Sociology (online) states: “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 law-abiding, 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 the society to be controlled and balanced it should have some social institutions that would be in place to be meeting an individual’s needs. For example, a school would provide an individual with education, a hospital would provide an individual with medical treatment, a law would be put into place for individuals to be obeying and employment would be put into place for an individual to take responsibilities and earn money. These all ways would be controlling the society for this individual and would be balancing things out for them.
Talcott Parson (1902-1979) engaged into an important role with the development of the functionalism from a sociological approach. He looked at society as different organisations and thought that the main role of these organisations was to get individuals to socialise and to make sure that the individuals understood the values and roles they carried out in society, for example, the behaviour that was acceptable and not acceptable. This made sure that the society was running in a correct order.
Marxism highlights that the idea of the social life is all based on the conflicts of interest an individual may have. The social class would define why and how the society changes however the class conflict is when the change is made by an individual from them observing what they are seeing and then sharing it with the society.
This approach was discovered from Karl Marx (1818-1883) who believes that individual’s behaviour was all coming from society. He believes that there were two social classes which are; Capitalists, these are people who would have small powerful groups who own businesses and provide employment. The second class would be proletariat which is a much larger and poorer group who work for the capitalist in their business by being employed. These different classes were not necessary as these classes could result with riots taking place. Marxists argued that by the two different classes having different level of powers it would still mean that the proletariat would be receiving their wages and the capitalists would hold more power however, this would be unfair as the institutions would be more influenced by the capitalists due to the social class. The proletariat would be living in false consciousness as they would think that they are working hard for their money, however the capitalists would take advantage of this by making their own ideas and decisions having their own way.
Atheism (online) states: “Althusser argued that humans have no intrinsic qualities (or essence), but socially produced accidents. These accidents are the creation of social structures, and describing them allows us to describe both humans and the human condition. A practical result of this is that there is no essential "human nature" which cannot be changed, and so in order to change human behaviour or attitudes, it is simply necessary to alter the appropriate social structures.”
To have an appropriate social structure, proletariat should always think of what is benefiting them and how it affects the society. For example, the proletariat would be receiving their income but would still be unaware of the situation they are putting the society in. by the proletariat not standing up for their rights or for human nature, until then the ways of society would not change as capitalists would always have a way of having new ideas being brought to light. Even though capitalists are people who have power and proletariat are people who are employers, Marx argued that these differences should be changed and everyone should be treated equally.
Feminism has three main feminist approaches which include; Marxist feminism, Radical feminism and Liberal feminism. Pamela Abbott and Clair Wallace stated the feminism concerns and argued that the male domination has given women’s less rights and gives less attention to the issues that women face or have and that they have an unequal place in the society.
Sociology (online) states: “Feminist theory is one of the major contemporary sociological theories, which analyzes the status of women and men in society with the purpose of using that knowledge to better women's lives. Feminist theorists have also started to question the differences between women, including how race, class, ethnicity, and age intersect with gender. Feminist theory is most concerned with giving a voice to women and highlighting the various ways women have contributed to society.”
Marxist feminism: mainly see women as troubled by both men and by capitalism or by the society. Women are the ones that would produce the next generation and would be meeting their physical, intellectual, emotional and social needs so their children would be ready to work or have a career in the future.
Radical feminism would not be women working for people who have businesses but their family would be seen as an institution where the women would be unable to socialise as socialisation for them would be being housewife’s, mothers and grandmothers.
Liberal feminism generally argues over the changes that are being made or need to be made. They believe that by the changes of legislations such as Sex Discrimination Act (1975) and Equal Pay Act (1970) it would give more equal rights to women. They also believe that these improvements would always be made when necessary through policies and legislations.
Collectivism is an approach which is mainly used in health and social care services that is being structured by the government to provide the correct care and support to vulnerable people who would be funded through the National Insurance and Taxation.
In many different areas of society there will be groups of people who are vulnerable. These vulnerable people may be, children, older people, people with learning disabilities and people with mental health issues and needs. Some of the societies would care for these people by seeing it as a responsibility of the family or the individual. However, in some societies it would be the responsibility of the religious group of local community.
Stretch and Whitehouse (2010) state: “There was an agreement made by cross-party that the state should be collective responsibility for, fighting disease through the National Health Service, Addressing poverty through a wide range of welfare benefits including Family allowance, Unemployment, Sickness benefit and retirement pensions and having policies of full employment. “
This then gave the state responsibilities with working closely with families, voluntary organisations that was to be funded by the National Insurance.
by
damzee (student)
