Sociological Perspectives: A Social Analysis

Functionalism is a macro-structural theory; meaning that it studies society and a whole, and looks at how it shapes the individual. Functionalists state that each aspect of society is interdependent and contributes to society's satiability and functioning as a whole. They believe that the nuclear family (a family consisting of two married adults on an monogamous relationship with one or more dependent children) is completely beneficial to society, and that it, and other institutions within society (eg school, hospitals, ect.) each perform different crucial functions to meet society's needs, much like how the organs of the body all work together to keep the body functioning. This is called the organic anology. There are two main theories within the functionalist perspective, Murdock and Parsons, which both give different functions in which the family performs and explain why it is a vital part of society.

Throughout history various social perspectives have been observed in an attempt to explain and classify different types of sociological behavior. Various theories have been made regarding the sociological perspective, which examines the social contexts that people live in and how these contexts effect the individual and society (Henslin 2). Each sociological perspective examines something different and poses a different theory. Discussed here are three sociological perspectives: the functionalist perspective, the conflict perspective and the feminist perspective. All three perspectives are forms of social institutions or the ways that a society meets its basic needs (Henslin 104).

An employer is an individual or organization who employs one or more person (employee) for wages or salary, while an employee works for an individual or organization (employer) for wage or salary. The wage that is earn is used to cover expenses by the employee, in the form of bills, to cover health, housing, food, utilities, all seen as a necessity.

If a parent has a low socioeconomic status and a low level of educational attainment, will their child likely have a low grade point average? Can a parent’s involvement in their child’s education and school improve that student’s grades? Does being a minority and a teacher affect a teacher’s experiences in the workplace? Questions like these are ones that sociologists attempt to answer by means of multiple paradigms. The five major paradigms that sociologists utilize are symbolic-interactionism, exchange theory, structural-functionalism, conflict theory, and feminist theory. Symbolic-interactionism looks at symbols within a society to understand how individuals interact with one another. Exchange theory explains how people make decisions, through the premise that individuals aim to risk the least and gain the most.

In chapter one of our book it is talking about the sociological perspective. Sociology is defined as the systematic study of human society. It is explained that sociological perspective is seeing the common in the specific. Sociologists look for common patterns in the behavior of certain people. I found it very interesting in chapter one where it states that higher class white men are more likely to commit suicide than any other population and that between genders; men are more likely to commit suicide. This is interesting because I would have thought the roles were reversed. I would have thought that women are more likely to commit suicide because women are more emotional than men. Later on in the chapter it goes on to talk about how to apply sociological perspective. It can be applied in three different ways. It can be applied in one’s life, one’s work, and in studying sociology. When we apply sociological perspective to our lives we are more likely to become active and more aware. After applying sociological perspective we begin to think more critically in our everyday lives. There are three major theoretical approaches. The structural-functional approach is the basic layout for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work simultaneously to stimulate harmony and strength. The social-conflict approach sees society as a place of inequality that produces struggle and change. Lastly is the symbolic-interaction approach. This approach sees that

This semester I was enrolled in a course called, Sociology, The Family. The purpose of this course was to understand the different types of families from a sociological perspective. Meaning, we learned how individuals internalized certain family dynamics and how it affects them. Throughout the course, we discussed certain topics such as sexuality, gender, ethnicity, social class, blended families, and domestic violence and how these actions play apart in different families. Our class was able to understand this study by analyzing readings from scholarly articles, textbooks, presentations and class discussions. I thought this course would be beneficial to my education because I was interested in understanding how events from one’s childhood can shape a persons behavior and personal characteristics. But

After reading these sections, I had to re-read how to transition into my source, because I sometimes through them in there without context. I should’ve read this before I turned in my midterm paper for my other class, because I got docked for throwing in a quote. But, as I am writing my final research paper, I am prepared. Also, a nice refresher was the common logic section, because as I invest deeper into my discipline, I am having trouble by assuming certain sociological theory is common sense, but it’s not the case. Now I know common knowledge only pertains facts, historical events and geographical locations.

There are many sociologists in the world with many different ways and opinions to understand society. Some see the world as basically a stable ongoing entity while others see society as composed of many groups in conflict, competing for scarce resources (Schaefer, p. 13). Additionally, views of other sociologists believe society is an impressive machine that people take for granted, the social aspects of everyday life and its routine interactions of one to another. The three views the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist theoretical perspectives are the ones that mostly used by sociologists.

In this essay I will be discussing sociological perspectives and how it helps us understand society. I will be furthering on how we understand society through functionalism and how conflict is within everyday life. I will be giving an overview on how things such as, symbolic interactionism and feminism affect today’s society as a whole whilst evaluating legislations and frameworks along with how social democracy has an impact on society.

The three theories in sociology provide us with different understandings of how to view our social world. The perspectives are the different ways of looking at the world. The theories are a set of ideas that are designed to understand generalizations of society and social behavior. The sociologists study anything from specific events, also known as micro level, to the bigger events, also known as macro level.

According to personal research, 4 out of 10 individuals (of my nation - Indonesia) consider social networking to be unhelpful to culture and, to an extent, the bane of its existence. This may be due to the commonly-considered conception of digitalWith the usage of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter seeing an escalation in the last decade, the idea that human contact between individuals is diminishing may not be as farfetched as once was. Indeed, before the rise in social networking, telephones and human rendezvous saw more prominence in their practise, but how would those days differ from the ones we currently trudge through? The impact on culture, for example: how has, can and to what extent the use of social networking be used to affect culture? What effect, if any, will it have on foresaid culture? Here is a piece of information from the ACM Digital Library - “The increasing availability of the Web has been breaking down communication limitations in society and enabling the easy transcending of physical borders. Additionally, the emergence of social media like forums, blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc., is bringing

Sociological theorists have always disagreed in method, hence the three paradigms that compose the sociological theory as a whole. But it’s the fact that none of them have the one defined answer to society’s quirky nature. Conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, and functionalism must coexist in order to provide the best encompassing view of societal anomalies. Specifically looking at crime rates as an example, one would take each theory into consideration as to demonstrate their contribution to the crime rate. In the following paragraphs I’ll be referencing Karl Marx (conflict theorist), Lewis Coser (functionalist), and Charles Horton Cooley (symbolic interactionist).

In this essay, I am going to explain 7 different psychological perspectives; functionalism, Marxism, feminism, interactionism, collectivism, postmodernism and The New Right.

Social network sites contain specifically precious information. This data inevitably relates personal information of its users, which shows particular details of their life. According to Obole, Cruz, & Welsh (2015), using social networking sites have resulted in concerning issues relating to privacy, for instance, manipulate voters, track users or disclose user’s location. Indeed, business sector and government controls the numerous data on social networking sites; however, the authentic causes of violations on personal data theft stems from both users themselves and organizations, which are both participants leading to encroachments of

Three major sociological approaches in the field of sociology are known as functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist perspectives. The three sociological approaches are utilized to explain and enhance why racism is prominent in the United States. These viewpoints each discussed racism, but by using different terminology and specific focuses, each perspective is able to illustrate very unique and diverse concepts. As stated by Kendall (2015), “Racism is a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices that is used to justify the superior treatment of one racial or ethnic group and the inferior treatment of another racial or ethnic group” (p. 284). As Kendall (2015) defined, “dominant groups are racial or ethnic groups that have the greatest power and resources in a society. Subordinate groups are ones whose members, because of physical or cultural characteristics, are disadvantaged and subjected to unequal treatment and discrimination by the dominant group.” (p. 283). In the society found in the United States, dominant groups incorporated white Americans while subordinate groups incorporated individuals such as immigrants, African Americans, and Asian Americans. The difference between all three perspectives begins with the context of how dominant and subordinate groups are used in the explanation of racism. Functionalist perspectives analyzed racism on a macro-level in which the dynamics of the subordinate and dominate groups in the entirety of society is critiqued