain intervenes between what we observe and how we act, to understand human society we must understand how the human mind works

  • feminist theory : betty friedan, jessie bernard, rosemarie tong, most societies value systems are sexist and therefore dysfunctional, to change this social institutions must admit that gender issues exist within them

  • inclusionism : kathy megyery : sociologists must recognize the ethnic diversity within societies by studying the experience of all ethnic groups and rejecting the urge to judge through the eyes of the majority