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