What are sociological perspectives?

Question

What are sociological perspectives?

Answer 1

The socilogical perspectives are:

Functionalism:

This group of sociologists sees society as being like a living person. Just as all the different organs in a human body (heart, brain, lungs, etc.) work together in harmony, so all the different parts of society (work, government, education, religion etc.) are seen to work together in harmony.

As in a human body, each part of society depends on the other parts of society, on the basis of:

Social needs and Social purposes that fulfill those needs.

For example, work needs people who are socialised into the values and norms of society and the family exists for the purpose of fulfilling that need. Just like in a human body, if one part of society stops working in the way that it should, problems are created in that society.

From this perspective, everything in society has a purpose or function (which is where the term Functionalism comes from). The basic values of this perspective emphasise the idea of harmony and social consensus based around shared values.



Conflict Theory:

This group of sociologists sees society as being made-up of very large social groups (called social classes) who each have different experiences and interests. These classes are defined in terms of the different types of work that they do. Usually, three great classes are defined in this way:

a. An upper or ruling class - this consists of people with great wealth who own factories, companies and so forth.

b. A middle class - this consists of professional workers such as lawyers, doctors and accountants. These people do not own the businesses they work for and they achieve their position through the gaining of educational qualifications.

c. A working or lower class - this consists of people who do not own businesses and have few, if any educational qualifications. This group are mainly manual workers in society.

From this perspective, people are seen to be encouraged, through the socialisation process, to be competitive. This is because everyone is trying to either get the most that they can out of life or they are trying to prevent others taking away the things they have. In this respect, Conflict sociologists emphasise conflicts in society (between social classes, between men and women, between different ethnic groups).

Although there are shared values in society, Conflict Theorists argue that this is because the very powerful (members of the ruling class) are able to impose their values on the rest of society (through institutions such as the media, religion and so forth).

Like the Functionalist perspective, Conflict Theorists argue that society is a force that pressurises the individual to do things - like go to work, attend school, compete with and try to exploit others.



Interactionism:

Interactionism has become one of the dominant sociological perspectives in the world today. It is a theory based on social interaction, and it was first linked to the work of the German theorist Max Weber. It promotes the idea that nothing in society is determined, and that people can break free of a label as individuals. This is sociology on the micro-level. Critics would say that it is merely a mild form of postmodernist theory, however it has in recent times incorporated Marxism and New Right theory.