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4. Formats
All social themes can be divided into four perspectives:
1. Functional theory
2. Conflict theory
3. Exchange theory
4. Interactionism and role theory
Sociological theory has the following characteristics from which its f importance can
be judged:
1. It surrounds the observable facts of the phenomenon of social theory.
2. The indicators of the theory are simple and measurable.
3. It has the capacity to foretell the facts.
4. Not only it explain the social phenomena but also points to views of new
researches in the fields of research.
Q. Explain functional school of thought in detail.
The functionalist perspective attempts to explain social institutions as collective
means to meet individual and social needs. It is sometimes called structuralfunctionalism because it often focuses on the ways social structures (e.g., social
institutions) meet social needs.
Functionalism draws its inspiration from the ideas of Emile Durkheim. Durkheim was
concerned with the question of how societies maintain internal stability and survive
over time. He sought to explain social stability through the concept of solidarity, and
differentiated between the mechanical solidarity of primitive societies and
the organic solidarity of complex modern societies. According to Durkheim, more
primitive ortraditional societies were held together by mechanical solidarity;
members of society lived in relatively small and undifferentiated groups, where they
shared strong familyties and performed similar daily tasks. Such societies were held
together by sharedvalues and common symbols. By contrast, he observed that, in
modern societies, traditional family bonds are weaker; modern societies also exhibit
a complex division of labor, where members perform very different daily tasks.
Durkheim argued that modern industrial society would destroy the traditional
mechanical solidarity that held primitive societies together. Modern societies
however, do not fall apart. Instead, modern societies rely on organic solidarity;
because of the extensive division of labor, members of society are forced to interact
and exchange with one another to provide the things they need.
The functionalist perspective continues to try and explain how societies maintained
the stability and internal cohesion necessary to ensure their continued existence
over time. In the functionalist perspective, societies are thought to function like
organisms, with various social institutions working together like organs to maintain
and reproduce them. The various parts of society are assumed to work together
naturally and automatically to maintain overall social equilibrium. Because social
Functionalism and conflict theory are two major perspectives on how society works.
The two take very different approaches to understanding what society is like.
Functionalism holds that all parts of a society play a role in keeping society stable
and relatively harmonious. To functionalists, even bad things like crime and
deviance actually help to keep our society stable. They say that crime and
deviance help to ensure that the rest of us (those who do not act in criminal or
deviant ways) feel connected to one another. We see people who act in bad ways
and we feel that we all have something in common because we follow societys
rules and do not act wrongly. Thus, functionalists believe that even bad aspects of
society help to bind us together.
By contrast, conflict theorists believe that all aspects of our society do not create
harmony. Instead, the various aspects of our society come about through conflict.
Society is not made up of parts that work together to bring stability. Instead, it is
made up of parts that compete with each other for dominance. In this view, even
things that we might think of as good (family, religion, schools) are actually created
by the dominant forces in society as a way to keep the other parts of society down.
Families are created by men to dominate women. Religion is created by the
powerful to keep the poor and weak from rebelling. Schools are created to teach
the values of our society so that even the poor think that we have a great society
that is basically fair.
In these ways, functionalism and conflict theory are essentially polar opposites in
terms of their views of how the various parts of society interact
communication can result from differences in the perception of the same events and
symbols.
Critics claim that symbolic interactionism neglects the macro level of social
interpretationthe big picture. In other words, symbolic interactionists may miss
the larger issues of society by focusing too closely on the trees (for example, the
size of the diamond in the wedding ring) rather than the forest (for example, the
quality of the marriage). The perspective also receives criticism for slighting the
influence of social forces and institutions on individual interactions.
functionalist sociologists is Robert Merton (b. 1910), who divides human functions
into two types: manifest functions are intentional and obvious, whilelatent
functions are unintentional and not obvious. The manifest function of attending a
church or synagogue, for instance, is to worship as part of a religious community,
but its latent function may be to help members learn to discern personal from
institutional values. With common sense, manifest functions become easily
apparent. Yet this is not necessarily the case for latent functions, which often
demand a sociological approach to be revealed. A sociological approach in
functionalism is the consideration of the relationship between the functions of
smaller parts and the functions of the whole.
Functionalism has received criticism for neglecting the negative functions of an
event such as divorce. Critics also claim that the perspective justifies the status quo
and complacency on the part of society's members. Functionalism does not
encourage people to take an active role in changing their social environment, even
when such change may benefit them. Instead, functionalism sees active social
change as undesirable because the various parts of society will compensate
naturally for any problems that may arise.
The conflict perspective
The conflict perspective, which originated primarily out of Karl Marx's writings on
class struggles, presents society in a different light than do the functionalist and
symbolic interactionist perspectives. While these latter perspectives focus on the
positive aspects of society that contribute to its stability, the conflict
perspectivefocuses on the negative, conflicted, and everchanging nature of
society. Unlike functionalists who defend the status quo, avoid social change, and
believe people cooperate to effect social order, conflict theorists challenge the
status quo, encourage social change (even when this means social revolution), and
believe rich and powerful people force social order on the poor and the weak.
Conflict theorists, for example, may interpret an elite board of regents raising
tuition to pay for esoteric new programs that raise the prestige of a local college as
selfserving rather than as beneficial for students.
Whereas American sociologists in the 1940s and 1950s generally ignored the
conflict perspective in favor of the functionalist, the tumultuous 1960s saw
American sociologists gain considerable interest in conflict theory. They also
expanded Marx's idea that the key conflict in society was strictly economic. Today,
conflict theorists find social conflict between any groups in which the potential for
inequality exists: racial, gender, religious, political, economic, and so on. Conflict
theorists note that unequal groups usually have conflicting values and agendas,
causing them to compete against one another. This constant competition between
groups forms the basis for the everchanging nature of society.
Critics of the conflict perspective point to its overly negative view of society. The
theory ultimately attributes humanitarian efforts, altruism, democracy, civil rights,
and other positive aspects of society to capitalistic designs to control the masses,
not to inherent interests in preserving society and social order.