Unit 7 p1: explain the principle sociological perspectives.

by nezz1223 (student)

Naomi Ward

There have been different perspectives and approaches that have been used to describe societies and the behavior of the people living in them. The approaches explain how much impact and difference they make on the society, health and well-being.

According to the functionalist perspective, also called functionalism, each aspect of society is interdependent and contributes to society's functioning as a whole. The government provides education for the children of the family, which in turn pays taxes on which the state depends to keep it running. That is, the family is dependent upon the school to help children grow up to have good jobs so that they can raise and support their own families. In the process, the children become respectable, taxpaying citizens, who in turn support the state. If all goes well, the parts of society produce order, stability, and productivity. If all does not go well, the parts of society then must adapt to recapture a new order, stability, and productivity. For example, during a financial recession with its high rates of unemployment and inflation, social programs are trimmed or cut. Schools offer fewer programs. Families tighten their budgets. And a new social order, stability, and productivity occur.

Functionalists believe that society is held together by social consensus, or cohesion, in which members of the society agree upon, and work together to achieve, what is best for society as a whole. Emile Durkheim suggested that social consensus takes one of two forms:

Mechanical solidarity is a form of social organization that arises when people in a society support similar values and beliefs and engages in similar types of work. Mechanical solidarity most commonly occurs in traditional, simple societies such as those in which everyone herds cattle or farms. Amish society exemplifies mechanical solidarity.
In contrast, organic solidarity is a form of social cohesion that arises when the people in a society are interdependent, but hold to varying values and beliefs and engage in varying types of work. Organic solidarity most commonly occurs in industrialized, complex societies such those in large American cities like New York in the 2000s.

The functionalist perspective achieved its greatest popularity among American sociologists in the 1940s and 1950s. While European functionalists originally focused on explaining the inner workings of social order, American functionalists focused on discovering the functions of human behavior. Among these American functionalist sociologists is Robert Merton, who divides human functions into two types: manifest functions are intentional and obvious, while latent functions are unintentional and not obvious. The evident function of attending a church or synagogue, for instance, is to worship as part of a religious community, but its latent function may be to help members learn to discern personal from institutional values. With common sense, manifest functions become easily apparent. Yet this is not necessarily the case for latent functions, which often demand a sociological approach to be revealed. A sociological approach in functionalism is the consideration of the relationship between the functions of smaller parts and the functions of the whole.

Functionalism has received criticism for neglecting the negative functions of an event such as divorce. Critics claim that the perspective justifies the status quo and complacency on the part of society's members. Functionalism does not encourage people to take an active role in changing their social environment, even when such change may benefit them. Instead, functionalism sees active social change as undesirable because the various parts of society will compensate naturally for any problems that may arise.

Marxism is a structuralism model but on the same hand a conflict model too. Marxism refers to the idea that all evolving economies ...

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Marxism is a structuralism model but on the same hand a conflict model too. Marxism refers to the idea that all evolving economies ultimately take the same course: Feudalism to capitalism and eventually ending up as a socialist or communist environment where economic and social classes no longer exist. Marx had the view of the social industry society today is broken into two classes which are the capitalist which is a small powerful group of people who owned factories and other work places. The other class is the proletariat, which is a bigger group than the capitalist because they are a poorer group, which work for the capitalist.

Marxism is an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism is summed up in the Encarta Reference Library as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in Western societies.” Marxism is the opposite of capitalism, which is defined by Encarta as “an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit.” Marxism is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Under capitalism, the proletariat, the working class or “the people,” own only their capacity to work; they have the ability only to sell their own labor. According to Marx a class is defined by the relations of its members to the means of production. He proclaimed that history is the chronology of class struggles, wars, and uprisings. Under capitalism, Marx continues, the workers, in order to support their families are paid a bare minimum wage or salary. The worker is alienated because he has no control over the labor or product, which he produces. The capitalists sell the products produced by the workers at a proportional value as related to the labor involved. Surplus value is the difference between what the worker is paid and the price for which the product is sold.

Like functionalism, Marxism received criticism, they believed that the result of socialization behavior was brought from the behavior from the individuals of the social classes.

Postmodernism is a general and wide-ranging term, which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.

Collectivism is an method to providing health and social care services that is underpinned by the government commitment to proved care and support for the vulnerable, funded through taxation and national insurance

Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence and the importance of a collective, rather than the importance of separate individuals. Collectivists focus on community and society, and seek to give priority to group goals over individual goals.

The philosophical underpinnings of collectivism are for some related to holism or organisms - the view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Specifically, a society as a whole can be seen as having more meaning or value than the separate individuals to make up that society. Collectivism is widely seen as the antipode of individualism. It demands that the group be more important than the individual and It requires the individual to sacrifice himself for the alleged good of the group. Although different from altruism, collectivism complements it well. Altruism demands sacrifice for others, collectivism demands sacrifice for the group. Collectivism leads to altruism.

Collectivism and the new right are examples of political answers to the part of government in our society. In every society there are people who are in need more then others, for example children, elderly people, physical impaired people and people with mental illnesses. In some societies in are up to the vulnerable peoples families to look after them, but in other societies it is responsible for the religious groups and the local community. Since the Poor Law appeared in the 19th century, that was when Britain started to take responsibility for the vulnerable people in the county. The political foundation, which was provided by the Beveridge report in 1942 was for comprehensive range of welfare services. In the report made by Lord Beveridge contained 5 challenges that needed to be sorted. There was an agreement with the cross party that they should take collective responsibility for

Fighting diseases in the NHS
Fighting unawareness through the growth of secondary education for all.
Addressing poverty through a wide range of welfare benefits including family allowance, unemployment and sickness benefit and retirement pensions.
Eliminating filth through the building of council houses
Eliminating laziness by helping policies of full employment and the development of labor changes.

The placed the provision of key services in the hands of the government and the country by working together to help all families that are in need and also voluntary services too. This was all funded by taxes and national insurance.

The new right perspective developed in response to changes in the world that started in the 19-60s/70s but continued into the 80s/90s. These changes included:

The decline in usefulness of the concept of First, Second and Third world due to the increased diversity between countries in the developing world.
The decline of Marxism in sociology
The collapse of Soviet Union.

The post-war collectivist method to welfare remained mainly in place for over the generation and was not challenged or quizzed until the election of Margaret Thatcher’s conservative Government in 1979. The opinion of the government was that the country should play as a small role as possible in welfare provision. They believed that the welfare should be largely seen as the responsibility of the individual and their family. The new right regarded state support as intrusive and supporting dependency culture. Mrs. Thatcher and the party thought the welfare state produced a society in which people relied on state benefits rather then earning the money for themselves and planning futures for their own families.

Feminism is seen as a conflict model by example. There are 3 feminist approaches, which are the Marxist feminism, radical feminism and liberal feminism. Marxism approach sees feminism as working class women. They are there for there children’s needs in life and getting ready for them to build their own futures, so they can work in offices and factories. They also see them as full time home mothers such as keeping the house clean, cooking the family dinner every night and looking after their partners or husbands, they do this for nothing. Women are often seen as dominated by their husbands and they also support the industry itself. It is seen as the woman/mother of the house holds responsibility for the domestics of life’s and getting the family ready for work. The radical feminism is seen differently, it is seen as the capitalism dominates the men in this situation and not the women. Families are seen as male-controlled. In this situation, they see women as housewives and full-time mothers of domination and this repression as a characteristic of nuclear family life. Liberal feminism thinks that changes have taken place in the societies of today. They think there is more equality because changes of attitudes have taken place such as changing the legislation; equal pay act 1970 and the sex discrimination act 1975. This suggests that developments will take place by the methods of legislation and policy.