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