Sociological Perspectives On Life Chances Essay

According Social Inequality: Patterns and Processes by Martin Marger, life chances includes “education, physical and mental health, residence and justice;” which are opportunities that we must procure through social resources (18). Our position within society determines our life chances; for children, their parent’s positions within society determines the child’s social status within society. “Life chances are acquired, then, as a result of factors that are only partially in the control of individuals…people’s initial class position and, therefore, the dimensions of their opportunities and future prospects are essentially an “accident of birth.” Certainly, people may subsequently enhance their life chances through individual effort, but

In sociology, functionalism is one of the main theoretical perspective. The father of the sociology Emile Durkheim was the promoter of functionalism. Functionalism mainly focusing on the stability and order of the society. This gives a variety of elaboration about the society or human behaviour. All the parts of the theoretical perspectives connected and influenced each other, this all works together in maintain the society healthy. All of these parts depends one to another, if one of the parts not working properly, that will affect all the system or that all circles.

According to ‘Sociology: A Global Perspective’, by Joan Ferrante, “Sociologists draw on three broad perspectives—functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interaction.” Functionalism studies the inter-depending parts of society. The core concepts of functionalism include: stability, interdependence, and a balance between parts of society to maintain social order. Functionalism focuses on an individual sector of society and how it relates to society as a whole. For example, a person’s hand has five fingers.

In this essay I will be covering Marxist, Interactionist and Functionalist theories of society. I will be examining their strengths and weaknesses. Using the three social theories, the macro approach of Marx that is used to analyse society from a class conflict view between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the macro approach that Durkheim used when analysing social systems and populations on a large scale and who’s theory views individual’s issues as reflective of wider social patterns and the micro approach of George Mead who focused on small scale social interaction and who’s theory interprets the behaviour of individuals as significant and a way to interpret how the world is socially constructed.

The author presents a few evidence to support their argument in a way that one’s insight can be clearer of what is written. As said before socioeconomic status influences multiple disease outcomes, where it discovered that the society’s poor and less privileged people lives in the worst health and die much younger than the more privileged people. It is said that they are at more risk of death for those being at their lowest

Children born into poorest regions of UK reflect on, 200 grams fewer on birth in opposition to those children born in the wealthy families.

But it gave a moment for the social scientist to make conclusion on how small incident have large influence. It was found that people who are born during the famine are more likely to get a heart diseases. While, the belief said that the practice and the behavior in the adulthood will be affected with condition of the heart diseases. Life course perspective states that “the social context that we inhabit at different stages through our lives affect the affect our health outcomes”. Americans usually die at the very early age because of the fact such as infant mortality, murders, accidents etc. Another reason is that public health care among the people will also have result. Other such issue non-availability of the good diet or toxic free environment. The socioeconomic health contains educated people who can administer their health and understand it. The status has changed in relation to health. Those people who have higher education are less likely to be affected by the diseases and poor health care. According to the research conducted on health of educated people it was found that, when people go with higher education tend to have higher life span than those who do not have. People who are rich and can spend money on those products which can keep their health unaffected and less likely to be affected from the chronic

Life chances ties into where you specifically stand in statuses in your society. Whether or not you may have a college education, health insurance, can you get access to professional health care, and if you will live into your late 70s or 80s as a result life chances are affected by all of these factors. Their are several factors such as education, health, social conditions, and life expectancy, that play a part in how being in organzitaions at the meso level affect individual experiences, and ultimately can bring you higher in life.

As the authors suggest, “social class is the strongest and most consistent social predictor of health and longevity in the United States”(Cockerham 2014: 115). This is often the case when comparing the health outcomes of working class and middle classes, but even when analyzing the health outcomes between middle and upper classes, the differences are very dramatic. Upward or downward mobility significantly affects people life chances.

Functionalism definition - perspective in sociology according to which society consists of different but related parts, each of which serves a particular

Functionalist one of the “theories” of sociology are mainly concerned with the function of education to society and to seek solution to the following questions, “what is the relevance of education to the social system and “what are the relationship between education and economic system”.

Functionalism is a social theory that has its foundations in the birth of the discipline called sociology (Adams & Sydie, 2002 p.05). Angste Comte, considered the founder of sociology, believed that sociological matters should be explained through scientific study. Functionalism is a method of study based primary on facts, objectively measured, essentially applying the scientific method to the study of society, social actions and interactions. Functionalism is interested in the relationships between systems within society. Functionalism is a top down theory that looks for grand scale explanations to society. As a sociological theory, Functionalism sees social structure or the organization of society as more important than the individual.

The issues of health, life expectancy, and achievement between social groups are very important components of life for any individual. The World Health Organization defines health as a state of thorough and total physical, psychological, mental, intellectual, and social well-standing. Therefore, health should not be interpreted as simply the absence of illness or medical infirmity. Life expectancy refers to an arithmetic or numerical measure of the mean number of years a person is prospected to live on earth, with respect to factors such as the year of birth, the number of years already lived, sex, and other demographic determinants. Achievement, on the other hand, is defined as the level of relative success in the society after the attainment of a certain goal or objective. This is perceived by and in comparison with the other members of the society. According to Tajfel (2008, p. 15), achievement is thus measured using certain common parameters. These three components of life in the society have acute and divergent differences and are majorly responsible for the dichotomy of social life. There are some vital social factors that control these differences which include family size and structure, religious beliefs, wealth, lifestyles, education level, and population growth rate.

Life chances are how likely some ones like will turn out given certain factors. These life chances contribute to your quality of life and your chances at success. “Max Weber lists property ownership, education, health care, food, clothing and shelter, as the main factors that define an individual's life chances” (Reference.com). For example a life chance would be if you were born into poverty and a broken family. The chances of you have a high social status, and good quality life are lower.

Functionalism - The underlying assumption of functionalism is that various parts of society are interrelated and when put together form a complete whole. Functionalism compares the healthy functioning of society to the healthy functioning of the human body, if one part is sick then the whole is disadvantaged. Functionalists believe that society needs to remain the same