Chapter 2: Understanding Theory

• What is Theory?

  • Theory is created by one or more small number of sociologists working together, it attempts to explain a particular aspect of the social structure or a kind of social interaction between individuals
  • Theoretical Perspectives are groups of theories that share certain common ways of “seeing” how society works. 
  • There are three main theoretical perspectives in sociology
  • Structural Functionalism
  • Conflict Theory
  • Symbolic Interaction

• Understanding the Structural Functionalist Perspective

  • Structural Functionalism is the view of modern societies as consisting of interdependent parts working together for the good of the whole
  • Social Solidarity is the moral order of society
  • Families, religion, education, and other institutions teach individuals to help society function smoothly

• Durkheim and Types of Societies

  • Emile Durkheim examined social solidarity throughout history
  • Mechanical Solidarity is solidarity derived from the similarity of its members
    • Observed in smaller, preindustrial societies
  • Organic Solidarity is solidarity where societies operate like a living organism, with various parts, each specializing in only certain tasks but dependent on the others for survival. 
    • As societies evolved and science grew over religion, and jobs became more differentiated during the industrial era
  • Social Harmony occurs when a society with organic solidarity is “healthy,” where the parts of the society are working well together
  • Social Order is how the components of a society work together to maintain the society

• Social Institutions

  • Social Institutions are sets of statues and toles focused around one central aspect of society
  • Micro-level Analysis focuses on either an individual or small groups
  • Structural functionalists note that there are seven primary social institutions
  • Family
  • Religion
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Government
  • Health Care
  • Media
  • Each social institution fulfills tasks on behalf of society
  • Structural functionalism calls these task functions

• Manifest Functions

  • Manifest Functions are obvious and stated reasons that a social institution exists
  • Ex: family social institution
  • One function is to procreate, or else society would have died after one generation
  • So a manifest function of the family institution in any society is a reproduction
  • Societies can have multiple manifest functions: families also need to teach children the cultural norms and values of their particular society a process also known as socialization

• Latent Functions

  • Latent Functions are unintended consequences of an institution
  • Ex: family institutions
  • If manifest function is to reproduce and socialize children
  • Latent functions are how families help the economic institution
    • Helping the economy is a good thing but not a core function of families
  • Dysfunction are an unintended consequence of behavioral patterns

• Seeing the Social World Using Structural Functionalism

  • Unit of analysis is what is being examined
  • Using the structural-functional lens, sociologists see that social institutions construct stability and order

• Curbing Violations of Social Norms

  • What about individuals who choose to act against shared cultural norms? How does structural functionalism see that person
  • that person violated social norms
    • Maybe he wasn't properly socialized by parents and therefore didn't properly learn the norms, or maybe learned them but didn't see them as acceptable, or he was selfish, etc. 
  • Structural functionalist theorists believe that punishment is required for 2 reasons
  • 1) accepting one’s punishment is a step in the rehabilitation/resocialization process of the individual back into the community (if possible)
  • 2) structural-functionalist theories, building on the sociological work of Emile Durkheim also worry that without punishment, “bad” behavior will spread like an epidemic in the community

• Social Change

  • Social Change is a large-scale, macroscopic, structural shift in society

  • Sociologists see change happening when there are large-scale, macro-structural shifts in society or institutions within one of more societies

  • Functionalists bc they see harmony deriving from the stable functioning of institutions and cooperation among them are not so sure that a lot of social change is a good thing. 

  • What Doesn’t Structural Functionalism See? 

  • Can rapid social change and the disharmony that comes along with it ever be a good thing for society to experience? 

    • Structural functionalist theorists would argue that no, it wouldn’t be a good thing. 

  • Even in case of clear good change/outcome like an immediate call for change in sex discrimination functionalist wouldn't be a fan

  • Not because they support sex discrimination but because they want slow incremental change so they can check every step along the way

  • Structural Functionalism, by focusing on the need for social order & harmony, con overlooks times in the life of the society where rapid social change- even if it may lead to some social chaos is the just thing to do

• Understanding the Conflict Theoretical Perspective

  • Conflict Theory is the second macro-theoretical perspective
  • Conflict Perspective is the tensions and conflict that arise when resources, status, and power are not distributed equitably; these conflicts then become the driving force for change

• Karl Marx and Advanced Capitalism

  • Marx believed that there were 10 stages of societal development but was most concerned with the last 3 stages- capitalism, socialism, and communism
  • Stage 8: Advanced Capitalism 
  • Marx held that advanced capitalism is an economic system based on profit and the pursuit of maximum profit
  • Bourgeoise is the rich owners of the means of production
  • Means of Production is the technology and materials needed to produce products
  • Proletariat are the workers, those who don’t own the means of production
  • Lumpenproletariat is the perpetually unemployed
  • Advanced capitalism from Marx’s time is very different from modern American capitalism. 

• False Consciousness

  • For Marx and like-minded individuals of this era, the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoise was a bit confusing to see,
  •  like why didn’t the proletariat realize they were being economically exploited under capitalism
  • Marx theorized workers were in a state of false consciousness
  • False Consciousness is Marx’s theory that the proletariat did not understand how they were being mistreated and misled by the owners of the means of production

• Species Being and Alienation

  • Species Being is the unique potential to imagine and then create what we imagine
  • Humans can sketch fantastically intricate designs and make them become real in the world
  • However, the proletariat was prevented from living up to their species being by the various nature of capitalist exploitation
  • Humans ended up living in a state of Alienation
  • Alienation is the theoretical concept to describe the isolation, dehumanizing, and disenchanting effects of working within a capitalist system of production

• Karl Marx and Socialism

  • Marx felt that to move the proletariat from false consciousness to true consciousness, the proletariat had to come to grips with the depths of their exploitation by the bourgeoisie
  • True Consciousness is when the proletariat is no longer in false consciousness and is aware of how they are being mistreated and misled.
  • He believed that when the proletarian revolution began, society would move from the eighth stage of societal development to the ninth stage
  • Stage 9: Socialism
  • Marx predicted this stage would last a few generations before society would be ready for the tenth stage of social development: communism

• Karl Marx and Communism

  • Marx’s vision never became a reality, not even in nations that consider themselves a communist
  • Marx believed that after a few generations of socialism as an economic system, some of the key social institutions, such as political and economic systems, would no longer be needed and would disappear
    • Under communism, all citizens would be equal and at long last be able to fulfill their species being
  • Communism under Karl Marx’s conceptualization of communism all citizens would be queal and able to fulfill their species-being. 

• From Marx to the Conflict perspective

  • Mostly in the US, in the 1960s: Marx’s theory became the intellectual foundation for our second macro-theoretical perspective- the conflict perspective
  • Conflict theorists argue that Marx’s theory was too narrow, oppression doesn’t have to be only economic in nature
  • Modern conflict theorists recognize many ways in which social rewards are unequally distributed
    • Race, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexual orientation, citizenship status, age, ability/disability
  • Sociologists using the conflict perspective use different terms to reflect this social reality

• Seeing the Social World Using the Conflict Perspective

  • Conflict theorists see oppression: as the haves holding the have-nots back to maintain their own elevated status
  • Value Coercion is an idea that the haves use their power over the major institutions to force their values onto the have-nots as part of their effort to maintain their higher-status positions in society
  • The media for example rarely tell stories about the working class
    • When they do, the middle class is buffonish (like homer Simpson) or overweight(mama June from toddlers and tiaras and here comes honey boo boo, before she lost weight)
  • Tv news also does this when they use racial terms to describe criminals of color but ignore rave when the criminal is white
    • When repeated society will think of poor equaling bad, and black or Hispanic equal criminal
  • Conflict thinkers, unlike structural functionalists, don’t see social problems as a result of some “bad individuals” rather they regard the inequitable distribution of rewards as the cause of most social problems

• What Doesn’t Conflict Theorists See? 

  • The conflict perspective is so focused on oppression they overlook movements when society is doing well

  • In doing so they overlook things of societal harmony and equilibrium

  • Conflict theorists don’t always acknowledge how disruptive and harmful change can be as well

  • Subperspectives in Conflict Theory

  • The conflict perspective while unified in the focus of oppression and efforts to combat it has split into sub perspectives

    • Examples
    •  the feminist conflict theorists argue that men as a category of people have greater access to social rewards than women
    • Critical race theorists focus on the social construction of race and the white-dominated racial hierarchy
    • Disability scholars frequently use the conflict perspective to analyze how modern Westen Societies create the built environment in ways that worked for able-bodied people but not those living with disabilities

• Understanding the Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

  • Macro lens miss something vital to the study of people in groups: interaction between individuals- at the micro-level
  • Symbolic Interactionism is the way individuals behave and interact with other people
  • We can use it to examine how any one person develops their sense of self
    • Self or the sense of self is the knowledge that she or he is unique, separate from every other human

• The Social Construction of Reality

  • Interactionist theorists study culture comes to be created
  • Culture is the way of life of a particular group of people
    • Consists of norms, and symbols through which we communicate, values, etc. 
  • Socialization can happen at any time in a person’s life but is most intense in childhood
  • Primary Socialization is the socialization that occurs in childhood, the most intense time for socialization

• The Looking Glass Self Theory

  • A child’s first step in developing a sense of self is to imagine how she appears to relevant others- parents, siblings, grandparents, and so on
  • The second step, the child reacts to feedback given by parents and others give about their perceptions of the child
  • Could be verbal - like I love you - or nonverbal - hugs, slaps, holding handles, etc. 
  • Finally the third step, the child integrated the first two into a coherent and unique sense of self
  • Primary Groups are small collections of people of which a person is a member, usually for life, and in which deep emotional ties develop
  • While socialization in childhood is fundamental, cooley would argue that socialization continues throughout a person’s life

• Dramaturgical Theory

  • Interactionism doesn’t just focus on the construction of self, Erving Goofman analyzed the interaction between small groups as if it was a play.
  • Social Actors are individuals involved in interactions
  • Social Scripts  are the interactional rules that people use to guide an interaction
  • Props are material objects
  • Dramaturgical theory can be helpful in examining all types of social interactions
  • Often performances involve teams of individuals, not just two people, and interaction accusing in particular settings
    • Front Stage is where an interaction actually takes place
    • Back Stage is where one prepares for an interaction
  • Presentation of Self Skills are efforts to shape physical, verbal, visual, and gestural messages that we give to others to achieve impression management 

• What Doesn’t Symbolic Interactionism See?

  • Symbolic interactionism doesn’t examine of see the causes of social problems, how to solve them and the rate of change like macro theoretical perspectives do

• Social Constructionism

  • Social Constionism holds that every society creates norms, values, objects, and symbols that it finds meaningful and useful
  • Constructionists argue  while culture/society hoes exist and is felt by the individuals it is ultimately created and sustained by social systems, which must be made more just
  • that is it more important to study the idea of poverty than individual  poor people
  • Focus on the constructed nature of every stratification system
    • Ex. wealth/poverty, race, sex/gender, age, digital divide, etc.

• Full Theoretical Circle

  • Each family creates, within reason its own norms for how to raise children and implements those norms
  • But what do we mean by “within reason”? 
    • Society determines what is “reasonable” it is socially constructed
  • Over time certain behavioral patterns will become more acceptable in society and become the institutionalized version
  • Over time we have come full circle

\