Sociological Perspectives Essay

The issue I have chosen is the use of social networking websites and how the three sociological perspectives apply to them. The use of social networking website has become a social norm in the way our society communicates with each one another. I believe that there are benefits with using social networking websites in your private and public life. On the other hand, I do believe that with social networking websites, the boundary between our private and public life merge and become difficult to separate.

Marijuana is a very well-known and commonly used drug. Yet, there are many different attitudes and meanings attached to it. So why is there such a variation in people’s attitudes towards marijuana. This can be explained and understood by using the symbolic interactionism theory. Marijuana is a very controversial topic among Americans and much research has been done regarding it. The Pew Research Center has gathered information on the opinions Americans have towards the legalization of marijuana. The data shows what percentage of Americans think it should be legal or not. There is also data on reasons why they have their opinions and meanings toward marijuana. This data helps to further understand and apply this theory to the use of marijuana.

1. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study? Why or why not?

Submission refers to at least six sociological concepts covered in the lectures or textbook reading

The first of the three perspectives is the functionalist perspective. Their perspectives look at problems when they affect a community more than if they affect a single person. They define social problems as situations that do not accomplish what they are meant to accomplish or when a dysfunction occurs. Meaning that social problems are situations that are not what they are meant to be, or something wrong happens, also known as a dysfunction. A dysfunction is another term that means consequences of an activity that forbid a community or societies ability to survive as a community.

A family is “a set of people related by blood, marriage or some other agreed-upon relationship, or adoption, who share the primary responsibility for reproduction and caring for members of society.” (Schaefer, 2009) A family is considered a social institution. This social institution is one that can be applied to all three sociological theories which are functionalism, conflict, and interactionism.

Three most common sociological perspectives that allow for sociologists to understand social matters and behaviors are: Structural Functionalism, Conflict Theory, and Symbolic Interactionism. The Structural Functionalism theory summed up demonstrates how individuals in a society work together to create a system that helps benefit one another. This viewpoint contains a macro-level perspective because it aims to view how large-scale societies function with many groups of people. Society is viewed as "...a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that society" ("Introduction to Sociology 2e", 2015).

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.

that are admired. Virtues are very important these day. In order to have more productivity and be better than competitors leaders started to debunk rules and play fair in marketplace. Virtues are becoming things of past and because of that American people have to deal with leaders who are cheaters and liars. Virtues saves us living the life that is socially unaccepted. They also make us better person and those people who are around us. Virtues are better for society. Society without good morals fails. Owners and executives of large business corporation have been in trouble because of the lack of moral excellence. Many

Identify the four major sociological theoretical paradigms. For each, what are the key tenets? How does each explain how society works?

The paper should be typed, double-spaced, 11-point font, 1” margins. Both the write-up and your typed journal should be saved as ONE document with page numbers. Remember to include a citation for any resources referenced, in proper APA format, and make sure your name is on your paper.

The first step in sociological research is to create a hypothesis, and then to operationalize an idea by transforming the subject into something that can be measured. This research can be then carried out in two ways: either quantitative or qualitative. In both of these fields, there are multiple methods of how to go about research. Sociological research is important in understanding public attitudes and helping to enact new policies. It is a way to understand society, and make more informed decisions about the ideas people discuss. For example, every day a vast amount of people choose to take their life away for multiple reasons. One aspect of social life that I would like to go more in detail in, is why people attempt to or actually commit suicide. By understanding the leading causes for suicide, society can help prevent or at least understand what someone else is going through without places a negative stigma on their situation.

Prior to enrolling in Professor McLuhan’s sociological perspectives class, I never gave the term motive much thought, as I simply believed it to be a word that described why a social actor committed an action, either good or bad. Personally to me, the commonsense understanding of the word motive elaborates on a desire to perform a specific action based on a build up of emotion. According to the Britannica Encyclopedia, the word motive is defined as “forces acting either on or within a person to initiate behavior. The word is derived from the Latin term motivus (“a moving cause”), which suggests the activating properties of the processes involved in psychological motivation” (Cofer 2014: 1). According to Robert Prus, in sociology “symbolic interaction may be envisioned as the study of the ways in which people make sense of their life-situations and the ways in which they go about their activities, in conjunction with others on a day-to-day basis” (Prus 1996: 10). Furthermore, the interactionist understanding of motives is constructed on the belief that social actors live a particular way based on the human lived experiences that influences their thoughts and emotions. Following George Herbert Mead who is a major contributor to symbolic interaction, he states “language is absolutely fundamental to the human essence. Although language is both a product and a process

|A |This theorist believed that information about the social world should come not from beliefs or intuition but from direct, |

The sociological inquiry is the methodical analysis of the inspirations and behaviour of individuals within a group. It is the study of the social world as a whole and focusing on how elements such as the family, religion, school, community and government effect it. Sociological inquires most standard goal is to simply obtain a more clear understanding of the observable social world that we live in. In this essay I will be looking into the sociological theories of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, and recognising if their approaches are still relevant today.