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What?
• Sociology a systematic study of:• Human life• Human behaviour• Relationships• Structures • Change and continuity • Power dynamics (bracketing)
Sociological Imagination
• Individual and Society
• Link between immediate personal setting and remote general social world
Perspective andTheory?
• to understand, explain and predict phenomena systematically
• What should be the focus of research and how should it be studied?
• No single theory dominant in sociology
• Research is theory testing or theory constructing
Three Theoretical Perspectives
• Functionalist Perspective
• Conflict Perspective
• Interactionist Perspective
Functionalist Functionalist
perspective (Emile Durkheim)
• Social facts: an existence of their own in the society in which we are born and are imposed on the individual ways of thinking, feeling and acting (lang)
• Social facts have implicit coercive power (use of legal currency )
• Only through resistance realization comes
• Social facts include ‘currents of opinion’
Functionalist Functionalist
perspective (Emile Durkheim)
• Social facts: an existence of their own in the society in which we are born and are imposed on the individual ways of thinking, feeling and acting (lang)
• Social facts have implicit coercive power (use of legal currency )
• Only through resistance realization comes
• Social facts include ‘currents of opinion’
Functionalist cont
• Social facts• Studying social facts as things (use of
currency)• Coerciveness of social facts• Dysfunctions: parts disrupting society • Evaluation depends one’s own values
(jihad or terrorism)
Func:
• Focus: Order and stability : Social ties cementing the society
• Organic solidarity • Mechanical solidarity• Manifest functions• Latent Functions• E.g. Suicide a weakening of social ties (no central emotional
quality, or immediate circumstances)• Why does a part exist ? What are the intended and
unintended consequences ?
The Conflict Perspective
• Karl Marx (1818-1883)• Focus on conflict • Classes: Bourgeoisie vs proletariat • Base and super structure• False Consciousness ( Marx) ;
misrecognition, symbolic violence (Bourdieu)
Who benefits and at the expense of who ?
Interationist Perspective
• Max Weber (1864-1920)• Interest: Web of interaction which construct society • How is human action affected by different
forces?• How do involved parties experience, • interpret • influence and respond to what they and others
are doing in a course of action?• Kinds of social action • Traditional • Affectional • Value-rational• Instrumental-rational
Conflict Perspective
• Assumption of continual tension between groups over capitals
• State of competition for power• Struggle between social classes
inevitable
1900s(Karl Marx)
Conflict Perspective
• Questions:• Who suffers at the expense of
whose domination• How institutions serve to privilige
the elite (education, media) whose ideology
Conflict Perspective
• Focus• Change and redistribution• Analysis of society to resist oppression
Challenging status quo (voting )• Feminist view: gender inequity: giving
voice to female point of view• Pierre Bourdieu: Education
Interactionist Perspective
• Focus on micro social interaction• (eg jury decisions)• Interaction with meaningful objects
(material and symbolic)• Social ascribed symbolic meaning is
highlighted (English, salute, tattoos, dress)• Verbal and nonverbal communication• Dramaturgical approach (Goffman, 1922-
1931)
Mead 1863- 1931
Conflict View
False consciousness, Misrecognition
False ideas of success, subordinate certain groups, symbolic violence
Feminist view: reinforcing of gender roles by watching or participating sports
• Interactionist view: • Shared understanding of social
behaviour. • How everyday behaviour is shaped by
the specific norms, values and de• mands of sports• Dramaturgical approach (Goffman,
1922-1931)
Dealing with Theoretical dilemmas
• Theoretical Dilemmas – How do human action and social structure
interact?– Is society is based on consensus or conflict?– How should gender as category be treated– How does modern social development come
about?– Can we develop social theories?
Structure and human action contin
• Weber: Our actions are constrained but not limited by social structure
• ‘Structuration’ Giddins ‘action possible because of socially structured knowledge e.g language (clever)
• Conventions and rituals (tea, food, Baluchistan, Sindh)
• Constructing new structures or reinforcing old ones
Consensus or Conflict
• Durkhiem: Interdependence of parts (division of labour): integrated whole
• Harmony important for continuation • Marx: Class conflict based on unequal resources• Conflict based on race and gender• Interconnection between conflict and consensus
(interdependence of interests for Marx also) Consensus could be behind false consciousness or ideology)
• Interactionist: society a web of social relations which are structured into conflict and consensus by individuals
The Issue of Gender • Durkheim Men and women different: society
and nature• Social position and identity rests on their
biology• Marx: Differences in power between gender
reflect class divisions• Women as ‘private property’ of men by
marriage• Cultural constraints and differences ?• Interactionist: Gender not fixed category but
performed by what they do and what roles are assigned to and accepted by individuals
Theories About Society Cont
• Michel Foucault prisons, hospitals, schools, controlling and monitoring , discipline and surveillance
• Power ideology and discourse in relation to modern organizations
• Power and discourse (madness) understanding the present by digging into the past
How does modern social
development come about?• Marxist Perspective : changing
economic relationships • Weber, non economic factors,
religious values, ‘rationalization’ organization of life on the basis of efficiency
• Functionalist through institutional change