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The Core Concepts Of Sociology

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The core concepts of sociology are a combination of original theories with improved sociological approaches that build upon them over time. Sociology utilizes three main theories to approach the study of society with different focus points that result in different outcomes. Furthermore, as stated by Robert Faris and William Form from britannica “The early schools of thought each presented a systematic formulation of sociology that implied possession of exclusive truth and that involved a conviction of the need to destroy rival systems” (5). Understanding how the three approaches work and how they can be utilized in different social setting, or for different purposes is pertinent to successfully studying society. While all three approaches …show more content…

Their theory has a mainly macro sociological perspective and neglects to account for inequality, the affect that micro societies and person-to-person interaction have on the macro society. Subsequently, Parsons and Merton successfully improved the structural perspective to accommodate more for social change and other social phenomena. This theory has some very good benefits by emphasizing the interconnectedness of societies and how each part of the society influences and is influenced by other parts (Mooney, Knox, Schacht 2007). More recently functionalists refer to the terms functional and dysfunctional in order to describe the functional actions in society. While dysfunctional is used to describe any crimes or disruptive effects in a society, functional is, as the word states, the functional actions within a society in order to maintain social stability or “homeostasis”. Additionally, the theory has two types of functions that have been identified, these include manifest and latent functions. Merton was the sociologist to introduce the two types of function seen in society. This theory of Mertons explained how functionalism worked using two types of functions. While manifest functions are described as intended consequences that are commonly recognized, like educations purpose is to transmit knowledge and skills to youth in a society. Latent

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