Can anyone help me to discribe discrimination using functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism?

Question

Can anyone help me to discribe discrimination using functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism?

Answer 1

Hohoho....

Well, for functionalism, which is the idea that every person has roles best suited to them and society depends on these roles being followed, discrimination happens when one group feels that another group has set roles that they don't want to see changed....

Women can't work in high-management, because then they are neglecting their roles as mothers, wives and social coordinators. ~or~ Marriage is an institution whose roles are husband and wife, thus it is absurd to change these roles to husband and husband or wife and wife. To do so is changing the meaning and puropse of the insitution, like saying janitors can now be teachers and thinking that makes for a decent school.

There is also the affect anomies (breakdown of roles and cohesion) have on behavior.

For example, when the country is at peace, discrimination is a present, but managed ripple through society.

But after 9/11, it doesn't matter if you aren't Arabic, you could be Asian, Black or Hispanic; if you are Muslim, people will suddenly question which role is more important to you: being Muslim or being American.

At the same time, it is easier to alienate people who you never considered part of your group in the first place. During WW2, a full year before Japan attacked us, FDR ordered a registration made of all Japanese-Americans. No such suspection has ever been placed so heavily on German-Americans they are the largest ethinc group in America. In WW2, all Japamericans were placed in concentration camps simply as a precautionary measure while the beloved war hero was Ike Eisenhower, who has the most Reich-rific name I have ever heard. I'm ranting now, aren't I?

Conflict Theory? Mmm... I love Marxism early in the morning.

When you see the world as class struggle, discrimination is everywhere, isn't it?

Upper class defines itself with strict norms to keep those lower on the food chain from rising, thus a system not based on actual skill, but "club handshakes" like inflection, playing golf, knowing wines, going to the right schools, belonging to the right clubs.

The same is said for ethnic conflict. If the top busnesses are all White-owned and White-managed, how does the Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native learn those norms so that they are "one of the boys?" Their parents don't know them, their culture doesn't... They have to submit themselves to another culture to succeed. Du Bois calls this the "double consciousness" of minorities: American, but still different, they must live two lives and have two souls.

Social interaction is the same thing, but Marx used the word conflict because he has father issues.... XD

It is the same idea that because human interaction is made of symbols that we interpret, if you don't have the symbols a person likes, they will prejudge you as hostile or uncomforting to their person.

When you are walking down the street of a typical Midwest suburb and you see a:

Young, Black, male in red hoodie and baggy jeans: Holy c**p, it's a Blood! RUN!

Young, Black, male in polo shirt and khakis: That must be Carly's friend from school.

Answer 2

there is a lot that you can read to help you out. Google Talcott Parsons (structural functionalism), Michele Foucault (Symbolic Interactionalism), and I cannot think who wrote the conflict theory but you can look up Jurgen Habermas and I think there should be something that involves both conflict theory and symbolic interactionalism.