Three Major Theoretical Perspectives of Sociology

Major theoretical perspectives:

Sociologists view society in different ways. Some see the planet primarily as a stable and in progress entity. They are impressed with endurance of the family, organised religion and other social institutions. Others sociologists see society as composed of many groups in conflict, competing for scarce resources. To still other sociologists the most fascinating aspects of the social world are the everyday, routine interactions among individuals that we sometimes take for granted. These three views, the ones most widely used by sociologists are the functionalist, conflict and interactionist perfect perspectives. Together this approaches will provide an introductory look at the discipline.

Functional Perspective:

Think of society as a living organism within which every a part of the organism contributes to its survival. This view is the functionalist perspective, which emphasizes the way in which the parts of a society are structured to maintain its stability. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979), Harvard University sociologists, was a key figure in the development of functionalist theory. Parsons were greatly influenced by the work of Emil Durkheim, Max Weber, and other European sociologists. For over four decades, he dominated sociology in the united states with his advocay of functionalism. Parsons saw any society as a massive network of connected components, each of which helps to maintain the system as a whole. His functionalist approach holds that if an aspect of social life doesn't contribute to a societies stability or survival—if it doesn't serve some identifiably useful function or promote value consensus among members of a society—it won't be passed on from one generation to subsequent. Let's examine prostitution as an example of the functionalist perspective. Why is it that a practices so widely condemned continuous to display such presistence and vitality? Functionalist suggest that prostitution satisfies needs that may not be readily met through more socially acceptable forms of sexual expression, such as courtship or marriage. the “buyer” receives sex without any responsibility or procreation or sentimental attachment at the same time, the “seller” makes a living through the exchange. Such examination leads us to conclude that prostitution does perform certain functions that society seems to need. However, that is not to suggest that prostitution is a desirable or legitimate form of social behaviour. Functionalist do not make such judgements. Rather, advocates of the functionalist perspective hope to explain how an aspects of society that is so frequently attacked can nevertheless manage to survive. (K. Davis 1937).

Manifest and Latent Functions:

A collage catalogue typically states various functions of the institution. It may inform you, for example, that the university intense to “offer each student a broad education in classical and contemporary thought, in the Humanities, in the Sciences and in the arts. However, it would be quite a surprise to find a catalogue that declared, “this university was founded in 1895 to keep people between the ages of 18 and 22 out of the job market, thus reducing unemployment.” No college catalogue will declare this as the purpose of the university. Yet docietal institutions serve many functions, some of them quite subtle. The university, in fact, does delay people's entry into the job market. Robert Merton created a vital distinction between manifest and latent functions. Manifest functions of establishments area unit open, stated, conscious functions. They involve the intended, recognised consequences of an aspect of society, such as the university's role in certifying academic competence and excellence. In distinction, latent functions are unconscious or unintended functions that may reflect hidden purposes of an institution. One latent function of universities is to hold down unemployment. Another is to serve as a meeting ground for people seeking martial partners.

Dysfunctions:

Functionalist acknowledge that not all parts of a society contribute to its stability all the time. A dysfunction refers to a component of method of a society that will truly disrupt the structure or scale back its stability. We view many dysfunctional behavior patterns, such as homicide, as undesirable. Yet we should not automatically interpret in this way. The evaluation of a dysfunction depends on one's own values or, as the saying goes, on “where you sit?” For example, the official view in prisons in the United States is that inmate gangs should be eradicated because they are dysfunctional to smooth operations. Yet some guards have actually come to view prison gangs as a functional part of their jobs. The danger posed by gangs creates a “threat to security” requiring increased surveillance and more overtime work for guards, as well as requests for special staffing to address gang problems. (G. Scott 2001).

Conflict Perspective:

Where functionalists see stability and accord, conflict sociologists see a social world in continual struggle. The conflict perspective assumes that social behaviour is best understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups. Such conflict needn't be violent; it will take the shape of labour negotiations, party politics, competition between religious Groups for new members, or disputes over the federal budget. Throughout most of the 1900s, functionalist perspective had the upper hand in sociology in the United States. However, the conflict approach has become more and more persuasive since the late Sixties. The widespread social unrest ensuing from battles ovrr civil rights, bitter divisions over the war in Vietnam, the rise of the feminist and gay liberation movements, the watergate political scandal urban riots and confrontations at abortion clinics have offered support for the conflict approach—the view that our social world is characterized by continual struggle between competing groups. Currently, the discipline of social science accepts conflict theory mutually valid thanks to gain insight into a society.

The Marxist View:

As we tend to saw earlier subverter viewed struggle between social categories as inevitable, given the exploitation of workers under capitalism. Expanding on Marx's work sociologists and alternative social scientists have come back to visualize conflict not just as a category development however as a district of standard of living altogether societies. In studying any culture, organisation or social group, sociologists want to know who benefits, who suffers and who dominates at the expense of others. They are concerned with the conflicts between women and men, parents and children, cities and suburbs, whites and blacks, to name only a few. Conflict theorists have associate degree interest in but society's Institutions—including the family, government, religion, education and also the media—may facilitate to keep up the privileges of some teams and keep others in an exceedingly subservient position. There emphasis on social change and the redistribution of resources makes conflict theorists more “radical” and “activist” than functionalists. (Dahrendorf 1959).

The Feminist View:

Sociologists began embracing the feminist perspective only in the 1970s, although it has a long tradition in many other disciplines. The feminist view see inequity in gender as central to all behaviour and organisation. Because it clearly focuses on one aspect of inequality, it is often allied with the conflict perspective. Proponents of the feminist perspective tend to focus on the Macro level, just as conflict theorists do. Drawing on the work of Marx and Friedrich Engels, contemporary feminist theorists often view women's subordination as inherent to capitalist societies. Some radical feminist theorists, however, view the oppression of women as inevitable in all male dominated societies, whether capitalist, socialist or communist. An early example of this perspective (long before the level came into use by sociologists) can be seen in the life and writings of Ida Wells-Barnett (1862-1931). Following her ground breaking publications in the 1890s on the practice of lynching Black Americans, She become an advocate in the womens rights campaign, especially the struggle to win the vote for women. Like feminist theorists who succeeded her, Wells-Barnett used her analysis of society as a means of resisting oppression. In her case, she researched what it meant to be African American, a woman in the United States, and a Black woman in the United States (Wells-Barnett 1970). Feminist Scholarship in sociology has broadened our under standing of social behavior by taking it beyond the white male point of view. For example, a family's social standing is no longer defined solely by the husband's position and income. Feminist students haven't solely challenged stereotyping of girls and men; they need argued for a gender balanced study of society during which women's experiences and contributions ar as visible as those of men. (England 1999, Komarovsky 1991, Tuchman 1992). The feminist perspective has given sociologists new views of familiar social behaviour. For example, past research on crime rarely considered women and when it did, tended to focus on traditional crimes by women like shoplifting. Such a view tended to ignore the role woman play in all types of crime, as well as the disproportionate role they play as victims of crime. Research conducted by Meda Chesney-Lind and Noelie Rodriguez (1993) showed that nearly all women in prison had suffered physical and/or sexual abuse when they were young; half had been raped. Contributions by both feminist and minority scholars have enriched all the sociological perspectives.

The Interactionist Perspective:

The functionalist and conflict perspectives both analyse society at the Macro-level. These approaches arrange to justify society—wide patterns of behaviour. however, several modern sociologists a lot of fascinated by understanding Society as a full through associate examination of social interactions at the small level tiny teams, two friends casually talking with one another, a family and so forth. This is the interactionist perspective. This perspectives generalizes about fundamental or everyday forms of social interaction. From these generalizations, interactionists seek to explain both micro and macro level behaviour. The interactionist perspective in Sociology was initially influenced by Max Weber. He had emphasized the importance of understanding the social world from the viewpoint of the individuals who act within it. Later developments in this theory have been strongly influenced by social psychology and by the work of early leaders in the Chicago School of Sociology, Particularly George Herbert Mead. “The interactionist perspective focuses on social behaviour in everyday life. It tries to grasp however individuals produce and interpret the things they expertise and it emphasizes however innumerable instances of social interaction manufacture the larger structure of society government, the economy and alternative establishments.” This perspective presumes that it is only through these social behaviour of the people that society can come into being. Society is ultimately created, maintained and changed by the social interaction of its members.

The interactionist perspective has a number of loosely linked approaches:
(i) Erving Goffman (1959), for example, takes a “dramaturgical” approach to social interaction. He sees social life as a type of theatre, in which people play different parts/roles and “stage-manage” their lives and the impressions they create on others.

(ii) George Homans (1961) prefers to have an “exchange” approach. He stresses on the way people control one anothers behaviour by exchanging various forms of rewards and punishments for approved or disapproved behaviour.

(iii) Harold Garfinkel (1967) adopts what he calls an “ethno methodological” approach. This is only an attempt to find out how people themselves understand the routines of daily life. This approach focuses on however individuals read, describe and justify shared meanings underlying everyday social life and social routines.

(iv) Blumer and His Symbolic Interaction (1969), Blumer preferred to stress on the symbolic interaction approach laid down by G. H. Mead in the thirties. Symbolic interaction is the interaction that takes place between people through symbols—such as signs, justice, shared rules and most important written and spoken language. Much of this interaction takes place on a face to face basis, but it can also occur in other forms. For example, symbolic interaction is taking place between the author of this book and the readers who read the sentences here. Interaction occurs whenever we obey (or even disobey) a traffic signal, or a“stick no bills” notice. The essential point is that people do not respond to that meaning. For example, the words or sentences of this book, the red light of a traffic signal have no meaning in themselves. People learn to attach symbolic meaning to these things and they order their lives on the basis of these meanings. We live in a symbolic as well as in a physical world. Our social life involves a constant process of interpreting the meanings of our own acts and those of others.

The interactionist perspective, in general invites, the sociologist to ask specific kinds of question:
what kinds of interaction are taking place between people, how do they understand and interpret what is happening to them and why do they act towards others as they do? Those who follow this perspective usually focus on the more minute, personal aspects of everyday life. For example, by hot process an individual becomes a beggar or a prostitute or criminal. How does someone learn to experience cigarette smoking as pleasurable? What tactics are used by a college lecturer to have class control? What strategies are resorted to buy a political leader to convince the angry mob about a political decision taken by his party on an issue that would affect their interests? What happens and why if we stand too close to someone during a conversation? and so on. The interactionist perspective provides a very interesting insight into the basic mechanics of everyday life. It has the advantage of revealing fundamental social process that other perspectives normally ignore. This perspective is also open to criticism. It neglects larger social institutions and societal processes, which have powerful effects on social interaction and on our personal experience.