1|Page APPLIED SOCIOLOGY 1 Resources Sociology is the study of society and human social interaction. Sociological research ranges from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. The field focuses on how and why people are organized in society, either as individuals or as members of associations, groups, and institutions. Someone working in the field of sociology is called a sociologist. As an academic discipline, sociology is considered a social science. Sociological theories are complex theoretical frameworks that sociologists use to explain and analyze variously how social action, social processes, and social structures work. Sociological theories are sometimes called social theories, though the later term generally refers to interdisciplinary theory. In seeking to understand society, sociologists use both sociological theory and interdisciplinary social theories to organize social research. Sociology also invloves definitions of culture, society, community and notions of Gemeinschaft and Gesselshaft. Gemeinschaft (German pronunciation (help·info) IPA: [gəˈma͡ɪnʃaft]) and Gesellschaft are sociological categories introduced by the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies for two normal types of human association. (A normal type as coined by Tönnies is a purely conceptual tool to be built up logically, whereas an ideal type, as coined by Max Weber, is a concept formed by accentuating main elements of a historic/social change.) Gemeinschaft (often translated as community) is an association in which individuals are oriented to the large association as much if not more than to their own self interest. Furthermore, individuals in Gemeinschaft are regulated by common mores, or beliefs about the appropriate behavior and responsibility of members of the association, to each other and to the association at large; associations marked by "unity of will" (Tönnies, 22). Tönnies saw the family as the most perfect expression of Gemeinschaft; however, he expected that Gemeinschaft could be based on shared place and shared belief as well as kinship, and he included globally dispersed religious communities as possible examples of Gemeinschaft. Gemeinschafts are broadly characterized by a moderate division of labour, strong personal relationships, strong families, and relatively simple social institutions. In such societies there is seldom a need to enforce social control externally, due to a collective sense of loyalty individuals feel for society. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 2|Page Gesellschaft (often translated as society or civil society or 'association'), in contrast, describes associations in which, for the individual, the larger association never takes on more importance than individual self interest, and lack the same level of shared mores. Gesellschaft is maintained through individuals acting in their own self interest. A modern business is a good example of Gesellschaft, the workers, managers, and owners may have very little in terms of shared orientations or beliefs, they may not care deeply for the product they are making, but it is in all their self interest to come to work to make money, and thus the business continues. Unlike Gemeinschaften, Gesellschaften emphasize secondary relationships rather than familial or community ties, and there is generally less individual loyalty to society. Social cohesion in Gesellschafts People interact together on the basis of reciprocal and `whole person' relationships which are to their mutual advantage. ... Members of Gemeinschaft bodies follow collective sentiment.... But with the onset of industrialism, the mutualism to be found in Gemeinschaft gives way to the competitiveness of Gesellschaft society in which relationships are fragmented, self-motivated and egocentric. ... If a future society based on the Gaian principles of interdependence, mutuality and interrelatedness is to be achieved, a reemergence of some form of Gemeinschaft is essential. Source: bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/earth2/09gemeinschaft.html typically derives from a more elaborate division of labor. Such societies are considered more susceptible to class conflict as well as racial and ethnic conflicts Sociology can be seen to be divided into two core areas. They are: 1. Micro Sociology: social psychological view of human behavior, choice and exchange, the effect of structure on the individual 2. Macro Sociology: structural view of human behavior, the context in which behavior takes place, the structures of the society The Hobbesian Qusetion Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679 postulated what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This inevitably leads to conflict, a "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes), and thus lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (xiii). Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 3|Page To escape this state of war, men in the state of nature accede to a social contract. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede their natural rights for the sake of protection. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace. In particular, the doctrine of separation of powers is rejected:[3] the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers. Source Wikipedia The Sociological Imagination C Wright Mills and Peter Berger describe sociological imagination “…as a transformation of perspective which sees in a new light the very world in which we have lived our lives, of finding the familiar becoming transformed in its meaning. Sociological imagination From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sociological imagination is a sociological term coined by the American sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1959 describing the ability to connect seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces to the incidents of an individual’s life. It suggests that people look at their own personal problems as social issues and, in general, try to connect their own individual experiences with the workings of society. The sociological imagination enables people to distinguish between personal troubles and public issues. For example, people in poverty by this perspective might stop to consider that they are not alone, and rather than blaming themselves should criticise the social forces that directed them into their present condition. There are three key questions that constitute the core of Mills' sociological imagination: 1. What is the structure of a particular society and how does it differ from other varieties of social order? 2. Where does this society stand in human history and what are its essential features? 3. What varieties of women and men live in this society and in this period, and what is happening to them? Mills argued that ‘nowadays men often feel that their private lives are a series of traps’. Mills maintained that people are trapped because ‘their visions and their powers are limited to the close-up scenes of job, family [and] neighbourhood’1, and are not able to fully understand the greater sociological patterns related to their private troubles. Underlying this Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 4|Page feeling of being trapped are the seemingly uncontrollable and continuous changes to society. Mills mentions unemployment, war, marriage and life in the city as examples where tension between private trouble and public issues becomes apparent. The feeling that Mills identified in 1959 is still present today, Macrosociology is a sociological approach that analyzes societies, social systems or populations on a large scale or at a high level of abstraction.[1] It is considered one of the main foundations of sociology, alongside microsociology and mesosociology). Macrosociology can also be the the analysis of large collectivities (eg. the city, the church). [2] Lenski [3] defines macrosociology simply as "concerned with human societies". Important representatives of macrosociological theories are: Karl Marx; who analyzed society from the perspective of class conflict between workers and owners Max Weber; who viewed society as rapidly modernizing and looked at the effects of this process, such as bureaucratization Emile Durkheim; who viewed individual issues as reflective of greater social patterns, completing the first sociological study (which linked suicide to societal trends Sociology is the study of society and human social interaction. Sociological research ranges from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. The field focuses on how and why people are organized in society, either as individuals or as members of associations, groups, and institutions. Someone working in the field of sociology is called a sociologist. As an academic discipline, sociology is considered a social science Sociological theories are complex theoretical frameworks that sociologists use to explain and analyze variously how social action, social processes, and social structures work. Sociological theories are sometimes called social theories, though the later term generally refers to interdisciplinary theory. In seeking to understand society, sociologists use both sociological theory and interdisciplinary social theories to organize social research. Sociological theories are based on certain basic core assumptions, or basic metaphysical, epistemological and moral premises, about the nature of the social world. Basic assumptions include positivism and Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 5|Page antipositivism, materialism and idealism, determinism and free will (related to the problem of structure and agency), and individualism and collectivism. Some social theories, such as neo-marxist theory, feminist theory and variants of social constructionism, are often motivated by a strong sense of social justice and concerned with liberation from oppression and exploitation. Other social theories, such as structural functionalism and systems theory, may be motivated by a concern with scientific objectivity and seeming value neutrality (which may entail value commitments, sometimes masked, such as to conformity or acceptance of the status quo in a given society). Another dimension of basic assumptions is about the nature of sociohistorical development and the current state of development of various societies. Distinctions used about contemporary societies in sociological theory include broad historical trends such as industrialization, urbanization, underdevelopment, and globalization and stages of development such as modernity, postindustrial, underdevelopment, postmodernity, and the network society. Some of the major general sociological theories (and their variants) include: Conflict theory: focuses on the ability of some groups to dominate others, or resistance to such domination. Ethnomethodology:examines how people make sense out of social life in the process of living it, as if each was a researcher engaged in enquiry. Feminist theory: focuses on how male dominance of society has shaped social life. Functionalism:A major theoretical perspective which focuses on how elements of society need to work together to have a fully functioning whole. Interpretative sociology: This theoretical perspective, based in the work of Max Weber, proposes that social, economic and historical research can never be fully empirical or descriptive as one must always approach it with a conceptual apparatus. Social constructionism: is a sociological theory of knowledge that considers how social phenomena develop in particular social contexts. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 6|Page Social phenomenology: The social phenomenology of Alfred Schütz influenced the development of the social constructionism and ethnomethodology. Social positivism: Social Positivists believe that social processes should be studied in terms of cause and effect using 'the' scientific method. Structural functionalism: also known as a social systems paradigm addresses what functions various elements of the social system perform in regard to the entire system. Symbolic interactionism: examines how shared meanings and social patterns are developed in the course of social interactions. o Dramaturgical perspective - a specialized symbolic interactionism paradigm developed by Erving Goffman, seeing life as a performance Rational choice theory: models social behavior as the interaction of utility maximizing individuals Microsociology mi·cro·so·ci·o·log·i·cal [ m krō sōssee ə lójjik'l ] adjective Definition: studying small area of society: relating to the sociological study of small groups and units within a larger society Microsociology is one of the main branches of sociology (contrast with macrosociology and mesosociology) which concerns itself with the nature of everyday human social interactions on a small scale. At the micro level, social statuses and social roles are the most important components of social structure. It is usually based on observation rather than statistics. It is based on the philosophy of phenomenology and includes symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology. THEORY AND RESEARCH: Approaches in Sociology Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 7|Page General In sociology there are two very broad ways of dividing sociological knowledge: micro and macro. Micro sociology tends to focus upon the action of individuals in groups, how the group affects us, our values, beliefs and behaviors. Macro sociology focuses upon the scale and structure of society, relationships among groups and structures. Sociology is still in the early stage of theoretical development, sometimes called schools of thought or paradigms. A. Microsociology Microsociology is concerned with the interactions, exchanges and choices of people as affected by the social context in which the occur. The approach in sociology is often referred to as Social Psychology and draws upon two theoretical perspectives within this broad approach: Choice and Symbolic interaction. These views have diverse philosophical roots that are discussed fully in the Microsociology topic. Macrosociology Specific Macrosociological perspectives: a. conflict Essentially the conflict perspective sees the structures of society producing conflicting expectations among the members of the society. The net result is that there are groups produced by the structures that have interests that run counter to other groups within the same structure or in a different structural context. For example, the roles of men and women are in a way complementary (i.e., different but necessary for one another). In some instances the structures that these roles are imbedded in may produce conflict between the two groups. The nature of the economic system has placed men in positions of power where they make most of the decisions. Modern technology and educational achievement of women have increased the number of women who work. These changes have in turn brought women into the work place and in that structure they seek power that challenges that of men and places them in conflict with the men. Out of the conflict will come changes in the roles of both men and women. Stark cites other examples of groups, their interests and the conflict that will occur among them. (see Stark for details) Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 8|Page b. functionalism The functionalist view of the social system emphasizes connectedness and equilibrium among the parts of the system. Each element affects every other element in the system. Some theorists state it is the natural tendency of a system to maintain a steady state (i.e., an equilibrium). The classic example of this condition is the human body. There are built in mechanisms that maintain body temperature within a relatively narrow range (about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit). If you exercise violently, you increase the temperature and the body system responds by opening vessels at the surface and increasing the sweating response -- all actions designed to bring the temperature back toward the 'normal' value of 98.6. Similarly, the idea is that the society is a system that is in equilibrium. If a part of it gets out of whack (the family, for example), mechanisms will come into play to move the part back into balance with the rest of the society. The Macrosociological approach is concerned with the discovery of structure within the society as a whole, the examination of large scale relationships in society, of the relationships among the structures within the society. Structures set the tone for behavior, the context within which behavior takes place. Two sub-perspectives occur within this broader approach: conflict and functional Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences, and economics, many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. According to structural theory in anthropology and social anthropology, meaning is produced and reproduced within a culture through various practices, phenomena and activities which serve as systems of signification. A structuralist studies activities as diverse as food preparation and serving rituals, religious rites, games, literary and non-literary texts, and other forms of entertainment to discover the deep structures by which meaning is produced and reproduced within a culture. For example, an early and prominent practitioner of structuralism, anthropologist and ethnographer Claude Lévi-Strauss in the 1950s, analyzed cultural phenomena including mythology, kinship (the Alliance Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 9|Page theory and the incest taboo), and food preparation (see also structural anthropology). Positivism is a philosophy that states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. It was developed by Auguste Comte. Sociology is seen as a study of “social facts’ and of the ways in which society influences the behaviour of individuals. In Comte's lifetime, his work was sometimes viewed skeptically because he had elevated Positivism to a religion and had named himself the Pope of Positivism. He coined the term "sociology" to denote the new science of society. He has been called the ‘father’ sociology. Conflict/Consensus Theory Consensus Conflict Perspectives in social theory In order for us to understand why sociological theories could be classified into 'consensus' and 'conflict' perspectives. Let us first look at the definitions of these two concepts of consensus and conflict. Consensus is a concept of society in which the absence of conflict is seen as the equilibrium state of society based on a general or widespread agreement among all members of a particular society. Conflict is a disagreement or clash between opposing ideas, principles, or people-this can be a covert or overt conflict. Conflict theory, therefore, is a theory or collection of theories which places emphasis on conflict in human society [Jary & Jary, 2000:105]. The discourse of conflict theory or perspectives is on the emergence of conflict and what causes conflict within a particular human society. Or we can say that conflict theory deals with the incompatible aspects of human society. Conflict theory emerged out of the sociology of conflict, crisis and social change. Consensus theory, on the other hand, is a sociological perspective or collection of theories, in which social order and stability/social regulation forms the base of emphasis. In other words consensus theory is concerned with the maintenance or continuation of social order in society; in relation to accepted norms, values, rules and regulations as widely accepted or collectively by the societyor within a particular society- itself. It Emerged out of the sociology of social order and social stability/social regulation. Source: www.http.allfreeessays.com Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 10 | P a g e AllFreeEssays.com Consensus Conflict Perspectives in social theory In order for us to understand why sociological theories could be classified into 'consensus' and 'conflict' perspectives. Let us first look at the definitions of these two concepts of consensus and conflict. Consensus is a concept of society in which the absence of conflict is seen as the equilibrium state of society based on a general or widespread agreement among all members of a particular society. Conflict is a disagreement or clash between opposing ideas, principles, or people-this can be a covert or overt conflict. Conflict theory, therefore, is a theory or collection of theories which places emphasis on conflict in human society [Jary & Jary, 2000:105]. The discourse of conflict theory or perspectives is on the emergence of conflict and what causes conflict within a particular human society. Or we can say that conflict theory deals with the incompatible aspects of human society. Conflict theory emerged out of the sociology of conflict, crisis and social change. Consensus theory, on the other hand, is a sociological perspective or collection of theories, in which social order and stability/social regulation forms the base of emphasis. In other words consensus theory is concerned with the maintenance or continuation of social order in society; in relation to accepted norms, values, rules and regulations as widely accepted or collectively by the societyor within a particular society- itself. It Emerged out of the sociology of social order and social stability/social regulation. Put these into perspective the consensus and conflict sociological theories are reflected in the works of certain dominant social theorists. Dominant Classical social theorists such as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. And other prominent social theorists such as Talcott Parsons & Robert Merton, Louis Althusser & Ralph Dahrendorf and Herbert Mead & Herbert Blumer. It is important to note that the conflict and consensus perspectives of sociological theories have been divided into four Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 11 | P a g e categories or four paradigms-frame of reference in which human beings see the world. These are Radical Humanism & Radical Structuralism which fitted under conflict theory, Interpretive Sociology & (Structural) Functionalism/Systems Analysis which are classified under the consensus perspective. Each of the classical and modern social theorists (and their theories) above are slotted into one of the four categories or paradigms. Well, first let us look at Karl Marx and Conflict theory; there are two interpretations or paradigms of Marx's theory of conflict, Radical Humanism & Radical Structuralism. The works of Marx in his early years was interpreted by some social theorists as emphasizing the role of human beings in social conflict. They explained change as emerging from the crisis between human beings and their society. They argued that Marx's theory was a theory characterised by class conflicts or the conflict between the bourgeoisie (rich, owners) and the proletariat (poor, workers). What these people or Radical Humanists are stressing is the human being's capacity to think and act against situations that are not satisfactory to their existence: political, economic or social situation unsatisfactory to them, therefore, they desire for a radical change-force and struggle against all human impedimentsto take place. According to this Marxist interpretation, change will only come about by means of conflict between two classes of people. This is in consequence of the suppression and domination by one dominant class of people over another weaker class, social conflict will emerge and change will take place. For instance, the change from simple/primitive to slavery to feudalist to capitalist and to socialist societies is characterized by conflict. For example, the French revolution, whereby the bourgeoisie overthrew the feudal system-which saw the ousting of the Monarchs-and gave rise to a capitalist French society. According to another group of social theorists pioneered by Louis Althusser argued that Karl Marx's theoretical exposition in his later years was stressing the role of social structures /institutions in conflict. Althusser proposed a structuralist reading of Marxism. For him, society consisted in a hierarchy of structures distinct from one another, Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 12 | P a g e each with its relative autonomy. In other words Althusser was offering an anti-humanist reading of Marx's work. Thus, according to the structuralists, conflict is naturally prevalent within social structures/institutions in society. With time social conflict will emerge. That is, conflict will emerge by itself because of the incompatible relationship between the rules and regulations of social structures/institutions. Therefore, change will come. According to Althusser, he rejected any idea of human involvement in instigating social conflict. But saw People as just products of these structural conflicts or the inherent internal differences contained within the social structures/institutions. Now let us take for example the recent socio-political turmoil (1998-2000) between the two ethnic groups, Guadalcanal and Malaita, in Solomon Islands from both the humanist & structuralist Marxist explanation. For the humanist Marxist-a possible explanation of the conflict-the conflict was a result of the Guadalcanal people's frustrations because of what they perceived as domination by Malaitans over them. That is in terms of land issues, land and resources acquisition, disrespect for the indigenous people, their land and their customs [Kabutaulaka, 14th April 2002:4-7]. Whereas, a simple structural Marxist explanation would argue that this socio-political conflict was determined by the existing structures/institutions of social and political nature. One potential illustration of structural Marxists would be branded on the relationship between the introduced Westminster style of ruling and the fragmented traditional forms of ruling as contrary to each other. Thus, resulted in the conflict of principles or values inherent within these two structures that overtime overt conflict emerged by itself. Now let us look at the conservative Consensus perspectives and the two paradigms or sociologies of social order & social regulation; interpretive sociology (symbolic interaction) and (Structural) Functionalism/Systems analysis. Firstly, let us reflect on interpretive sociology or symbolic interactionism. The foundation of this sociological explanation is rooted in the works of social theorists such as George Herbert Mead, Max Weber, Herbert Blumer and others. For Mead emphasized the natural emergence of the self and mind within the social order-within the social process of social human interaction [Baldwin, 1987:108, Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 13 | P a g e 112]. Weber stressed the role of human beings as agents of the social interpretation and rational understanding [Morrison, 1995:275-276]. Blumer highlights the meaning of social facts for the individual actions [Jary & Jary, 2000:622-633]. Their analysis of society is quite similar to that of Humanist Marxism (Radical Humanism) in that they both emphasized the role of human beings in subjective social action. Interpretive sociologists or symbolic interactionists presumed that human beings are thinking beings and do not passively accept the rules and regulations of society. They further stressed that because of the human ability to think, it provides human interpretations of the social or the norms and values of society. These interpretations of the norms and values in turn satisfy human beings and make them act accordingly. Therefore, theoretically, it is these human abilities to think, understand, interpret and act meaningfully according to the collective rules and regulations of society that will bring about social order and social stability. On the other side is functionalism/structural functionalism which objectively looks at society from a macro perspective. Functionalism is based on the works of Emile Durkheim and further expanded by Talcott Parsons. Whereby, they likened society to biological organisms. Just like the internal organs of a normal biological organism work together for the efficient healthy (orderly) development function of the organism, so is the society which has social organs/structures/institutions which are there to maintain social order and stability in society in order to progress [Plange, 1996:60]. Thus functionalism is similar to Structuralist Marxism (Radical Structuralism) in that they are concerned with structural/institutional analysis of society. But different in terms of their emphasis. Functionalism emphasizes on social order and social stability but not conflict. Functionalism provides that society is made up of different institutions or organizations that work together in co-operation-their orderly relationship-to maintain social order and social stability. This maintenance of society is extracted from the internal rules, norms, values and regulations of these various ordered institutions. In Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 14 | P a g e light of these two conservative theoretical explanations the post socio-political conflict in the Solomon Islands can be assessed from an interpretive sociological explanation and a functionalist point of view. The main focus of the post conflict situation in Solomon Islands at the moment is to restore law and order, and stability. Well, from a Functionalist perception it would be argued that the desire to restore law and order is facilitated by certain institutions in Solomon Islands. Such as the Churches, the police, judiciary, the peace council and the government through their respective functions and co-operative efforts. Whilst, the interpretive sociologist would respond to this by saying that it is the people of Solomon Islands themselves and not the institutions who are working together for the restoration of law and order. Both of these interpretations are relevant in this context. As such, a student of sociology must not take for granted these theories or conclude that one particular theory is relevant to society than others. There are three things of significance needed to be remembered. Firstly, is that, elements of each theories under the consensus and conflict theories are present in society; the point is no one particular theory can not explain society fully. Secondly, there is an overlap of explanations between the theories. For example, Talcott Parsons set out to synthesis Weber's and Durkheim's work, but he tend to be more Durkheimian than Weberian. Thirdly, these social theorists derived their theories from the works of a predecessor social theorist like Parsons himself, others before him and those who came later including critics. Therefore, as we have seen from these four paradigms it is clear why some sociological theories can be categorized collectively as conflict theories and why other theories are considered as consensus theories. To put it simply it is their emphasis of explanation and interpretation by other social theorists that made them so. Bibliography Baldwin, John. D (1987) George Herbert Mead: A Unifying Theory for Sociology, California: SAGE Publications. Jary, David and Jary, Julia (2000) Collins Dictionary of Sociology [3rd Edition, Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers. Kabutaulaka, Tarcisius Tara (14th April 2002) A Weak State and Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 15 | P a g e the Solomon Islands Peace Process In Pacific Islands Development Series, Hawaii: East West Center. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2002. 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Morrison, Ken (1995) Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Formations of Modern Social Thought, London: SAGE Publications. Plange, Nii. K (1996) The Science of Society: Exploring the Links between Science, Ideology and Theories of Development, Suva: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies in Association with the Department of Sociology, University of the South Pacific. by e_lekava at yahoo.com View comments about this essay search for more essays at All Free Essays . com Structural Functionalism and Talcott Parsons Classical and Contemporary Sociology Beginning with Parsons and the functionalist approach to sociology we leave the classical sociologists – Marx, Weber, and Durkheim – and examine more recent sociological approaches. In Europe, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim developed the major theoretical approaches to an analysis of the social world. While they were not as comprehensive in their analysis of the social world as is contemporary sociology, these classical writers defined the discipline of sociology and developed models and methods which contemporary sociologists must consider. Contemporary sociologists have taken several lines of development. Some develop and update the ideas of classical sociology, while others combine ideas from several classical sociologists. Still others reject many of the classical approaches, but even here the ideas of classical sociology serve as a point of debate and departure. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 16 | P a g e Parsons and the functionalist approach to sociology occupy an intermediate position between classical and contemporary sociology. Some new sociological approaches were developed in North America before Parsons. But Parsons and the functional approach to sociology became so dominant that by the late 1950s, sociology and functionalism became more or less identical (Wallace and Wolf, p. 17). This meant that sociology studied the roles of institutions and social behaviour in society, the way these are related to other social features, and developed explanations of society in social terms (Wallace and Wolf, p. 17). Beginning around the time that functionalism became dominant, there were many new developments in sociology. Microsociological approaches such as symbolic interactionism and the study of individual and small group interaction began, perhaps because these had not been emphasized by earlier sociologists. Conflict approaches also developed, partly in reaction to the consensus view of functionalists, and partly because functionalism was not able to explain the new social movements and developments in North America and the rest of the world. By the late 1980s, functionalism and Parsons were more or less discredited and abandoned, replaced with a variety of sociological models that attempted to develop a variety of non-functionalist approaches to the study of sociology. More recently, some sociologists have attempted to revive functionalism, the most notable of these being Jeffrey Alexander (Wallace and Wolf, pp. 58-61). At the same time, some of the alternative approaches that were developed have functionalist aspects to them. As a result, functionalist theory and the sociology of Talcott Parsons must be studied in order to understand the development of sociological thought. In addition, some of the ideas of Parsons have proved to be useful to the study of the contemporary social world. Functional analysis does not emphasize conflict, does not consider conflict to be an integral part of the social world, and generally does not consider change to be dramatic but rather to be evolutionary. While the writers who take this approach often advocate reforms, these may be minimal, thus providing support for existing structures. At the same time, the structural functional approach is in the tradition of western liberalism – arguing for equality of opportunity, a liberal democracy, and social reforms that would encourage these. Politically, this approach has often been used as a means of countering radical reforms, at other times it has contributed to more modest reforms Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 17 | P a g e Unlike the other major theoretical approaches, the structural functional model comes from a variety of authors. Usually it is associated with Talcott Parsons, although the single most famous article is a short summary article on social stratification by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore. Robert Merton is another well known sociologist who provided some important structural functional theoretical statements. All of these were sociologists who were from the United States and spent most of their academic life there. As a result, this approach is often associated with sociology in the United States. Social Order. Much like Durkheim, Parsons was concerned with the problem of social order, "how, if individuals were really separate entities pursuing their self-interest, there could be any order at all: How could there be anything but disorder?" (Johnson, p. 116). In practice, people do cooperate, and there is a degree of social integration. For Parsons this comes from the values of society and of social actors – the basis of social action can be termed voluntarism. "People act on the basis of their values; their actions are oriented and constrained by the values and norms of people around them; and these norms and values are the basis of social order" (Knapp, pp. 191-192) Functionalism – Introduction 1. Overview. Many aspects of the functionalist approach to sociology are similar to those of other sociological approaches, but with a particular emphasis on function, interdependence, consensus, equilibrium, and evolutionary change. Some of these aspects are: a. Macro. The focus is macro-sociological, with institutions and structures existing in the society as a whole. This is the origin of the structure part of the structural functional approach. b. Function. The different parts of each society contribute positively to the operation or functioning of the system as a whole. This is the functional part of the structural functional approach. c. Interdependence and Equilibrium. Functionalism attempts to explain the relationship of different parts of the system to each other, and to the whole. These parts are usually work together in an orderly manner, without great conflict. The different parts are usually in equilibrium, or moving toward equilibrium, with consensus rather than conflict governing the inter-relationships of the various parts. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 18 | P a g e d. Evolutionary Change. While equilibrium, consensus, and static rather than dynamic analysis is most common, there is some discussion of change. Change tends to be orderly and evolutionary, rather than revolutionary or with dramatic structural breaks. Conflicts or external factors stimulate adjustment of the parts to move toward a new equilibrium. As change occurs, the various parts of societies become more differentiated, with these parts adapting to new needs and problems. Societies become more complex, with new institutions and subsystems developing that perform the new functions required to make the society operate smoothly. Note the similiarity to Durkheim’s view of how the division of labour develops. 2. Function. Each society has certain needs in that there are a number of activities that must be carried out for social life to survive and develop. Goods and services must be produced and distributed in order for people to survive, there must be some administration of justice, a political system must exist, and some family structure must operate so as to provide a means to reproduce the population and maintain social life on a daily basis. In the structural functional model, individuals carry out each of these tasks in various institutions and roles that are consistent with the structures and norms of the society. One example of functionalism is inequality. Functionalists generally argue that a certain degree of inequality is functional for the society as a whole, and the society could not operate without a certain degree of inequality. Rewards in the form of income, status, prestige, or power must be provided in order to induce people to carry out the work required of them and get them to prepare for and perform in roles required by society. Recall that Durkheim argued that social inequalities should represent natural inequalities, and if this occurs, the division of labour performs well. Some types of Marxism also have a strong strain of functionalism to them – for example, a Marxist may claim that the function of the working class is to produce surplus value, or the state functions in the interests of the bourgeoisie. One question raised in a functional approach is to determine what is functional and what is not, and for whom each of these activities and institutions are functional. If there is no method to sort functional from non-functional aspects of society, the functional model can become tautological – without any explanatory power in that any activity is regarded as functional. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 19 | P a g e 3. Structures. Functionalist analysis looks on social systems as having certain needs, and society as a system of social structures (economic, legal, educational, gender structures). If the needs are being met, then it is the social structures that meet these needs. The structures are thus functional in the sense that they help society to operate. Interconnections exist within and among these structures, and individuals and groups are constrained by these structures. Wallace and Wolf note that some functionalists have abandoned the structural aspect and refer to themselves merely as functionalists (p. 17). 4. Interdependence. Since society is composed of different parts, and the proper operation of these parts is necessary to the smooth operation of society as a whole, the interdependence of the parts is an important feature of functional analysis. The roles taken on by people, and the institutions and organizations of society are all interdependent. A change in any one part affects others, requiring other parts to take account of the changes, modify its actions, and adapt to any changes necessary. While most sociological approaches recognize the interdependence of the elements of a society, the functionalist approach tends to regard these elements of society (individuals or institutions) as having particular functions to perform. For example, Parsons argues that each individual occupies a status or position within a structure. "Status and role tend to go together in what Parsons calls the 'status-role bundle.'" (Grabb, p. 101). These are the ways in which individuals fill the structures of society. So long as roles are performed, the structures function smoothly, and it is individuals carrying out their functions and roles within these structures that make the structures work. 5. Equilibrium. Functionalists argue that societies are generally in a normal state of affairs, with the different parts functioning smoothly to contribute to the operation of the society. There may be disturbances from this normal state of affairs – from outside the society, because the different parts are not operating properly, or because of features such as population or technical change – but these disturbances trigger adjustments in the various parts of society that return the society to a state of equilibrium. An example from economics is that when there are shortages of a product, the price of the product rises, and this induces producers to produce more of the product, thus eliminating the shortage. When there is a disturbance in the social world, the various roles and organizations have means to return the society to a more normal state of affairs. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 20 | P a g e 6. Consensus – Norms and Values. The functional approach tends to argue that there is consensus within the social system. Individual behaviour is governed by social norms or rules that are generally accepted and agreed upon. These are like Durkheim's social facts or moral regulation in that they govern behaviour, and while they are coercive, they are also generally agreed upon. These norms and values are consistent with the equilibrium state of society, or normal state of affairs. There are aspects of these norms that return the society to a normal state of affairs in the case of a disturbance – for example, sanctions, punishment, social approval, and social disapproval. Functional analysis does not emphasize conflict, does not consider conflict to be an integral part of the social world, and generally does not consider change to be dramatic but rather to be evolutionary. While the writers who take this approach often advocate reforms, these may be minimal, thus providing support for existing structures. At the same time, the structural functional approach is in the tradition of western liberalism – arguing for equality of opportunity, a liberal democracy, and social reforms that would encourage these. Politically, this approach has often been used as a means of countering radical reforms, at other times it has contributed to more modest reforms Unlike the other major theoretical approaches, the structural functional model comes from a variety of authors. Usually it is associated with Talcott Parsons, although the single most famous article is a short summary article on social stratification by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore. Robert Merton is another well known sociologist who provided some important structural functional theoretical statements. All of these were sociologists who were from the United States and spent most of their academic life there. As a result, this approach is often associated with sociology in the United States. Social Order. Much like Durkheim, Parsons was concerned with the problem of social order, "how, if individuals were really separate entities pursuing their self-interest, there could be any order at all: How could there be anything but disorder?" (Johnson, p. 116). In practice, people do cooperate, and there is a degree of social integration. For Parsons this comes from the values of society and of social actors – the basis of social action can be termed voluntarism. "People act on the basis of their values; their actions are oriented and constrained by the values and norms of people around them; and these norms and values are the basis of social order" (Knapp, pp. 191-192) Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 21 | P a g e MACROSOCIOLOGY The relationship between individual and society Social Action Theory MAX WEBER MAX WEBER: Basic Terms (The Fundamental Concepts of Sociology) Definitions of Sociology and Social action: Sociology is a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action to arrive at a casual explanation of its course and effects. Sociology seeks to formulate type concepts and generalized uniformities of empirical processes. (History, on the other hand, is interested in the causal analysis of particular events, actions or personalities.) Action is human behavior to which the acting individual attaches subjective meaning. It can be overt or inward and subjective. Action is social when, by virtue of the subjective meaning attached to it by the acting individual(s), it takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby guided. Social action may be oriented to past, present, or predicted future behavior of others. Others may be concrete people or indefinite pluralities. Not all action is social: if it ain't oriented to the behavior of others, it ain't social. Also, it is not merely action participated in by a bunch of people (crowd action) or action influenced by or imitative of others. Action can be causally determined by the behavior of others, while still not necessarily being meaningfully determined by the action of others. If I do what you do because it's fashionable, or traditional, or leads to social distinction, its meaningful. Obviously the lines are blurred (pp 113-114), but it's important to make a conceptional distinction Modes of Orientation of social action: Uniformity of social action = action which is wide-spread, frequently repeated by the same individual or simultaneously performed by many individuals and which corresponds to a subjective meaning attributable to the same actors. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 22 | P a g e Usage: probability of a uniformity in the orientation of social action, when the probability is determined by its actual practice ('it is done to conform with the pattern). Custom: usage when the actual performance of the action rests on long familiarity. Non- conformance is sanctioned externally. Action can also be uniform if the actor acts in his self-interests. The uniformity rests insofar as behavior is determined by purely rational actions of actors to similar ulterior expectations. Types of Social Action, identified by mode of orientation: 1) rational orientation to a system of discrete individual ends. individuals can choose and adjudicate between both means and ends, though these considerations may be with reference to other absolute values. 2) rational orientation to an absolute value, involving conscious belief in the absolute value entirely for its own sake and independent of prospects for external success. Can choose b/t means, but only with relation to absolute, fixed end. Absolute values are always irrational. 3) affectional orientation. If this is uncontrolled reaction to some exceptional stimulus, it is not meaningful -- grey areas. 4) traditional orientation. If this is strict imitation, it is not meaningful -grey areas MAX WEBER Class, Status, Party All communities are arranged in a manner that goods, tangible and intangible, symbolic and material are distributed. Such a distribution is always unequal and necessarily involves power. ''Classes, status groups and parties are phenomena of the distribution of power within a community'' (927). Status groups makes up the social order, classes the economic order, and parties the legal/political order. Each order affects and is affected by the other. Power Power is the ''chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a social action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action'' (926). Power may rest of a variety of bases, and can be of differing types. ''Economically conditioned power is not identical with power... The emergence of economic power may be the consequence of power existing Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 23 | P a g e on other grounds. Man does not strive for power only to enrich himself economically. Power, including economic power, may be valued for its own sake. Very frequently the striving for power is conditioned by the social honor it entails. Not all power entails honor.'' Power is not the only basis of social honor, and social honor, or prestige, may be the basis of economic power. ''Power, as well as honor, may be guaranteed by the legal order, but... [the legal order] is not their primary source. The legal order is rather an additional factor that enhances the chance to hold power or honor; but it cannot always secure them'' (926-7). Class Class is defined in terms of market situation. A class exists when a number of people have in common a specific casual component of their life chances in the following sense: this component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income under conditions of the commodity or labor markets. When market conditions prevail (eg, capitalism), property and lack of property are the basic categories of all class situations. However, the concept of class-interest is ambiguous. Collective action based on class situations is determined by the transparency of the connections between the causes and the consequences of the class situation. If the contrast between the life chances of different class situations is merely seen as an acceptable absolute fact, no action will be taken to change the class situation. A class in and of itself does not constitute a group (Gemeinschaft). ''The degree in which social action and possibly associations emerge from the mass behavior of the members of a class is linked to general cultural conditions, especially those of an intellectual sort'' (929). ''If classes as such are not groups, class situations emerge only on the basis of social action.'' The Types of Authority and Imperative Control/The Types of Legitimate Domination (depends on your translation) Basis of Legitimacy Domination is defined as the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a given group of people. A certain Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 24 | P a g e minimum of voluntary submission is necessary; thus on the part of the submitter there is an interest (whether based on ulterior motives or genuine acceptance) in obedience. - Not every claim protected by custom or law involves a relation of authority. For instance, if I ask Charles to pay me for the work i do as fulfillment of our contract, I am not exercising authority over him. - The legitimacy of a system of authority may be treated sociologically only as the probability that to a relevant degree the appropriate attitudes will exist and the corresponding conduct ensue. - Obedience means the action of the person 'obeying' follows a course such that the content of the command can be taken as the reason for his/her action. 3 Pure Types of Legitimate Authority 1. Rational/legal grounds. Belief in the legality of patterns of normative rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands. Authority held by legally established impersonal order, extends to people only by virtue of offices they hold. 2. Traditional grounds. Established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of the status of those exercising authority under them. Authority held by person of the chief who occupies the traditionally sanctioned position of authority; matter of personal obligation and loyalty within the scope of tradition. 3. Charismatic grounds. Devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative pattern or order revealed by him. Leader obeyed by personal trust in him, his revelation, heroism, coolness, as far as those qualities fall within the scope of the obeyers belief in his charisma. Source: www.ssr1.uchicago.edu/PRELIMS/Theory/weber.html - 97k Emile Durkheim Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) is by far one of the most important and prolific sociologists in the history of the field. Durkheim himself is credited with making sociology a science, as he used an empirical methodology in his own studies, especially in regard to his study of suicide rates and issues of European nations. Durkheim coined the term "anomie," and shed light on the inner Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 25 | P a g e workings of society that his predecessors had overlooked. He showed that all the aspects of human society work together much like the parts of a machine, and this concept is referred to today as sociological functionalism. This idea of functionalism--societal organization playing the major role in the lives of humans--has become the very paradigm of most sociological study today. This site was created as a resource for undergraduate students of sociology, and should be used accordingly. Durkheim's own words are provided extensively in this archive, to best convey his ideas, concepts, and theories. Anomie Durkheim's Anomie Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, introduced the concept of anomie in his book The Division of Labour in Society, published in 1893. He used anomie to describe a condition of deregulation that was occurring in society. This meant that rules on how people ought to behave with each other were breaking down and thus people did not know what to expect from one another. Anomie, simply defined, is a state where norms (expectations on behaviours) are confused, unclear or not present. It is normlessness, Durkheim felt, that led to deviant behaviour. In 1897, Durkheim used the term again in his study on Suicide, referring to a morally deregulated condition. Durkheim was preoccupied with the effects of social change. He best illustrated his concept of anomie not in a discussion of crime but of suicide. In The Division of Labour in Society, Durkheim proposed two concepts. First, that societies evolved from a simple, non-specialised form, called mechanical, toward a highly complex, specialised form, called organic. In the former society people behave and think alike and more or less perform the same work tasks and have the same group-oriented goals. When societies become more complex, or organic, work also becomes more complex. In this society, people are no longer tied to one another and social bonds are impersonal. Anomie thus refers to a breakdown of social norms and it a condition where norms no longer control the activities of members in society. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 26 | P a g e Individuals cannot find their place in society without clear rules to help guide them. Changing conditions as well as adjustment of life leads to dissatisfaction, conflict, and deviance. He observed that social periods of disruption (economic depression, for instance) brought about greater anomie and higher rates of crime, suicide, and deviance. Durkheim felt that sudden change caused a state of anomie. The system breaks down, either during a great prosperity or a great depression, anomie is the same result. Social facts are very relevant concepts in Durkheim’s analogy. In positivist sociology, social facts are the social structures and cultural norms and values that are external to the individual Durkheim and Social Facts Bookmark this page Social facts were part of Durkheim's attempts to establish society as an entity sui generis. Such things as sleeping and eating are inherently individual acts. If only these acts were present, then there would be no room for sociology, because these acts would come under the jurisdiction of biology and psychology. However, argued Durkheim, there are other acts that are inherently social, such as fulfilling one's duties as a citizen, or protesting. These acts prove the existence of a social reality in addition to an individual reality. In order to qualify as a social fact, phenomena needed to satisfy two criterion: They must exist outside the individual They must exist prior to the individual They are therefore a new variety of phenomena, to which the descriptor "social" must be applied. The Importance of Social Facts Social facts are crucial in challenging utilitarian thinking and contemporary discussion from individual motives to the laws of society. Furthermore, a necessary corollary of Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 27 | P a g e social facts is that individual actions derive from society. Social Darwinism is incompatible with the existence of social facts. Characteristics of Social Facts Social facts have three properties: General - They are general throughout society. They are diffused throughout the group. External - Social facts exist outside the individual, are prior to him, and exist indepently of their will. Constraining - They often have some sort of sanction, manifested in coercion of ostracism, against any individual who resists them. Observing Social Facts Social facts, for Durkheim, are things, not ideas. Things have reality, and can be observed. As things, then can be studied in the same way that natural science can study molecules. Social facts are not produced by individual will, but by external social coercion. The problems with observing social facts is dealt with in The Rules of the Sociological Method. One such problem is trying to distinguish social facts from a priori impressions (See Kant, Aristotle). In order to avoid the confusion between the two, it is necessary to: Avoid all preconceptions (so as to maintain objectivity) Define clearly what is to be investigated Ensure that the group of phenomena being studied are defined by their external characteristics Source: www.revision-notes.co.uk/revision/973.html Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 28 | P a g e Social facts are facts with very distinctive characteristics: they consist of ways of acting, thinking, and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion, by reason of which they control him. Social facts are produced by the collective actions of social groups and they have a coercive function to ensure that members adhere to the standards and conventions of that group. Thus, by studying social facts, the sociologist is studying how and why that social group is constituted in the manner it is and how it maintains its cohesion. It is important to understand that social facts cannot be explained simply by reference to the psychology of individuals, although that certainly plays a role. Source: atheism.about.com/library/glossary/general/bldef_durkheimemile.htm 28k Marx and Weber and Alienation Marx's theory of alienation (Entfremdung in German), as expressed in the writings of young Karl Marx, refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. In the concept's most important use, it refers to the alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature" (Gattungswesen, usually translated as 'species-essence' or 'species-being'). He believed that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. Source: Wikipedia Alienation in the labour process Simply, Marx's Theory of Alienation is based upon his observation that, in emerging industrial production - under capitalism - workers inevitably lose control of their lives and selves in not having any control of their work. Workers, thus, never become autonomous, self-realized human beings in any significant sense (except the way the bourgeois wants the worker to be realized). Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because in work each contributes to the common wealth, but can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not (publicly) social, but privately owned, for which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social being: Marx attributes four types of alienation in labour under capitalism:[1] alienation of the worker from his or her ‘species essence’ as a human being rather than a machine; Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 29 | P a g e alienation between workers, since capitalism reduces labour to a commodity to be traded on the market, rather than a social relationship; alienation of the worker from the product, since this is appropriated by the capitalist class, and so escapes the worker's control; alienation from the act of production itself, such that work comes to be a meaningless activity, offering little or no intrinsic satisfactions. Applying alienation to current times We live in a world where technological achievements unimaginable in previous societies are within our grasp: this is the age of space travel, of the internet, of genetic engineering. Yet never before have we felt so helpless in the face of the forces we ourselves have created. Never before have the fruits of our labour threatened our very existence: this is also the age of nuclear disasters, global warming, and the arms race. For the first time in history we can produce enough to satisfy the needs of everyone on the planet. Yet millions of lives are stunted by poverty and destroyed by disease. Despite our power to control the natural world, our society is dominated by insecurity, as economic recession and military conflict devastate lives with the apparently irresistible power of natural disasters. The more densely populated our cities become, the more our lives are characterised by feelings of isolation and loneliness. To Karl Marx these contradictions were apparent when the system was still young. Marx developed his theory of alienation to reveal the human activity that lies Alienation: A Sense of isolation, powerlessness, and therefore frustration; a feeling of loss of control over one's life; a sense of estrangement from society or even from oneself. As a concept it was developed by German philosophers G W F Hegel and Karl Marx; the latter used it as a description and criticism of the condition that developed among workers in capitalist society. behind the seemingly impersonal forces dominating society. He showed how, although aspects of the society we live in appear natural and independent of us, they are the results of past.human actions. Source: pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj79/cox.htm www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0006436.html 38k. The term has also been used by non-Marxist writers and sociologists (in particular Emile Durkheim in his work Suicide 1897) to explain unrest in factories and to describe the sense of powerlessness felt by groups such as young people, black people, and women in Western industrial society. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 30 | P a g e Marx, Sociability and the Social Animal – Zoon Politikon Marx in Ritzer, G., Sociological theory McGraw-Hill 5th edition, 2000 pp53-54 ‘Another aspect of Marx’s image of human potential is the idea that people are inherently social”. Marx and Engels talked of “ The need, the necessity of intercourse with other males”. Marx also wrote “Men in the most literal sense of the word are zoon politikon, not only a social animal but an animal which can develop into an individual only in society”. Microsociology A. Microsociology Microsociology is concerned with the interactions, exchanges and choices of people as affected by the social context in which the occur. The approach in sociology is often referred to as Social Psychology and draws upon two theoretical perspectives within this broad approach: Choice and Symbolic interaction. Source: carbon.cudenver.edu/public/sociology/introsoc/topics/UnitNotes/week02. html Early theory of Microsociology can be credited to Max Weber and his social action theory. Weber is often regarded as the most important classical sociological theorist since he investigated many areas and since his approach and methods guide much later sociological analysis. Like Marx, Weber had a wide ranging set of interests: politics, history, language, religion, law, economics, and administration, in addition to sociology. His historical and economic analysis does not provide as elaborate or as systematic a model of capitalism and capitalist development as does that of Marx. But the scope of his analysis ranges more widely than that of Marx; is examines broad historical changes, the origins of capitalism, the development of capitalism, political issues, the nature of a future society, and concepts and approaches that Marx downplayed – religion, ideas, values, meaning, and social action. In the view of some, Weber may have "spent his life having a posthumous dialogue with the ghost of Karl Marx." (Cuff, p. 97). Cuff, E. C., W. W. Sharrock and D. W. Francis, Perspectives in Sociology, third edition, London, Routledge, 1992. HM66 P36 1984. This dialogue concerned (i) economic determinism or the extent to which developments are rooted in the material base, and (ii) the extent to which economic factors alone can be considered at the root of social structure. At the same time, the differences between Weber and Marx should not be overstated. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 31 | P a g e Weber's analysis had similar scope to that of Marx, and he came from a similar historical, German tradition of thought, examining many of the same topics as Marx. Many contemporary sociologists think of Weber as complementing Marx, examining issues that Marx thought less important, providing a way of thinking about the individual within a structural approach, and laying out a sociological methodology. Weber's writing had an influence on structural functionalism, critical theory, some of the social interaction approaches, and much contemporary sociological theory, including some Marxist approaches that use ideas from Weber. Max Weber Weber, it is often said, conceived of sociology as a comprehensive science of social action. His initial theoretical focus is on the subjective meaning that humans attach to their actions in their interactions with one another within specific social contexts. In this connection, Weber distinguishes between four major types of social action: 1. zweckrational 2. wertrational 3. affective action 4. traditional action Zweckrational can be roughly translated as "technocratic thinking." It can be defined as action in which the means to attain a particular goal are rationally chosen. It is exemplified by an engineer who builds a bridge as the most efficient way to cross a river. Wertrational, or value-oriented rationality, is characterised by striving for a goal, which in itself may not be rational, but which is pursued through rational means within an ethical, religious, or even holistic context. An example would be an individual seeking salvation through following the teachings of a prophet. Affective action is anchored in the emotional state of the person rather than in the rational weighing of means and ends. Traditional action is guided by customary habits of thought, by reliance on what Weber called "the eternal yesterday." This classification of types of action provides a basis for his investigation of the course of western historical development, as well as his theory of human societies continued evolution. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 32 | P a g e Weber was primarily concerned with modern western society, in which, as he saw it, behaviour had come to be increasingly dominated by goal-oriented rationality. He believed more and more of our behaviour was being guided by zweckrational, less and less by tradition, values, or emotions. His whole work attempts to identify the social factors that have brought about this "rationalisation" of the West. While his sociology begins with the individual motivators of social action, Weber does not stay exclusively focused on the micro level. In modern society the efficient application of means to ends has come to dominate and replace other springs of social behaviour. He proposed that the basic distinguishing feature of modern society was best viewed in terms of this characteristic shift in motivation. But he believed that shift was based on structural and historical forces The Protestant Ethic Max Weber Weber's concern with the meaning that people give to their actions allowed him to understand the drift of historical change. He believed that rational action within a system of rational-legal authority is at the heart of modern society. His sociology was first and foremost an attempt to explore and explain this shift from traditional to rational action. Weber believed that the rationalisation of action can only be realised when traditional ways of life are abandoned. Modern people often have a difficult time realising the hold of tradition on pre-industrial peoples. Tradition was overpowering in pre-modern societies. Weber's task was to uncover the forces in the West that caused people to abandon their traditional religious value orientation and encouraged them to develop a desire for acquiring goods and wealth. After careful study, Weber came to the belief that the protestant ethic broke the hold of tradition while it encouraged men to apply themselves rationally to their work. Calvinism, he found, had developed a set of beliefs around the concept of predestination. It was believed by followers of Calvin that one could not do good works or perform acts of faith to assure your place in heaven. You were either among the "elect" (in which case you were in) or you were not. However, wealth was taken as a sign (by you and your neighbours) Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 33 | P a g e that you were one of the God's elect, thereby providing encouragement for people to acquire wealth. The protestant ethic therefore provided religious sanctions that fostered a spirit of rigorous discipline, encouraging men to apply themselves rationally to acquire wealth. Weber studied non-Western cultures as well. He found that several of these pre-industrial societies had the technological infrastructure and other necessary preconditions to begin capitalism and economic expansion. The only force missing were the positive sanctions to abandon traditional ways. While Weber does not believe that the protestant ethic was the only cause of the rise of capitalism, he believed it to be a powerful force in fostering its emergence WEBER AND CLASS To Max Weber, writing in the early 1900s, Marx's view was too simple he agreed that different classes exist, but he thought that "Status" or "Social Prestige" was the key factor in deciding which group each one of us belongs to. So, where we live, our manner of speech, our schooling, our leisure habits, these, and many other factors, decide our social class he called these different aspects of the way we behave our "Life-Style". Particularly important, he thought, was the way each person thinks about his/her "Life-Chances" - if we feel that we can become a respected and highly valued member of wider society, then this is likely to put us in a higher social class than some others e.g. a child who goes to a Private School, live in a large house, has parents who are "professional" people, and has a "standard" BBC accent is likely (but not certain) to feel that he/she has a greater chance of becoming generally respected than a child who is educated in an inner city, crowded school, and who lives in a Council Estate, and who speaks with a regional accent. PHENOMENOLOGY Phenomenology has at least three main meanings in philosophical history: one in the writings of G.W.F. Hegel, another in the writings of Edmund Husserl in 1920, and a third, deriving from Husserl's work, in the writings of his former research assistant Martin Heidegger in 1927: For G.W.F. Hegel, phenomenology is an approach to philosophy that begins with an exploration of phenomena (what presents itself to us in conscious experience) as a means to finally grasp the absolute, logical, ontological and metaphysical Spirit that is behind phenomena. This has been called a "dialectical phenomenology". Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 34 | P a g e For Edmund Husserl, phenomenology is "the reflective study of the essence of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view."[1] Phenomenology takes the intuitive experience of phenomena (what presents itself to us in phenomenological reflexion) as its starting point and tries to extract from it the essential features of experiences and the essence of what we experience. When generalized to the essential features of any possible experience, this has been called "transcendental phenomenology". Husserl's view was based on aspects of the work of Franz Brentano and was developed further by philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Max Scheler, Edith Stein, Dietrich von Hildebrand and Emmanuel Levinas. Martin Heidegger believed that Husserl's approach overlooked basic structural features of both the subject and object of experience (what he called their "being"), and expanded phenomenological enquiry to encompass our understanding and experience of Being itself, thus making phenomenology the method (in the first phase of his career at least) of the study of being: ontology Where does phenomenology fit in with Sociology? Social reality is constructed in the minds of social actors. Sociology is the study of the ways in which individuals interpret and create their social world. Phenomenology is a 20th century philosophical way of thinking about the nature of reality which has influenced Sociology. The German Philosopher Edmund Husserl is closely linked with phenomenology. Phenomenology argues that the only 'PHENOMENA' that we can be sure of is that we are 'conscious' thinking beings. Therefore we should study any phenomena around us in terms of the way we consciously experience them. This examination should be free of preconceptions and causal ideas. Symbolic Interactionism Symbolic interaction theory. This approach to micro-sociology emphasizes the importance of symbols and of interaction. The idea is that human beings generally interact with one another in terms of symbols and meanings. Actions are not just simply actions, they are given meaning. For example if I present you with a balled, closed fist, this action has meaning to you, you interpret it and Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 35 | P a g e act accordingly. Of course your interpretation is based upon the context (am I smiling, were we arguing, how well do you know and understand my gestures). It is not just the gestures which are important (animals use gestures -- wagging tails, body posture -- to indicate relationship and states, see the work of Konrad Lorenz and other ethologists), it is the meaning attached to them. Furthermore, we use symbols. That you are able to participate in this course at all attests to our use of symbols. Each letter is a symbol, the combinations are symbols and so on. The power of these is that the combinations convey ideas about our reality. : ^ ) [Look at the combination sideways -- you will see a smiley face. There is an entire list of these that are used by computer geeks to communicate across the network.] These are symbols, and they condition our interactions. Next we turn to some people who developed these ideas in the United States. a. Cooley and Mead are the early proponents of this approach to human interaction. Mead (Mind, Self and Society) particularly stressed the importance of symbols in the interaction, pointing to the meanings we attach to symbols, that these symbols and meanings govern the pattern of interaction. Cooley (Human Nature and the Social Order) emphasized the nature of interaction. b. Cooley: The looking glass self Cooley suggests that we come to know ourselves in interaction, that people reflect to us who, what we are, they are a mirror for us, reflecting our actions. It is through this reflection we come to know who we are, thus the idea of the looking glass self. I see myself in you, through interaction and it is through this reflected image that I come to know who I am. c. Mead: self and interaction. In Mead's formulation the emphasis is upon interaction, how people attempt to influence one another in the exchange. Mead did not see the participants as passive at all. For example, in interaction each of us projects an idea of our self to an other. This is our action. The other sees, hears feels this projection and reflects it to the actor. Actor in turn evaluates the reflections and acts upon it. Actor may re-emphasize the action to convince other s/he is what his/her action says s/he is or may modify the behavior or action to make it consonant with what other has reflected. Again, it is through this active exchange that we come to know Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 36 | P a g e who and what we are. Note that the view of Mead is much more active and participatory than that presented by Cooley. d. Individual self product of interaction In both of these views, the interaction theorist see the individual self (therefore the individual) to be a product of social interaction. Exchanges between the individuals produce their idea of what the self is. Other theorists in this realm look to the process of interaction, the symbols and how they are used. For example, note that in most conversations you will send signals, symbols as to the end of the conversation. Sometimes these will be heeded, in others the person will ignore them and keep on talking. This is particularly the case in phone conversation. Notice that some complete statements such as "Hi, how are you?" are really a symbol in themselves. In this instance we are not actually asking how the other person is, only greeting them. If you want have some fun with others, actually tell the other person how you are! Summary of Micro Sociological Approach to the Study of People Micro-sociological theories of sociology focus upon the individual in a social context. Although the focus is on the individual, it is the context that is important. The social interactions that take place around us shape us and our views of ourselves. We make choices about how to behave and how not to behave based upon these social contexts. We also are involved in the use of symbols to define ourselves and others. As you pursue the topic of social psychology you will see how groups arise from these exchanges and interactions, from the groups and inter-group relationships arise societies and so on. Macrosociology Macrosociology implies that there is a system, an inter-relation of parts. Each structure of the society has an effect upon other structures, if changes take place in one part of the system it will affect other parts of the society. For example, our economy requires a mobile labor force, one in which the individuals must move all over the country. This has had the effect of drastically reducing the size of the typical family and made the extended family difficult to maintain. Each part of the society is a part of this set of interrelations, some are quite direct, others may work across Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 37 | P a g e and through several other structures and parts, making the interrelation indirect. a. relationships, interdependence of parts Specific Macrosociological perspectives: a. conflict Essentially the conflict perspective sees the structures of society producing conflicting expectations among the members of the society. The net result is that there are groups produced by the structures that have interests that run counter to other groups within the same structure or in a different structural context. For example, the roles of men and women are in a way complementary (i.e., different but necessary for one another). In some instances the structures that these roles are imbedded in may produce conflict between the two groups. The nature of the economic system has placed men in positions of power where they make most of the decisions. Modern technology and educational achievement of women have increased the number of women who work. These changes have in turn brought women into the work place and in that structure they seek power that challenges that of men and places them in conflict with the men. Out of the conflict will come changes in the roles of both men and women. Stark cites other examples of groups, their interests and the conflict that will occur among them. (see Stark for details) b. functionalism The functionalist view of the social system emphasizes connectedness and equilibrium among the parts of the system. Each element affects every other element in the system. Some theorists state it is the natural tendency of a system to maintain a steady state (i.e., an equilibrium). The classic example of this condition is the human body. There are built in mechanisms that maintain body temperature within a relatively narrow range (about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit). If you exercise violently, you increase the temperature and the body system responds by opening vessels at the surface and increasing the sweating response -- all actions designed to bring the temperature back toward the 'normal' value of 98.6. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 38 | P a g e Similarly, the idea is that the society is a system that is in equilibrium. If a part of it gets out of whack (the family, for example), mechanisms will come into play to move the part back into balance with the rest of the society. While Goffman's symbolic interactionist orientation situates him well in developing an understanding of microsociological function, it provides only a cursory exploration of the larger institutions and processes of society. Despite this emphasis, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, is a work that lends itself well to a macrosociological reading. By placing Goffman's work in the context of the writings of other thinkers, a beneficial link between the micro- and macro-structures of society becomes visible. An important link may be made between Goffman and Durkheim may be made in an inquiry into the concept of "spontaneity." In The Presentation of Self, the importance of spontaneity emerges as an aspect of the performance, as the actor seeks to create a front that does not appear to be contrived. Spontaneity allows for the realization of the "true" self, an idealized type of interaction that allows the individual to realize a desired face. In The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim describes a macrosociological model of spontaneity, a "finely articulated organisation in which each social value...is appreciated at its true worth" (313). Durkheim, though primarily concerned with labor, describes a type of social interaction that, like Goffman's model, reaffirms the existing social environment through the notion of "truth." Each individual is bound to the contemporary social organization, while attempting to realize a sense of freedom in expressing truth. Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony extends this relationship further, establishing an ephemeral unconscious acceptance of existing social institutions. Change in this state, for Gramsci, takes place via change in human consciousness: Since present control is internalized in the minds and hearts of workers and peasants, a counter form of socialization, a counter form of selfidentity, is required to overthrow that control (Gramsci). Through changes in consciousness, hegemony forms an "moving equilibrium" (Hebdige 1979, 15) through an assimilation of the doctrinal bases of the culture through "common sense" (9). In light of Goffman's work, hegemony provides the definition of "idealized" performance and the pressure to correspond to established definition. As a representation of what Marx termed "the ideas of the ruling class" (Marx 1848, 172) Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 39 | P a g e hegemony provides the norms, mores, and laws to which stigma, line, face, and Durkheim's anomie can be applied. In this sense, hegemony provides a vital link between the macrostructure of social institutions and the microsociological phenomena of face-to-face interaction. Source: www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/T&M/phen.htm George Mead Mead also rooted the self’s “perception and meaning” deeply and sociologically in "a common praxis of subjects" (Joas 1985: 166) found specifically in social encounters. Understood as a combination of the 'I' and the 'me', Mead’s self proves to be noticeably entwined within a sociological existence: For Mead, existence in community comes before individual consciousness. First one must participate in the different social positions within society and only subsequently can one use that experience to take the perspective of others and thus become selfconscious. Mead writes in Mind, Self and Society that human beings begin their understanding of the social world through "play" and "game". "Play" comes first in the child's development. The child takes different roles he/she observes in "adult" society, and plays them out to gain an understanding of the different social roles. For instance, he first plays the role of policeman and then the role of thief while playing "Cops and Robbers," and plays the role of doctor and patient when playing "Doctor." When more mature, the child can participate in the game, for instance the game of baseball. In the game he has to relate to others and understand the rules of the game. Through participating in the "game", he gains the understanding that he has to relate to norms of behaviour in order to be accepted as a player. Mead calls this the child's first encounter with "the generalized other", which is one of the main concepts Mead proposes for understanding the emergence of the (social) self in human beings. "The generalized other" can be understood as the general norm within a social group or setting. Through understanding "the generalized other" the individual understands what kind of behaviour is expected, appropriate and so on, in different social settings. The family, the baseball team, school, and society are examples of social settings through which the child develops gradual understanding of norms for behaviour. Mead distinguishes between the "I" and the "me." The "me" is the accumulated understanding of "the generalized other" i.e. norms, unconscious opinions, patterns of social response etc. The "I" is the more personal opinions, the reflecter or observer, the social struggler -- it is what creates the individual's individuality. It is important when reading Mead to Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 40 | P a g e remember that he sees the human mind as something that can arise solely through social experience. The thinking process, for instance, is for Mead nothing but internalized communication. References: Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Methuen: New York, 1979 Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday: Garden City, New York, 1959. Goffman, Erving. Stigma. Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1963. Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labor in Society. Macmillan: New York, New York, 1984 (1893). Cooley and The Looking Glass Self Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) Cooley's theories were manifested in response to a three-fold necessity that had developed within the realm of society. The first of which was the necessity to create an understanding of societal phenomena that highlighted the subjective mental processes of individuals yet realized that these subjective processes were effects and causes of society's processes. The second necessity examined the development of a social dynamic conception that portrayed states of chaos as natural occurrences which could provide opportunities for "adaptive innovation." Finally, a need to manifest publics that were capable of exerting some form of "informed moral control" over current problems and future directions. In regards to these, aforementioned, dilemmas Cooley responded by stating "society and individual denote not separable phenomena but different aspects of the same thing, for a separate individual is an abstraction unknown to experience, and so likewise is society when regarded as something apart from individuals." From this, he resolved to create a "Mental-Social" Complex of which he would term the "Lookingglass self." The Looking-glass self is created through the imagination of how one's self might be understood by another individual. This would later be termed "Empathic Introspection." This theory applied not only to the individual but to the macro-level economic issues of society and to those macro-sociological conditions which are created over time Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 41 | P a g e In his attempt to illustrate the reflected character of the self, Cooley compared it to a looking glass: Each to each a looking-glass Reflects the other that doth pass. “As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass, and are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be, so in imagination we perceive in another's mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by it." The notion of the looking-glass self is composed of three principal elements: "The imagination of our appearance to the other person, the imagination his judgment of that appearance, and some sort of selffeeling, such as pride or mortification." The self arises in a social process of communicative interchange as it is reflected in a person's consciousness. As George H. Mead put it when discussing Cooley's contribution, "By placing both phases of this social process in the same consciousness, by regarding the self as the ideas entertained by others of the self, and the other as the ideas entertained of him by the self, the action of the others upon the self and of the self upon the others becomes simply the interaction of ideas upon each other within mind." Source: www.bolender.com/Sociological%20Theory/Cooley,%20Charles%20Ho rton/cooley,_charles_horton. Michael Foucault Michel Foucault is best known for his critical studies of various social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality. Foucault's work on power, and the relationships among power, knowledge, and discourse, has been widely discussed and applied. Sometimes described as postmodernist or post-structuralist, in the 1960s he was more often associated with the structuralist movement. Foucault later distanced himself from structuralism and always rejected the poststructuralist and postmodernist labels. Source: Wikipedia An example of Michael Foucault’s Work The medical gaze is a term coined by French philosopher and critic, Michel Foucault in his 1963 book, The Birth of the Clinic (translated to English in 1973), to denote the often-dehumanizing method by which medical professionals separate the body from the person (see mind-body Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 42 | P a g e dualism). Foucault uses the term as part of a genealogy attempt to describe the creation of a field of knowledge concerning the body. According to him, the material and intellectual structures which gave rise to the possibility of carrying on an analytic of the body was mixed with power interests: entering the field of knowledge, the individual human body also entered the field of power, becoming a possible target for manipulation. The term was originally confined to postmodern and poststructuralist academics, but is now frequently found in post baccalaureate classes on medicine and social work. Often described as difficult to define, the best summary description might simply be something like - that which comes after modernism. Postmodernism has been variously referred to as a cultural theory, a way of life, an expression of disenchantment with modernism, a loosely bound collection of anti-modern ideas and as a social deconstruction - just to name a few designations. Early postmodernists include Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. Jean Francis Lyotard, Gillies Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Michael Foucault are contemporary postmodern thinkers. Convinced postmodernists (we will do them the courtesy of not calling them theorists) often assert that post modernism is not any of the aforementioned – not an explanatory system, or text of knowledge, at all. Postmodernism involves a rejection of numerous rationalist and modernist ideas, especially those of immutable knowledge and truth, essentialism, and discernable reality. For the postmodernist, reality is a social construct, contextual to cultural conditions and characteristics, and defined by communities or societies based on their language – their common narrative Postmodernism . Antonio Gramsci's Theory of Hegemony The analysis of hegemony (or "rule") was formulated by Antonio Gramsci to explain why predicted communist revolutions had not occurred where they were most expected, in industrialized Europe. Marx and his followers had advanced the theory that the rise of industrial capitalism would create a huge working class and cyclical economic recessions. These recessions and other contradictions of capitalism would lead the overwhelming masses of people, the workers, to develop organizations for self-defense, including labor unions and political parties. Further recessions and contradictions would then spark the working class to overthrow capitalism in a revolution, restructure the economic, political, and social institutions on rational socialist models, and begin the transition towards an eventual communist society. In Marxian terms, the dialectically changing economic base of society Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 43 | P a g e would determine the cultural and political superstructure. Although Marx and Engels had famously predicted this eschatological scenario in 1848, many decades later the workers of the industrialized core still had not carried out the mission. Gramsci argued that the failure of the workers to make an anti-capitalist revolution was due to the successful capture of the workers' ideology, self-understanding, and organizations by the hegemonic (ruling) culture. In other words, the perspective of the ruling class had been absorbed by the masses of workers. In "advanced" industrial societies hegemonic cultural innovations such as compulsory schooling, mass media, and popular culture had indoctrinated workers to a false consciousness. Instead of working towards a revolution that would truly serve their collective needs, workers in "advanced" societies were listening to the rhetoric of nationalist leaders, seeking consumer opportunities and middle-class status, embracing an individualist ethos of success through competition, and/or accepting the guidance of bourgeois religious leaders. Source: Wikipedia Instead, hegemony was portrayed as a complex layering of social structures. Each of these structures have their own “mission” and internal logic that allows its members to behave in a way that is different from those in different structures. Yet, as with an army, each of these structures assumes the existence of other structures and by virtue of their differing missions, is able to coalesce and produce a larger structure that has a larger overall mission. This larger mission usually is not exactly the same as the mission for each smaller structure, but it assumes and subsumes them. Hegemony works in the same manner. Each person lives their life in a way that is meaningful in their immediate setting, and, to this person the different parts of society may seem to have little in common with him. Yet taken as a whole, each person’s life also contributes to the larger hegemony of the society. Diversity, variation, and free will seem to exist since most people see what they believe to be a plethora of different circumstances, but they miss the larger pattern of hegemony created by the coalescing of these circumstances. Through the existence of small and different circumstances, a larger and layered hegemony is maintained yet not fully recognized by many of the people who live within it. In such a layered hegemony, individual common sense, which is fragmented, is effective in helping people deal with small, everyday activities. But common sense also inhibits their ability to grasp the larger systemic nature of exploitation and hegemony. People focus on Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 44 | P a g e immediate concerns and problems rather than focusing upon more fundamental sources of social oppression. Feminism Feminist theory From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical, ground. It encompasses work done in a broad variety of disciplines, prominently including the approaches to women's roles and lives and feminist politics in anthropology and sociology, psychoanalysis, economics, women's and gender studies, feminist literary criticism, and philosophy especially Continental philosophy.[1] Feminist theory aims to understand the nature of inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations and sexuality. While generally providing a critique of social relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on analyzing gender inequality and the promotion of women's rights, interests, and issues. Themes explored in feminism include art history [2]and contemporary art[3][4], aesthetics[5][6], discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy In the immediate postwar period, Simone de Beauvoir stood in opposition to an image of "the woman in the home". De Beauvoir provided an existentialist dimension to feminism with the publication of Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) in 1949.[14] As the title implies, the starting point is the implicit inferiority of women, and the first question de Beauvoir asks is "what is a woman"?.[15] Woman she realises is always perceived of as "other", "she is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her". Feminism is the organized movement which promotes equality for men and women in political, economic and social spheres. Feminists believe that women are oppressed simple due to their sex based on the dominant ideology of patriarchy. Ridding society of patriarchy will result in liberation for women, men, minorities, and gays. Patriarchy is the system which oppresses women through it's social, economic and political institutions. Throughout history men have had greater power in both the public and private spheres. To maintain this Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 45 | P a g e power, men have created boundaries and obstacles for women, thus making it harder for women to hold power. There is an unequal access to power. Patriarchy also includes the oppression of minorities and homosexuals. Feminism ideology can take many different forms. In the 1970's, women started developing a theory which helped to explain their oppression. Pockets of resistance began to organize and challenge patriarchy. By the 1980's, however, feminists started disagreeing on particular issues linked to feminism. What was once one theory, began to branch out into many theories that focused on different feminist issues. Today, there are as many definitions of feminism as there are feminists. Each definition of feminism depends on a number of factors including ones own beliefs, history and culture Advocates of Radical Feminism: Mary Daly Radical feminism promotes the basis for many of the ideas of feminism. They usually clash with the ideals of the liberal feminist, because radical feminists believe that society must be changed at its core in order to dissolve patriarchy, not just through acts of legislation. Unfortunately, this type of feminism also attracts a lot of negative media attention creating a backlash of feminism. Radical feminists believe that the domination of women is the oldest and worst kind of oppression in the world. They believe this because it spans across the world oppressing women of different races, ethnicities, classes and cultures. Radical feminists want to free both men and women from the rigid gender roles that society has imposed upon them. It is this sex-gender system that has created oppression and radical feminist's mission is to overthrow this system by any possible means. Sometimes radical feminists believe that they must rage a war against men, patriarchy, and the gender system which confines them to rigid social roles. They completely reject these roles, all aspects of patriarchy, and in some cases, they reject men as well. Radical feminists emphasize their difference from men. They form groups that exclude males completely. This type of feminist highlights the importance of individual feelings, experiences and relationships. Radical feminists have divided into two groups with very different views. Radical-Libertarian Feminism Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 46 | P a g e Radical-Libertarian feminists believe that femininity and reproduction limit women's capacity to contribute to society. Women should essentially be androgynous. Radical-Libertarian feminists like to violate sexual norms and believe that women should control every aspect of their sexuality. They also advocate artificial means of reproduction so that less time is devoted to pregnancy and more time is devoted to worthwhile things. They are strong promoters of abortion, contraceptives and other forms of birth control. Radical-Cultural Feminism Radical-Cultural feminist views are dramatically different from RadicalLibertarian feminists views. The Radical-Cultural feminists believe that women should encompass their femininity because it is better than masculinity. Mary Daly advocates finding the “wild female within”. This type of radical feminist sees sex and penetration as male dominated. They see a link between sex, female subordination, porn, rape and abuse. These must be eliminated, according to Cultural-Radical feminists. Yet another opposing view is that reproduction is the source of power for women. They believe that men are jealous of women, and that they try to control reproduction through means of technology. Advocate for Socialist Feminism: Alison Jaggar Socialist feminists believe that there is a direct link between class structure and the oppression of women. Western society rewards working men because they produce tangible, tradable goods. On the other hand, women's work in the domestic sphere is not valued by western society because women do not produce a tangible, tradable good. This gives men power and control over women. Socialist feminists reject the idea that biology predetermines ones gender. Social roles are not inherent and women's status must change in both the public and private spheres. Socialist feminists like to challenge the ideologies of capitalism and patriarchy. Much like the views of radical feminists, socialist feminists believe that although women are divided by class, race, ethnicity and Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 47 | P a g e religion, they all experience the same oppression simply for being a woman. Socialist feminist believe that the way to end this oppression is to put an end to class and gender. Women must work side by side men in the political sphere. In order to get anything accomplished, women must work with men, as opposed to ostracizing them. There must be a coalition between the two and they must see each other as equals in all spheres of life. In contrast to ideals of liberal feminism, which tend to focus on the individual woman, the socialist feminist theory focuses on the broader context of social relations in the community and includes aspects of race, ethnicity and other differences. Advocates of Liberal Feminism: Betty Friedan National Organization for Women Liberal feminism was most popular in the 1950's and 1960's when many civil rights movements were taking place. The main view of liberal feminists are that all people are created equal by God and deserve equal rights. These types of feminists believe that oppression exists because of the way in which men and women are socialized, which supports patriarchy and keeps men in power positions. Liberal feminists believe that women have the same mental capacity as their male counterparts and should be given the same opportunities in political, economic and social spheres. Women should have the right to choose, not have their life chosen for them because of their sex. Essentially, women must be like men. Liberal feminists create and support acts of legislation that remove the barriers for women. These acts of legislation demand equal opportunities and rights for women, including equal access to jobs and equal pay. Liberal feminists believe that removing these barriers directly challenges the ideologies of patriarchy, as well as liberates women. Liberal feminists are responsible for many important acts of legislation that have greatly increased the status of women, including reforms in welfare, education and health. Unfortunately. Liberal feminism has been known to only concentrate on the legislation aspect in the fight against patriarchy. It has been criticized for not breaking down the deeper Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 48 | P a g e ideologies of society and patriarchy. Also, it has been criticized for ignoring race and class issues Advocate of Ecofeminism: Vandana Shiva Ecofeminists believe that patriarchy and male domination is harmful to women, as well as the environment. There is a link between a male's desire to dominate unruly women and wilderness. Men feel as though they must tame and conquer both in order to have complete power. Ecofeminists say that it is this desire that destroys both women and the Earth. Ecofeminists believe that women have a central role in preserving nature because woman understand and are one with nature. There is a deep connection that men cannot understand between the Earth and women, hence the terms Mother Nature or Mother Earth. Women need to use their superior insight to reveal how humans can live in harmony with each other and with nature. Source: www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rccs/theory84.htm Power-Control and Feminist Theories Sociology of Deviant Behavior Sociology 3200-Robert Keel, Instructor One example of the impact of feminist thinking concerning deviance has been the development of theoretical attempts to explain the differential participation of women in traditional deviant behavior. Many of these theories are rooted in a conflict/Marxist perspective which focuses on the importance of social class a influential factor in predicting deviant involvement. One problem, as Goode points out, is that as a powerless group, a conflict perspective would expect women to be more represented in traditional forms of deviance, this would be especially true for lower and working class females. Power-control theory, developed by John Hagan and his associates seeks to explain these differentials. Hagan's view is that crime and delinquency rates are a function of two factors: (1) class position (power) and (2) family function (control). The link between these two variables is that within the family, parents Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 49 | P a g e reproduce the power relationships they hold in the workplace. (Siegel, 1992: 269) Parent's class position, as defined through their work experiences, influences the delinquent behavior of their children. When fathers occupy the traditional role of sole breadwinner and mothers have only menial jobs or remain at home to handle domestic affairs, the paternalistic or patriarchal family is indicated. Here the father's experience of control over others or being controlled is reproduced in the household. His focus is directed outward towards his instrumental responsibilities, while the mother is left in charge of the children, especially their daughters. Sons are granted greater freedom as they are prepared for the traditional male role symbolized by their fathers. Daughters are socialized into the cult of domesticity under the close supervision of their mothers, preparing them for lives oriented towards domestic labor and consumption; while sons are encouraged and allowed to "experiment" and take risks. Daughters in this scenario are closely monitored so that participation in deviant or delinquent activity is unlikely. The egalitarian family is characterized by little difference between the mother's and father's work roles, so that responsibility for child rearing is shared. Here neither child receives the close supervision present over females in the paternalistic family. Middle class aspirations and values dominate: mobility, success, autonomy, and risk taking. Daughter's deviance now mirrors their brother's. This pattern seems to hold true for single parent (female-headed) households; even within the working/lower class. Here, without the presence of the father, the mother's supervision over her children is not as intense as in the paternalistic family and, in fact, children of both sexes may be encouraged to experiment with risk taking, instrumental roles. In either case, the argument suggests: ...middle-class girls are the most likely to violate the law because they are less closely controlled than their lower-class counterparts. And in homes where both parents hold positions of power, girls are more likely to have the same expectations of career success as their brothers. Consequently, siblings of both sexes will be socialized to take risks and engage in other behavior related to delinquency. Power-control theory, then, implies that middle-class youth of both sexes will have higher crime rates than their lower-class peers. (Siegel, 1992:270) Comment Hagan's theory has been criticized as being basically a fairly straightforward adaptation of the "liberation hypothesis," as females Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 50 | P a g e experience upward mobility and status change, their access to deviant and illicit behaviors expand. Morash and Chesney-Lind (1989, 1991) argue that a better explanation of female deviance, especially their lower rates of participation, would focus on nurturing relationship developed during socialization, leading them towards more prosocial behaviors. Female deviance becomes a product of the "sexual scripts" within patriarchal families that make it more likely for them to become the victims of both sexual and physical abuse. If they run away, the juvenile court supports parental rights and returns them to the home, persistent violations lead to incarceration and future trouble as official delinquents/deviants or life on the street where survival depends on involvement in crime. References "The Class Structure and Delinquency: Toward a Power-Control Theory of Common Delinquency." American Journal of Sociology, 90 (1985): 1151-78. John Hagan, A. R. Gillis, and John Simpson, "Class in the Household: A Power-Control Theory of Gender and Delinquency," American Journal of Sociology, 92 (1987): 788-816. Meda Chesney-Lind, "Girl's Crime and Woman's Place: Toward a Feminist Model of Female Delinquency," Crime and Delinquency, 35:529, 1989. Merry Morash and Meda Chesney-Lind, "A Reformulation and Partial Test of the Power Control Theory of Delinquency," Justice Quarterly, 8:347-377, 1991. Larry Siegel, Criminology, 4th edition, West Publishing: St. Paul, MN, 1992. Source: www.umsl.edu/~keelr/200/powcontr.html Gender Inequality (discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, patriarchy Concise description of theory 1) Feminism: Feminism is a diverse, competing, and often opposing collection of Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 51 | P a g e social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women, especially in terms of their social, political, and economical inequalities. One institutionally predominant type of feminism focuses on limiting or eradicating gender inequality to promote women's rights, interests, and issues in society. Another opposing type of modern feminism, with deep historical roots, focuses on earning, and establishing equity by and for women, vis-a-vis men, to promote those same rights, interests, and issues, regardless of gender considerations. Thus, as with any ideology, political movement or philosophy, there is no single, universal form of feminism that represents all feminists. The most wellknown types of feminism are: liberal feminism, social feminism, radical feminism, and post-modern feminism. Liberal feminism seeks no special privileges for women and simply demand that everyone receive equal consideration without discrimination on the basis of sex. Liberal feminists would seek to remove barriers that prevent equal access for women to information technology jobs not only to provide economic equality but to provide access to higher-paying jobs for women. In contrast to liberal feminism, socialist feminism rejects individualism and positivism. Social feminism believes that technology and the social shaping of technology have often been conceptualized in terms of men, excluding women at all levels. Socialist feminist reform suggests that the allocation of resources for technology development should be determined by greatest benefit for the common good. A growing use of cyber Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 52 | P a g e protests to disrupt capitalist enterprises such as the World Bank might be seen by socialists as an example of information technology use for the common good. Radical feminism maintains that women’s oppression is the first, most widespread, and deepest oppression. Radical feminism rejects most scientific theories, data, and experiment not only because they exclude women but also because they are not women-centered. Radical feminism suggests that because men, masculinity, and patriarchy have become completely intertwined with technology and computer systems in our society, no truly feminist alternative to technology exists. Postmodern feminist theories imply that no universal research agenda or application of technologies will be appropriate and that various women will have different reactions to technologies depending upon their own class, race, sexuality, country, and other factors. This definition of postmodern feminism parallels the description of the complex and diverse co-evolution of women and computing. In contrast to liberal feminism, postmodernism dissolves the universal subject and the possibility that women speak in a unified voice or that they can be universally addressed. Wajcman's (1991) thoughtful analysis of the social constructivist perspective on gender and technology reveals some of the issues embedded in its assumptions. She points out that there is no behavior or meaning which is universally and cross-culturally associated with either masculinity or femininity, that what is considered masculine in some societies is considered feminine or genderneutral in others. It is not that gender difference does not exist but that it is Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 53 | P a g e manifested differently in different societies. Therefore, addressing the gender gap in IT employment based upon an assumed "woman's perspective" is problematic. She cites Harding (1986) in observing that there are as many different "women's experiences" as there are types of women. 2) Cyberfeminism: Cyberfeminism is a woman-centered perspective that advocates women’s use of new information and communications technologies for empowerment. Some cyberfeminists see these technologies as inherently liberatory and argue that their development will lead to an end to male superiority because women are uniquely suited to life in the digital age (Millar, 1998). The term cyberfeminism, which explicitly fuses gender and information technology, arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Hawthorne and Klein in their book, “Cyberfeminism”, state: “Just as there are liberal, socialist, radical and postmodern feminists, so too one finds these positions reflected in the interpretations of Cyberfeminism” (Hawthorne & Klein, 1999). Cyberfeminists saw the potential of the Internet and computer science as technologies to level the playing field and open new avenues for job opportunities and creativity for women where absence of sexism, racism, and other oppression would serve as major contrasts between the virtual world and the real world. Currently, there are not many clear and explicit applications of feminism theory in the context of Information System research. However, the emerging area of cyberfeminism can benefit from different types of feminism in order to build Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 54 | P a g e cyberfeminist theories. Cyberfeminism uses aspects of different feminist theories to reflect many interactions among information technologies, women, and feminism. Rosser (2005) believes that Cyberfeminism appears currently to pick and choose among aspects of various feminist theories in a somewhat uncritical fashion without developing a coherent or successor theory. Therefore she proposes a brief exploration of what each of the feminist theories suggests for this less developed theory of Cyberfeminism. 3) Feminist theory: Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical ground. It encompasses work done in a broad variety of disciplines, prominently including the approaches to women's roles and lives and feminist politics in anthropology and sociology, economics, women's and gender studies, feminist literary criticism, and philosophy (especially Continental philosophy). Feminist theory aims to understand the nature of inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations and sexuality. While generally providing a critique of social relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on analyzing gender inequality and the promotion of women's rights, interests, and issues. Themes explored in feminism include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy. Main Sources: Rosser, S. V., (2005). Through the Lenses of Feminist Theory: Focus on Women and Information Technology, Frontiers - A Journal of Women's Studies, 26 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 55 | P a g e www.istheory.yorku.ca/Feminism.htm Summary of Micro Sociological Approach to the Study of People Micro-sociological theories of sociology focus upon the individual in a social context. Although the focus is on the individual, it is the context that is important. The social interactions that take place around us shape us and our views of ourselves. We make choices about how to behave and how not to behave based upon these social contexts. We also are involved in the use of symbols to define ourselves and others. As you pursue the topic of social psychology you will see how groups arise from these exchanges and interactions, from the groups and inter-group relationships arise societies and so on. Macrosociology Macrosociology implies that there is a system, an inter-relation of parts. Each structure of the society has an effect upon other structures, if changes take place in one part of the system it will affect other parts of the society. For example, our economy requires a mobile labor force, one in which the individuals must move all over the country. This has had the effect of drastically reducing the size of the typical family and made the extended family difficult to maintain. Each part of the society is a part of this set of interrelations, some are quite direct, others may work across and through several other structures and parts, making the interrelation indirect. a. relationships, interdependence of parts Specific Macrosociological perspectives: a. conflict Essentially the conflict perspective sees the structures of society producing conflicting expectations among the members of the society. The net result is that there are groups produced by the structures that have interests that run counter to other groups within the same structure or in a different structural context. For example, the roles of men and women are in a way complementary (i.e., different but necessary for one another). In Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010 56 | P a g e some instances the structures that these roles are imbedded in may produce conflict between the two groups. The nature of the economic system has placed men in positions of power where they make most of the decisions. Modern technology and educational achievement of women have increased the number of women who work. These changes have in turn brought women into the work place and in that structure they seek power that challenges that of men and places them in conflict with the men. Out of the conflict will come changes in the roles of both men and women. Stark cites other examples of groups, their interests and the conflict that will occur among them. (see Stark for details) b. functionalism The functionalist view of the social system emphasizes connectedness and equilibrium among the parts of the system. Each element affects every other element in the system. Some theorists state it is the natural tendency of a system to maintain a steady state (i.e., an equilibrium). The classic example of this condition is the human body. There are built in mechanisms that maintain body temperature within a relatively narrow range (about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit). If you exercise violently, you increase the temperature and the body system responds by opening vessels at the surface and increasing the sweating response -- all actions designed to bring the temperature back toward the 'normal' value of 98.6. Similarly, the idea is that the society is a system that is in equilibrium. If a part of it gets out of whack (the family, for example), mechanisms will come into play to move the part back into balance with the rest of the society. Applied Sociology Resources Perry Fletcher March 2010