TUAMKENI SASA KUMEKUCHA, MWANAMKE HANA NAFASI YA KUTUTAWALA.

Mwanamke yeyote aishie hapa duniani ni kiumbe dhaifu sana, akiliyake haipishani nay a motto mdogo. Ndiyo maana hata serikali za nchi nyingi zimeweka widhara ya wanawake na watoto kwa kumlinganisha mwanamke na watoto wadogo. Chakushangaza sasa hivi nchi zenye mbilikimo wa siasa na wenye mipango lukuki ya kupokonya hela za kodi za wananchi zimeamua kuwapa nafasi wanawake nyazifa za juu sana serikalini bila kuona kuwa ni hatari sana kwa taifa.

Kwaufupi ni kwamba, mwanmke ni kiube ambaye hafai kabisa hata kidogo kuendesha huduma za jamii, mfano mzuri ni wa Bwana YESU wakati anachagua mitume wake 12 hakuthubut kumchagua mwanamke kwa sababu aliona kuwa kutakuwepo na matatizo ya rushwa, tamaa a ngono, wivu, ufuska, ufisadi, na kadhalika. Hii inatukumbusha tu kuwa tumesahau tulikotoka hivyo tunahribu tunakokwenda.

Kitu kingine cha kuzingatia hapa ni Mateso aliyoyapata Samsoni yalitokana na usaliti wa mkewe ajulikanye kwa jina la Delila. Haiwezekani hata kidogo kumweka mwanamke mbele kusimamia chombo cha umma.

Kifo cha Rwanda Magere “the rock” kilisababishwa na mwanamke ambaye alijitoa mhanga kuolewa na huy shujaa, kasha kumdadisi siri zake zote na kuwaambia watu wa nyumbani kwao jinsi ya kuweza kumuua, na kweli walifanikiwa kumuua kwa kushambulia kivuli chake.

Dhambi ya asili tuliyoirithi kutoka kwa Adamu na Eva ilisababishwa na udhaifu wa mwanamke ambae ni HAWA (EVA) kukubali kula tunda walilokuwa wamekatazawa kulila na mwenyezi Mungu. Hicho ndicho kilimfanya Adamu awe kwenye wakati mgumu sana wa kujibu maswali toka kwa Mungu hadi akaanza kujikanyaga kwa kuukwepa ukweli na kumrushia mkewe kuwa “mke uliyenipa ndiye kaniletea hilo tunda” na ndipo tukalaaniwa na sisi ambao hatujashiliki kulila hilo tunda na hatujui linafananaje.

Je, ni wangapi wanaopoteza mwelekeo wa maisha kwa sababu ya mwanamke? Je, ni mambo mangapi yameharibika hapa duniani kwa kusababishwa na mwanamke? Ni mengi na hayana maelezo mafupi. Kwa sababu hata kuenea kwa ukimwi kunasababishwa hasa na watoto wa kike kwa kuvaa nguo zenye kuleta matamanio yaani ziko fupi sana na zenye kubana maumbile kupita kipimo.

Mwisho msomaji napenda nikuambie kuwa, ukikuta serikali yoyote imeegemea sana kuwapa nafasi za juu wanawake ujue ni serikali ya kifisadi na maamuzi yake huwa yanategemea sana mwamke nyumbani kasema nini. Ni serikali yenye viomgozi ambao ni mbilikimo wa fikra za kulipeleka Taifa pazuri. Ni serikali yenye kuingia mikataba mibovu na yenye kusimama kusimamia kesi na kuishia kushindwa huku ikihukumiwa kulipa mabilioni ya fedha. Ni serikali ya watu masikini wa akili wasioweza kufanya mambo yao wenyewe bila kuomba misaada. Serikali za aina hizi ni za nchi za Afrika.

UKAME MKALI WAJA TANZANIA KWA KIPINDI CHA MIAKA 10

WATANZANIA WAMEMWACHA MUNGU, WAMEELEKEA MIUNGU YA DUNIA HII.

Kama BWANA MUNGU wa Islael, aishivyo, ambaye ninasimama mbele zake, hakutakuwa na umande wala mvua katika Nchi hii kwa kipindi cha miaka kumi (10), ila kwa neno langu.

Bwana wa majeshi aliyezifanya mbingu na nchi kwa uweza wake mkuu na kwa mkono wake ulionyooshwa amegadhibika kwa sababu ya watu kuabudu miungu ingawa wanadai wanamjua Mungu (WAMEOKOKA) na mbaya zaidi wengine wanajiita ni watumishi wa mungu na mitume na manabii lakini kumbe ni waongo, na watu wengi wamewakimbilia watushi hao ili kutafuta mahitaji yao na si kumtafuta Mungu aliye hai. Watu wamekwenda kwa waganga wa kienyeji na wachawi kutafuta msaada badala ya kwenda kwa BWANA wa Majeshi aliyezifanya Mbingu na Nchi (wamekwenda kwa Ashuru) Hosea 5: 8-14.

Ingawa watu wanasema wanampenda BWANA, lakini ni wanafiki kabisa, ni:- Washerati, wachafu, mafisadi, waabudu sanamu, wachawi, wana uadui, wagomvi, wana wivu, wana hasira, ni watu wa fitina, ni watu wa faraka, wazushi, wanahusuda, walevi, walafi, na mambo mengi yanayofanana na hayo.

Bwana amegadhibishwa nayo, wamesikia habari za MUNGU wa kweli, lakini hawataki kumwabudu yeye. Hivyo waTanzania watashuhudia Dhiki ya Njaa kali sana ambayo haijawahi kutokea katika taifa hili. Labda katika taabu yao watatubu! Hosea 5:15.

Mungu amelijilia taifa la Tanzania kwa ghadhabu labda litatubu, na lisipotubu litaangamia.

SAMSON MLATA KUINULIWA
Mawasiliano:
+255 765 274587
+255 658 274587

SABABU 7 ZILIZOPELEKEA MAJIMBO YA NYAMAGANA & ILEMELA JIJINI MWANZA KWENDA CHADEMA KTK NGAZI YA UBUNGE NA MADIWANI.

Na: Mwandishi wetu.
Inafahamika wazi katika jimbo la Nyamagana kuwa kiongozi wa siasa hasa Mbunge kukaa madarakani zaidi ya miaka mitano ni kazi sawa na Mende kuangusha kabati au sisimizi kumeza chungwa.

Kipindi hiki matokeo yametisha sana kwa majimbo yote ya jiji la Mwanza, tumeshuhudia Magu mjini watu wakipigwa mabomu ya machozi hasa wale waliokuwa wameamua kukaa umbali wa mita 200 kusubiria hadi kieleweke, yaani kusiwepo na uchakachuzi wa kura. Vivyo hivyo mwanza mjini hasa jimbo la Nyamagana ambapo watu waliamua kuka umbali wa mita 300 na kusubiri hadi kieleweke. Chamsingi tu ifahamike wzi kuwa watu wakisema hapana na kweli huwa ni hapana, na kumwongoza binadamu ni kazi kubwa sana ambayo ni bora upewe Ng’ombe kuchunga maana utawapeleka utakako hata kwa fimbo.

Baadhi ya hisia zangu kuhusu chama cha mapiduzi (CCM) kushindwa kwa kishindo katika majimbo ya Ilemela na Nyamagana ni kama zifuatazo.

i. Watu wametapeliwa pakubwa sana na wafanya bishara ya upatu yaani DECI. Hivyo watu nadhani wamekaa na kufikiria kuwa hawa watu walikuwa na vibari kutoka seriaklini sasa je, iweje waendeshe biashara haramu namna hii bila uongozi kulitambua hilo na ukizingatia wadhili wa mambo ya ndani anaishi eneo hilihili na pia ofisi za DECI zilikuwa karibu mno na ofisi za TRA je, serikali haina vyanzo vya habari vinavyofanya kazi kwa wakati mwafaka au? tatizo liko wapi. Je, wabunge waliowapatia dhaman ya kuwasemea Bungeni walilichukuliaje hilo tatizo? Kwahiy basi kutokuonyesha mchango chanya wabunge wao kwa wananchi katika matatizo yaliyowakabili hasa DECI kumefanya wabunge hawa wamwagwe chini kuonyesha fundisho.
ii. Shirika jingine ambalo hadi sasa wanamwanza wanaliona ni la wizi ni People’s Unity for Development in Africa (PUFDIA). Wengi wametapeliwa pesan nyingi sana na mbaya zaidi walioibiwa ni wale maskini wa kutupwa, wamepewa ahadi feki, siku zimeenda hakuna matekelezo na ofisi zimefungwa hakuna hata mtu anayeonekana kuifungua hiyo ofisi. Zoezi la kukusanya pesa kutoka kwa wananchi masikini lilifanyika katikati ya jiji la Mwanza na Dar es salaam, lakini hadi sasa hakuna aliyeona mtu akinufaika na PUFDIA hivyo watu wakaamua kuinyima CCM kura katika majimbo ya Ilelema na Nyamagan.
iii. Usaliti kutoka ndani ya CCM. Inawezekana kabisa kuwa ushindi wa Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA) katika jimbo la Ilemela ukawa umesababishwa na Mbunge wa CCM jimbo la Nyamagana na pasipokujua au kwa kudhamilia kabisa mbunge wa CCM jimbo la Ilemela kukisaidia pia chama cha CHADEMA kumngo’a mbunge wa Nyamagana CCM. Haikuwa rahisi kwa mbunge wa Ilemela kuondoka madarkani kiurahisi hivi, ila tunamshukuru sana kaonyesha ukomavu wa kisiasa kwamaana alisaini mapema sana na watu hawkumwaga damu kwa kudai haki yao. Pia haijapata kutokea hapa nchini waziri wa mambo ya ndani kushindwa kwa urahisi namna hii.
iv. Machinga na mama ntilie wa jiji la mwanza wamechoshwa na wagambo kuwatimua katika maeneo yao ya kazi, awamu hii walikuwa wameamua kujiandikisha kwa wingi na kusimamia kwa asilimia zote, waliamua kuzuia njia ili yasiingie wala kutoka magari katika eneo lakujumlishia kura ili hadi kieleweke. Na kweli kilieleweka japo watu walifukuzwa sana kwa mabomu ya machozi, walichoma matairi barabarani ili hai yao ipatikane. Na mara baada ya kutangaziwa matokeo yao fujo zikatulia kabia, kumbe inapotokea njia zote za kuelekea kwenye haki zinapokuwa zimefungwa, machafuko huwa hayakwepeki. Mwanza pasingekuwa kama palivyo sasa endapo matokeo ya uchaguzi yangechakachuliwa, kwa sababu dalili zilikuwa zimeanza kuonekana mapema sana hasa kwa barabara kufungwa na raia na kuruhusu magari ya askari tu na maji ya kuwaha kupita huku wakiimba “gari letu eeh, gari letu eeh”.
v. Wananchi wamechoshwa na chama tawala, inawezekana kabisa kuwa miaka iliyopita walidanganywa kwa ahadi walizopewa hivyo wameamua kuonyesha kuwa mwaka 2010 hawadanganyiki.
vi. Aliyekuwa mgombea ubunge ambaye sasa ni Mbunge wa CHADEMA jimbo la Nyamagana Mheshimiwa WENJE kuwekewa pingamizi kuwa siyo raia wa Tanzania alijizolea umaarufu kwa watu zaidi ya mbunge wa kigoma kaskazini bwana Zitto Kabwe (CHADEMA) kipindi alifukuzwa bungeni kwa kuibua hoja nzito za ufisadi. Wananchi hasa wapiga kura wa Nyamagana waliamua kufanya mbaya dhidi ya bwana L. Masha kwa mantiki ya kuwa anatumia madaraka vibaya.
vii. Kitabu cha “Mafisadi wa Elimu” kilichoandikwa na Bwana Msemakweli kilimshushia heshima aliyekuwa mbunge wa Ilemela. Sijasema kweli yeye ni fisadi wa elimu ila naonyesha kuwa wananchi walizinduka usingizini na kuanza kufuatilia nyenendo zake kwa ukaribu zaidi.

Naomba kuishia hapa, maana hapo ndipo mwisho wa uoni wangu kuhusiana na siasa. Na mtu yeyote asije kuninukuu popote kwa sababu hizi na hisia tu “hypothesis” hazina utafiti wa kutosha. Shukrani zimwendee aliyeachia madaraka jimbo la Ilemela maana aliwahi kusaini bila bugudha yoyote ile na kwakuwa ni mjasiliamali mzuri sana basi Mwenyezi Mungu atamsaidia kukaa chini aone kakosea wapi na mara nyingine afaulu zaidi ya sasa ambapo kura hazikutosha.

Shukrani ziwaendee maaskari wote jiji la Mwanza, maana walionyesha ujasiri mkubwa sana wakati wa uchaguzi katika kuwatuliza wananchi wasifanye fujo, tena walifanikisha hilo kwa asilimia kubwa sana bila watu kumwaga damu.

Mwisho liwe fundisho kwa wote wenye nia ya kuongoza wananchi maana hata ninyi mliokamata nafasi hizo sasa hivi uchaguzi ijao mnaweza kung’atuliwa kwa ulaini sana endapo mtabolonga bungeni. Hatujawatuma mkasinzie mjengoni, tumetuma wawakilishi wenye kutoa hoja kwa mujibu wa sheria na vifungu, wenyekuvumilia vitisho kutoka vyama pinzani na kuongea vitu mlovifanyia utafiti wa kutosha huku mkikumbuka kuwa mnaongoza wananchi waliokaliwa na mataifa ya kibepari yaliyorudi tena kwa gia ya uwekezaji “full exploitation”. Piganieni kuibadili katiba ya nchi, na kutengua mikataba mibovu na kuchunguza makampuni yanayobadili majina kama CELTEL-ZAIN-AIRTEL TZ. Chunguzeni kuna ukweli wowote hapo au ni wizi mtupu, kupitia ukwepaji kodi serikalini. Mungu ibariki Tanzania.

+255 783 700083

Sociology of Education as a new branch of socioplogy

Retrived from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education on 15th,10,2010
Education in the largest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.
Etymologically, the word education is derived from educare (Latin) "bring up", which is related to educere "bring out", "bring forth what is within", "bring out potential" and ducere, "to lead".[1]
Teachers in educational institutions direct the education of students and might draw on many subjects, including reading, writing, mathematics, science and history. This process is sometimes called schooling when referring to the education of teaching only a certain subject, usually as professors at institutions of higher learning. There is also education in fields for those who want specific vocational skills, such as those required to be a pilot. In addition there is an array of education possible at the informal level, such as in museums and libraries, with the Internet and in life experience. Many non-traditional education options are now available and continue to evolve.
A right to education has been created and recognized by some jurisdictions: since 1952, Article 2 of the first Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights obliges all signatory parties to guarantee the right to education. At world level, the United Nations' International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 guarantees this right under its Article 13.
Educational theory
Education theory is the theory of the purpose, application and interpretation of education and learning. Its history begins with classical Greek educationalists and sophists and includes, since the 18th century, pedagogy and andragogy. In the 20th century, "theory" has become an umbrella term for a variety of scholarly approaches to teaching, assessment and education law, most of which are informed by various academic fields, which can be seen in the below sections.
Sociology of education from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_education
The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affect education and its outcomes. It is most concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education.[1]
Education has always been seen as a fundamentally optimistic human endeavour characterised by aspirations for progress and betterment.[2] It is understood by many to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality and acquiring wealth and social status.[3] Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and potential.[2] It is also perceived as one of the best means of achieving greater social equality.[3] Many would say that the purpose of education should be to develop every individual to their full potential and give them a chance to achieve as much in life as their natural abilities allow (meritocracy). Few would argue that any education system accomplishes this goal perfectly. Some take a particularly negative view, arguing that the education system is designed with the intention of causing the social reproduction of inequality.
History
A systematic sociology of education began with Émile Durkheim's work on moral education as a basis for organic solidarity and that by Max Weber, on the Chinese literati as an instrument of political control. It was after World War II, however, that the subject received renewed interest around the world: from technological functionalism in the US, egalitarian reform of opportunity in Europe, and human-capital theory in economics. These all implied that, with industrialization, the need for a technologically-skilled labour force undermines class distinctions and other ascriptive systems of stratification, and that education promotes social mobility. However, statistical and field research across numerous societies showed a persistent link between an individual's social class and achievement, and suggested that education could only achieve limited social mobility[1] . Sociological studies showed how schooling patterns reflected, rather than challenged, class stratification and racial and sexual discrimination[1] . After the general collapse of functionalism from the late 1960s onwards, the idea of education as an unmitigated good was even more profoundly challenged. Neo-Marxists argued that school education simply produced a docile labour-force essential to late-capitalist class relations.
The sociology of education contains a number of theories. The work of each theory is presented below.
[edit] Structural functionalism
Structural functionalists believe that society leans towards equilibrium and social order. They see society like a human body, in which institutions such as education are like important organs that keep the society/body healthy and well[4]. Social health means the same as social order, and is guaranteed when nearly everyone accepts the general moral values of their society. Hence structural functionalists believe the aim of key institutions, such as education, is to socialise children and teenagers. Socialization is the process by which the new generation learns the knowledge, attitudes and values that they will need as productive citizens. Although this aim is stated in the formal curriculum[5], it is mainly achieved through "the hidden curriculum"[6], a subtler, but nonetheless powerful, indoctrination of the norms and values of the wider society. Students learn these values because their behaviour at school is regulated [Durkheim in [3]] until they gradually internalise and accept them. Education must, however perform another function. As various jobs become vacant, they must be filled with the appropriate people. Therefore the other purpose of education is to sort and rank individuals for placement in the labour market [Munro, 1997]. Those with high achievement will be trained for the most important jobs and in reward, be given the highest incomes. Those who achieve the least, will be given the least demanding (intellectually at any rate, if not physically) jobs, and hence the least income.
According to Sennet and Cobb however, “to believe that ability alone decides who is rewarded is to be deceived”.[3] Meighan agrees, stating that large numbers of capable students from working class backgrounds fail to achieve satisfactory standards in school and therefore fail to obtain the status they deserve[7]. Jacob believes this is because the middle class cultural experiences that are provided at school may be contrary to the experiences working-class children receive at home [8]. In other words, working class children are not adequately prepared to cope at school. They are therefore “cooled out”[9] from school with the least qualifications, hence they get the least desirable jobs, and so remain working class. Sargent confirms this cycle, arguing that schooling supports continuity, which in turn supports social order.[3] Talcott Parsons believed that this process, whereby some students were identified and labelled educational failures, “was a necessary activity which one part of the social system, education, performed for the whole”[7]. Yet the structural functionalist perspective maintains that this social order, this continuity, is what most people desire[4]. The weakness of this perspective thus becomes evident. Why would the working class wish to stay working class? Such an inconsistency demonstrates that another perspective may be useful.
[edit] Education and social reproduction
The perspective of conflict theory, contrary to the structural functionalist perspective, believes that society is full of vying social groups with different aspirations, different access to life chances and gain different social rewards [10]. Relations in society, in this view, are mainly based on exploitation, oppression, domination and subordination.[3]
.[11] Many teachers assume that students will have particular middle class experiences at home, and for some children this assumption isn’t necessarily true.[8] Some children are expected to help their parents after school and carry considerable domestic responsibilities in their often single-parent home.[12] The demands of this domestic labour often make it difficult for them to find time to do all their homework and thus affects their academic performance.
Where teachers have softened the formality of regular study and integrated student’s preferred working methods into the curriculum, they noted that particular students displayed strengths they had not been aware of before.[12] However few teachers deviate from the traditional curriculum, and the curriculum conveys what constitutes knowledge as determined by the state - and those in power [Young in [3]]. This knowledge isn’t very meaningful to many of the students, who see it as pointless.[8] Wilson & Wyn state that the students realise there is little or no direct link between the subjects they are doing and their perceived future in the labour market.[12] Anti-school values displayed by these children are often derived from their consciousness of their real interests. Sargent believes that for working class students, striving to succeed and absorbing the school's middle class values, is accepting their inferior social position as much as if they were determined to fail.[3] Fitzgerald states that “irrespective of their academic ability or desire to learn, students from poor families have relatively little chance of securing success”.[13] On the other hand, for middle and especially upper-class children, maintaining their superior position in society requires little effort. The federal government subsidises ‘independent’ private schools enabling the rich to obtain ‘good education’ by paying for it.[3] With this ‘good education’, rich children perform better, achieve higher and obtain greater rewards. In this way, the continuation of privilege and wealth for the elite is made possible.
Conflict theorists believe this social reproduction continues to occur because the whole education system is overlain with ideology provided by the dominant group. In effect, they perpetuate the myth that education is available to all to provide a means of achieving wealth and status. Anyone who fails to achieve this goal, according to the myth, has only themself to blame.[3] Wright agrees, stating that “the effect of the myth is to…stop them from seeing that their personal troubles are part of major social issues”.[3] The duplicity is so successful that many parents endure appalling jobs for many years, believing that this sacrifice will enable their children to have opportunities in life that they did not have themselves.[12] These people who are poor and disadvantaged are victims of a societal confidence trick. They have been encouraged to believe that a major goal of schooling is to strengthen equality while, in reality, schools reflect society’s intention to maintain the previous unequal distribution of status and power [Fitzgerald, cited in [3]].
This perspective has been criticised as deterministic, pessimistic and allowing no room for the agency of individuals to improve their situation.
It should be recognised however that it is a model, an aspect of reality which is an important part of the picture.
[edit] Structure and agency
[edit] Bourdieu and cultural capital
This theory of social reproduction has been significantly theorised by Pierre Bourdieu. However Bourdieu as a social theorist has always been concerned with the dichotomy between the objective and subjective, or to put it another way, between structure and agency. Bourdieu has therefore built his theoretical framework around the important concepts of habitus, field and cultural capital. These concepts are based on the idea that objective structures determine individuals' chances, through the mechanism of the habitus, where individuals internalise these structures. However, the habitus is also formed by, for example, an individual's position in various fields, their family and their everyday experiences. Therefore one's class position does not determine one's life chances, although it does play an important part, alongside other factors.
Bourdieu used the idea of cultural capital to explore the differences in outcomes for students from different classes in the French educational system. He explored the tension between the conservative reproduction and the innovative production of knowledge and experience.[14] He found that this tension is intensified by considerations of which particular cultural past and present is to be conserved and reproduced in schools. Bourdieu argues that it is the culture of the dominant groups, and therefore their cultural capital, which is embodied in schools, and that this leads to social reproduction.[14]
The cultural capital of the dominant group, in the form of practices and relation to culture, is assumed by the school to be the natural and only proper type of cultural capital and is therefore legitimated. It demands “uniformly of all its students that they should have what it does not give” [Bourdieu [15]]. This legitimate cultural capital allows students who possess it to gain educational capital in the form of qualifications. Those lower-class students are therefore disadvantaged. To gain qualifications they must acquire legitimate cultural capital, by exchanging their own (usually working-class) cultural capital.[16] This exchange is not a straight forward one, due to the class ethos of the lower-class students. Class ethos is described as the particular dispositions towards, and subjective expectations of, school and culture. It is in part determined by the objective chances of that class.[17] This means that not only do children find success harder in school due to the fact that they must learn a new way of ‘being’, or relating to the world, and especially, a new way of relating to and using language, but they must also act against their instincts and expectations. The subjective expectations influenced by the objective structures found in the school, perpetuate social reproduction by encouraging less-privileged students to eliminate themselves from the system, so that fewer and fewer are to be found as one journeys through the levels of the system. The process of social reproduction is neither perfect nor complete[14], but still, only a small number of less-privileged students achieve success. For the majority of these students who do succeed at school, they have had to internalise the values of the dominant classes and use them as their own, to the detriment of their original habitus and cultural values.
Therefore Bourdieu's perspective reveals how objective structures play an important role in determining individual achievement in school, but allows for the exercise of an individual's agency to overcome these barriers, although this choice is not without its penalties.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society.[1] It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation[2] and critical analysis[3] to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Subject matter ranges from the micro level of agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and social structures.[4]
Sociology is both topically and methodologically a very broad discipline. Its traditional focuses have included social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, law, and deviance. As all spheres of human activity are sculpted by social structure and individual agency, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to further subjects, such as health, military and penal institutions, the Internet, and even the role of social activity in the development of scientific knowledge.
The range of social scientific methods has also broadly expanded. Social researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-twentieth century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches to the analysis of society. Conversely, recent decades have seen the rise of new analytically, mathematically and computationally rigorous techniques, such as agent-based modelling and social network analysis
Education
Main article: Sociology of education
The sociology of education is the study of how educational institutions determine social structures, experiences, and other outcomes. It is particularly concerned with the schooling systems of modern industrial societies.[94] A classic 1966 study in this field by James Coleman, known as the "Coleman Report", analyzed the performance of over 150,000 students and found that student background and socioeconomic status are much more important in determining educational outcomes than are measured differences in school resources (i.e. per pupil spending).[95] The controversy over "school effects" ignited by that study has continued to this day. The study also found that socially disadvantaged black students profited from schooling in racially mixed classrooms, and thus served as a catalyst for desegregation busing in American public schools.
The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affect education and its outcomes. It is most concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education.[1]
Education has always been seen as a fundamentally optimistic human endeavour characterised by aspirations for progress and betterment.[2] It is understood by many to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality and acquiring wealth and social status.[3] Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and potential.[2] It is also perceived as one of the best means of achieving greater social equality.[3] Many would say that the purpose of education should be to develop every individual to their full potential and give them a chance to achieve as much in life as their natural abilities allow (meritocracy). Few would argue that any education system accomplishes this goal perfectly. Some take a particularly negative view, arguing that the education system is designed with the intention of causing the social reproduction of inequality.

History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_education#History
A systematic sociology of education began with Émile Durkheim's work on moral education as a basis for organic solidarity and that by Max Weber, on the Chinese literati as an instrument of political control. It was after World War II, however, that the subject received renewed interest around the world: from technological functionalism in the US, egalitarian reform of opportunity in Europe, and human-capital theory in economics. These all implied that, with industrialization, the need for a technologically-skilled labour force undermines class distinctions and other ascriptive systems of stratification, and that education promotes social mobility. However, statistical and field research across numerous societies showed a persistent link between an individual's social class and achievement, and suggested that education could only achieve limited social mobility[1] . Sociological studies showed how schooling patterns reflected, rather than challenged, class stratification and racial and sexual discrimination[1] . After the general collapse of functionalism from the late 1960s onwards, the idea of education as an unmitigated good was even more profoundly challenged. Neo-Marxists argued that school education simply produced a docile labour-force essential to late-capitalist class relations.
Theoretical perspectives
The sociology of education contains a number of theories. The work of each theory is presented below.
[edit] Structural functionalism
Structural functionalists believe that society leans towards equilibrium and social order. They see society like a human body, in which institutions such as education are like important organs that keep the society/body healthy and well[4]. Social health means the same as social order, and is guaranteed when nearly everyone accepts the general moral values of their society. Hence structural functionalists believe the aim of key institutions, such as education, is to socialise children and teenagers. Socialization is the process by which the new generation learns the knowledge, attitudes and values that they will need as productive citizens. Although this aim is stated in the formal curriculum[5], it is mainly achieved through "the hidden curriculum"[6], a subtler, but nonetheless powerful, indoctrination of the norms and values of the wider society. Students learn these values because their behaviour at school is regulated [Durkheim in [3]] until they gradually internalise and accept them. Education must, however perform another function. As various jobs become vacant, they must be filled with the appropriate people. Therefore the other purpose of education is to sort and rank individuals for placement in the labour market [Munro, 1997]. Those with high achievement will be trained for the most important jobs and in reward, be given the highest incomes. Those who achieve the least, will be given the least demanding (intellectually at any rate, if not physically) jobs, and hence the least income.
According to Sennet and Cobb however, “to believe that ability alone decides who is rewarded is to be deceived”.[3] Meighan agrees, stating that large numbers of capable students from working class backgrounds fail to achieve satisfactory standards in school and therefore fail to obtain the status they deserve[7]. Jacob believes this is because the middle class cultural experiences that are provided at school may be contrary to the experiences working-class children receive at home [8]. In other words, working class children are not adequately prepared to cope at school. They are therefore “cooled out”[9] from school with the least qualifications, hence they get the least desirable jobs, and so remain working class. Sargent confirms this cycle, arguing that schooling supports continuity, which in turn supports social order.[3] Talcott Parsons believed that this process, whereby some students were identified and labelled educational failures, “was a necessary activity which one part of the social system, education, performed for the whole”[7]. Yet the structural functionalist perspective maintains that this social order, this continuity, is what most people desire[4]. The weakness of this perspective thus becomes evident. Why would the working class wish to stay working class? Such an inconsistency demonstrates that another perspective may be useful.
[edit] Education and social reproduction
The perspective of conflict theory, contrary to the structural functionalist perspective, believes that society is full of vying social groups with different aspirations, different access to life chances and gain different social rewards [10]. Relations in society, in this view, are mainly based on exploitation, oppression, domination and subordination.[3]
.[11] Many teachers assume that students will have particular middle class experiences at home, and for some children this assumption isn’t necessarily true.[8] Some children are expected to help their parents after school and carry considerable domestic responsibilities in their often single-parent home.[12] The demands of this domestic labour often make it difficult for them to find time to do all their homework and thus affects their academic performance.
Where teachers have softened the formality of regular study and integrated student’s preferred working methods into the curriculum, they noted that particular students displayed strengths they had not been aware of before.[12] However few teachers deviate from the traditional curriculum, and the curriculum conveys what constitutes knowledge as determined by the state - and those in power [Young in [3]]. This knowledge isn’t very meaningful to many of the students, who see it as pointless.[8] Wilson & Wyn state that the students realise there is little or no direct link between the subjects they are doing and their perceived future in the labour market.[12] Anti-school values displayed by these children are often derived from their consciousness of their real interests. Sargent believes that for working class students, striving to succeed and absorbing the school's middle class values, is accepting their inferior social position as much as if they were determined to fail.[3] Fitzgerald states that “irrespective of their academic ability or desire to learn, students from poor families have relatively little chance of securing success”.[13] On the other hand, for middle and especially upper-class children, maintaining their superior position in society requires little effort. The federal government subsidises ‘independent’ private schools enabling the rich to obtain ‘good education’ by paying for it.[3] With this ‘good education’, rich children perform better, achieve higher and obtain greater rewards. In this way, the continuation of privilege and wealth for the elite is made possible.
Conflict theorists believe this social reproduction continues to occur because the whole education system is overlain with ideology provided by the dominant group. In effect, they perpetuate the myth that education is available to all to provide a means of achieving wealth and status. Anyone who fails to achieve this goal, according to the myth, has only themself to blame.[3] Wright agrees, stating that “the effect of the myth is to…stop them from seeing that their personal troubles are part of major social issues”.[3] The duplicity is so successful that many parents endure appalling jobs for many years, believing that this sacrifice will enable their children to have opportunities in life that they did not have themselves.[12] These people who are poor and disadvantaged are victims of a societal confidence trick. They have been encouraged to believe that a major goal of schooling is to strengthen equality while, in reality, schools reflect society’s intention to maintain the previous unequal distribution of status and power [Fitzgerald, cited in [3]].
This perspective has been criticised as deterministic, pessimistic and allowing no room for the agency of individuals to improve their situation.
It should be recognised however that it is a model, an aspect of reality which is an important part of the picture.
[edit] Structure and agency
[edit] Bourdieu and cultural capital
This theory of social reproduction has been significantly theorised by Pierre Bourdieu. However Bourdieu as a social theorist has always been concerned with the dichotomy between the objective and subjective, or to put it another way, between structure and agency. Bourdieu has therefore built his theoretical framework around the important concepts of habitus, field and cultural capital. These concepts are based on the idea that objective structures determine individuals' chances, through the mechanism of the habitus, where individuals internalise these structures. However, the habitus is also formed by, for example, an individual's position in various fields, their family and their everyday experiences. Therefore one's class position does not determine one's life chances, although it does play an important part, alongside other factors.
Bourdieu used the idea of cultural capital to explore the differences in outcomes for students from different classes in the French educational system. He explored the tension between the conservative reproduction and the innovative production of knowledge and experience.[14] He found that this tension is intensified by considerations of which particular cultural past and present is to be conserved and reproduced in schools. Bourdieu argues that it is the culture of the dominant groups, and therefore their cultural capital, which is embodied in schools, and that this leads to social reproduction.[14]
The cultural capital of the dominant group, in the form of practices and relation to culture, is assumed by the school to be the natural and only proper type of cultural capital and is therefore legitimated. It demands “uniformly of all its students that they should have what it does not give” [Bourdieu [15]]. This legitimate cultural capital allows students who possess it to gain educational capital in the form of qualifications. Those lower-class students are therefore disadvantaged. To gain qualifications they must acquire legitimate cultural capital, by exchanging their own (usually working-class) cultural capital.[16] This exchange is not a straight forward one, due to the class ethos of the lower-class students. Class ethos is described as the particular dispositions towards, and subjective expectations of, school and culture. It is in part determined by the objective chances of that class.[17] This means that not only do children find success harder in school due to the fact that they must learn a new way of ‘being’, or relating to the world, and especially, a new way of relating to and using language, but they must also act against their instincts and expectations. The subjective expectations influenced by the objective structures found in the school, perpetuate social reproduction by encouraging less-privileged students to eliminate themselves from the system, so that fewer and fewer are to be found as one journeys through the levels of the system. The process of social reproduction is neither perfect nor complete[14], but still, only a small number of less-privileged students achieve success. For the majority of these students who do succeed at school, they have had to internalise the values of the dominant classes and use them as their own, to the detriment of their original habitus and cultural values.
Therefore Bourdieu's perspective reveals how objective structures play an important role in determining individual achievement in school, but allows for the exercise of an individual's agency to overcome these barriers, although this choice is not without its penalties.


http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/humsocsci/sociology/history
History of the Program - Sociology of Education
The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University was founded in 1890 as the School of Pedagogy. As early as 1906, the School offered courses in sociology, taught by Robert McDougal, a Ph. D from Harvard University. In 1922, E. George Payne, who was then the President of Harris State Teachers College in St. Louis, was hired to develop a program in Educational Sociology. Payne was a graduate of the University of Chicago and held a Ph. D from the University of Bonn. Within a short period Fredrick M. Thrasher, a 1926 Ph. D in sociology from the University of Chicago was hired, as was Harvey Zorbaugh, who also held a Ph. D from the graduate program at the University of Chicago’s sociology department. The first really prominent sociology department in the country, it came to be known as “The Chicago School of Sociology.” The study of emerging patterns of urban life was among its central themes, along with the development of the earliest versions of what we now call qualitative research, then widely known as participant observation. Two of the best-known books produced by students trained in this tradition were by Thrasher and Zorbaugh. Thrasher’s, The Gang: A Study of 1.313 Gangs in Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2nd ed, 1936) and Zorbaugh’s, The Gold Coast and the Slum: A Sociological Study of Chicago’s Near North Side (University of Chicago Press, 1929), exemplify this tradition.
To mark the prominence of the Educational Sociology Program, Payne and his colleagues founded The Journal of Educational Sociology in September, 1927. Dubbed a “Magazine of Theory and Practice,” the editorial statement launching the Journal announced that in contrast to psychology, which had developed tests of native capacity and achievement, sociology’s contribution to education was in its infancy and would be devoted to studying and understanding education’s relation to social life. “The sociologist is concerned with education as an instrument for effecting behavior changes in the individual and in his social relations; that is in his [sic] family, in his groups, in his play and recreation, and in his civic relationships, etc. Furthermore, the sociologist is concerned with creating community changes and community practices and methods of discovering to what extent school instruction may effect such changes” (Payne, 1927, iii-iv).
In 1936, Dan W. Dodson joined Payne, Thrasher, and Zorbaugh. Others were associated with the Program at various points, but these three all devoted their careers to NYU and the Program of Educational Sociology. Examples of the fertility of their activity include the founding of a clinic for exceptional children, a particular interest of Zorbaugh’s, who in the 1940’s recognized the educational power of television and helped produce one of the first educational television programs. The beginnings of media studies can be traced in part to the work of Thrasher and colleagues, who, in the thirties, began a series of studies of the effects of motion pictures on children. His courses on the subject were path breaking, including a course, begun in 1934, named “The Motion Picture: Its Artistic, Educational and Social Aspects.” This work is described in chapter 5 (New York Stories, section 3: Cinematic Diversions in Sociology: Frederic Thrasher in the World of Film Appreciation) of Dana Polan's Scenes of Instruction: The Beginning of U.S. Study of Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
Doctoral and Master’s degree programs in educational anthropology were begun in the 1950’s, spearheaded by Professor Ethel Alpenfels. These programs continued until the late 1970’s. An undergraduate program in social work was initiated by the Department in the late 1930’s, and moved into the School of Social Work at about the same time that the Anthropology of Education program was discontinued.
Payne went on to become the Dean of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development from 1939 to 1946. An early and strong proponent of racial justice, he was a board member of the NAACP and other national organizations and bodies, such as the League for National Unity, which combated prejudice in education and employment.
Dan W. Dodson, the son of a Texas sharecropper, was, from the moment of his arrival in New York City, active in racial justice efforts as well as a scholar on racism and desegregation. In 1944 he took leave from the University and served for four years as executive director of Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia’s Committee on Unity. This work for Mayor LaGuardia pioneered the field of Human Relations, and set the example for human rights commissions throughout the country. It was during this time that his Texas origins became important for the world of baseball. Sharing bourbon and branch water with fellow Texan and Brooklyn Dodgers’ president, Branch Rickey, Dodson worked to pave the way for Jackie Robinson’s employment as the first black man to play in the major leagues. Returning to the University, Dodson headed up the Center for Human Relations, which offered Master’s and doctoral degrees. Dodson retired in 1972, and the Center closed a few years later.
The Journal of Educational Sociology was published by faculty in the Program until May, 1963, when it was transferred to the auspices of the American Sociological Association and was renamed Sociology of Education. This name change reflects the times, recognizing that the field of sociology had come into its own to such a degree that its practitioners were increasingly doing work in reference to other sociologists and to the discipline itself, not so much in reference to the application of sociological research and theory to affairs in other realms, including education. Many writers in the field make reference to this shift. For example, Donald A. Hansen, in “The uncomfortable relation between sociology and education” (from the book edited by Hansen and Joel Gerstl, On education: Sociological perspectives, New York: Wiley, 1967),” devotes his entire his essay to this issue. Similarly, many of the essays in Sociology and Contemporary Education (edited by Charles H. Page, New York: Random House, 1967) describe the tensions between “educationists” and sociologists. Certainly, the 1960’s were a period of transformation in the sociological study of education.
For the Program in Educational Sociology at NYU, this period was also transformative. Thrasher retired in 1959, Zorbaugh in 1962, and Dodson in 1972. Payne had retired earlier as Dean, in the late 1940s. While some of the new faculty in the Program stayed for relatively short periods (for example, Patricia Sexton left in the early 1970’s to move to the Department of Sociology at NYU; S. M. Miller left to become chair of the Sociology Department at Boston University; and Marvin Bressler, Department chair from 1960-63, left to join the Sociology Department at Princeton University), others came and spent their careers in the Program.
After being the last person to be imprisoned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Lloyd Barenblatt spent almost 30 years teaching courses on complex organizations and doing research on intrinsic motivation (see his article, for example, “Intrinsic intellectuality: Its relation to social class, intelligence, and achievement,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1984. His HUAC story is chronicled in the book by Peter Irons, The Courage of Their Convictions (NY: Free Press, 1988, pp. 83-104). A student of Theodore Newcomb at the University of Michigan, Barenblatt was trained primarily as a social psychologist. He retired in the late 1990’s.
Joseph Giacquinta, a student of Neal Gross, David Armor, and Robert Herriott at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard in the 1960’s, arrived at the Program about 1967. His research interests centered on planned organizational change, and he remained active in this area until his retirement in 2001. Giacquinta is the co-author of several books, including Implementing Organizational Innovations: A Sociological Analysis of Planned Educational Change (NY: Basic Books, 1971), and, Beyond Technology’s Promise: An Examination of Children’s Computing at Home (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997). His work on the status-risk theory of receptivity to change is widely recognized as an important contribution to the literature on organizational change and innovation. His “Seduced and abandoned: Some lasting conclusions about planned change from the Cambire School study,” (International Handbook of Educational Change, edited by Hargraves, Lieberman, Fullan, and Hopkins. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1998) provides a retrospective on this work. Also see his article, “Status risk and receptivity to innovations in complex organizations: A study of the responses of four groups of educators to the proposed introduction of sex education in elementary school,” Sociology of Education, 48 (Winter, 1975): 39-58.
Floyd Hammack, the current Program Director, began his affiliation with the Program in the Fall of 1971 and has spent his career studying a diverse set of issues centering on inequality and organizations in education. He co-edited (with Kevin Dougherty) Education and Society (Harcourt, 1990). More recently, he edited The Comprehensive High School Today (Teachers College Press, 2004) and co-authored the 6th edition of Sociology of Education: A Systematic Analysis (Pearson, 2009) with Jeanne Ballantine . His papers have concerned private schools, education for nursing, high school dropout, and the development of higher education systems, among other topics.
The transformations of the late 1960’s did not just involve personnel. Around 1973, the Department joined the Social Studies Program to form the Department of Social Science Education; with the addition of the Program in Educational Administration, that unit became the Department of Organizational and Administrative Studies. The addition of Business Education and Educational Communications and Technology led to another name change, to the Department of Administration, Leadership and Technology. In each of these incarnations, the staff and Program structure of Educational Sociology remained basically unchanged.
Most recently, the Program joined in the inauguration of its current home, the Department of Humanities and the Social Sciences in the Professions. This Department was formed in 1999 to provide a home to discipline-based studies in education, several interdisciplinary programs, and the statistics and research methodology offerings for the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Several of the faculty who formed the Department were near the end of their careers, and a number have since retired, including Professor Giacquinta, which has allowed a new generation of scholars to join the Program. Professors Richard Arum and Lisa Stulberg have joined the Program; Arum holds a joint appointment with the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Professor Cynthia Miller-Idriss is joint with the Program in International Education. Professor Pedro Noguera participates when his many other responsibilities as Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education allow. Professor Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, an anthropologist, is Director of the Institute for Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings and also participates in the work of the Program.
These additions illustrate the long-term cooperative nature of our Program—we have always had one foot in the discipline of sociology and the other in the professional world of education. The interplay of these orientations has generated important contributions to our home school and profession, education, while connecting us, and our work, with the intellectual root discipline of sociology. Uncommon in American schools of education, our Program continues to evolve and to thrive.
As curricular emphases and research priorities follow faculty interests, these too will evolve as new faculty make their mark on the Program. It is clear that a new period in the Program’s history is beginning and we look forward to many more years of vital contributions in the field of education and the discipline of sociology.


Sociology of Education
As schools in the twentieth century became an increasingly core societal institution, sociologists have directed continuous, concerted effort toward understanding both their structure and their effects on individuals. Over the past century, sociologists who developed the theoretical framework for the discipline as a whole (e.g., Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman and John Meyer), also directly focused and wrote on the role of education in society. Because schools were complex institutions, sociological theorizing was multi-dimensional and multi-layered.
Sociology of education as a field developed a focus on two separate levels of analysis. At a macro-level, sociologists worked to identify how various social forces (such as politics, economics, culture, etc.) created variation in schools as organizations. At a more micro-level, researchers sought to identify how variation in school practices led to differences in individual-level student outcomes. In addition to these distinct levels of analysis, researchers further developed separate focuses on various aspects of the functioning of education in society. While some researchers focused on economic aspects of education (e.g., how economic forces shaped school practices and how schools determined individual productivity and earnings), others focused on related issues of socialization, allocation and legitimization. When approaching research in the sociology of education, these distinctions are useful to keep in mind.
[Excerpted from Richard Arum and Irenee Beattie, eds., The Structure of Schooling: Readings in the Sociology of Education, NY: McGraw Hill, 2000].

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociological_Theory
Sociologists develop theories to explain social phenomena. A theory is a proposed relationship between two or more concepts. In other words, a theory is explanation for why a phenomenon occurs. An example of a sociological theory is the work of Robert Putnam on the decline of civic engagement.[1] Putnam found that Americans involvement in civic life (e.g., community organizations, clubs, voting, religious participation, etc.) has declined over the last 40 to 60 years. While there are a number of factors that contribute to this decline (Putnam's theory is quite complex), one of the prominent factors is the increased consumption of television as a form entertainment. Putnam's theory proposes:
The more television people watch, the lower their involvement in civic life will be.
This element of Putnam's theory clearly illustrates the basic purpose of sociological theory: it proposes a relationship between two or more concepts. In this case, the concepts are civic engagement and television watching. The relationship is an inverse one - as one goes up, the other goes down. What's more, it is an explanation of one phenomenon with another: part of the reason why civic engagement has declined over the last several decades is because people are watching more television. In short, Putnam's theory clearly encapsulates the key ideas of a sociological theory.
Sociological theory is developed at multiple levels, ranging from grand theory to highly contextualized and specific micro-range theories. There are many middle-range and micro-range theories in sociology. Because such theories are dependent on context and specific to certain situations, it is beyond the scope of this text to explore each of those theories. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce some of the more well-known and most commonly used grand and middle-range theories in sociology.
[edit] Importance of Theory
In the theory proposed above, the astute reader will notice that the theory includes two components: The data, in this case the findings that civic engagement has declined and TV watching has increased, and the proposed relationship, that the increase in television viewing has contributed to the decline in civic engagement. Data alone are not particularly informative. If Putnam had not proposed a relationship between the two elements of social life, we may not have realized that television viewing does, in fact, reduce people's desire to and time for participating in civic life. In order to understand the social world around us, it is necessary to employ theory to draw the connections between seemingly disparate concepts.
Another example of sociological theorizing illustrates this point. In his now classic work, Suicide,[2] Emile Durkheim was interested in explaining a social phenomenon, suicide, and employed both data and theory to offer an explanation. By aggregating data for large groups of people in Europe, Durkheim was able to discern patterns in suicide rates and connect those patterns with another concept (or variable): religious affiliation. Durkheim found that Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than were Catholics. At this point, Durkheim's analysis was still in the data stage; he had not proposed an explanation for the different suicide rates of the two groups. It was when Durkheim introduced the ideas of anomie and social solidarity that he began to explain the difference in suicide rates. Durkheim argued that the looser social ties found in Protestant religions lead to weaker social cohesion and reduced social solidarity. The higher suicide rates were the result of weakening social bonds among Protestants.
While Durkheim's findings have since been criticized, his study is a classic example of the use of theory to explain the relationship between two concepts. Durkheim's work also illustrates the importance of theory: without theories to explain the relationship between concepts, we would not be able to understand cause and effect relationships in social life.
[edit] Prominent Sociological Theories
As noted above, there are many theories in sociology. However, there are several broad theoretical perspectives that are prominent in the field (they are arguably paradigms). These theories are prominent because they are quite good at explaining social life. They are not without their problems, but these theories remain widely used and cited precisely because they have withstood a great deal of criticism.
As the dominant theories in sociology are discussed below, you might be inclined to ask, "Which of these theories is the best?" As is often the case in sociology, just because things are different doesn't mean one is better than another. In fact, it is probably more useful and informative to view these theories as complementary. One theory may explain one element of society better than another. Or, both may be useful for explaining social life. In short, all of the theories are correct in the sense that they offer compelling explanations for social phenomena.
[edit] Structural-Functionalism
Structural-Functionalism is a sociological theory that originally attempted to explain social institutions as collective means to meet individual biological needs (originally just functionalism). Later it came to focus on the ways social institutions meet social needs (structural-functionalism).
Structural-functionalism draws its inspiration primarily from the ideas of Emile Durkheim.[3] Durkheim was concerned with the question of how societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. He sought to explain social cohesion and stability through the concept of solidarity. In more "primitive" societies it was mechanical solidarity, everyone performing similar tasks, that held society together. Durkheim proposed that such societies tend to be segmentary, being composed of equivalent parts that are held together by shared values, common symbols, or systems of exchanges. In modern, complex societies members perform very different tasks, resulting in a strong interdependence between individuals. Based on the metaphor of an organism in which many parts function together to sustain the whole, Durkheim argued that modern complex societies are held together by organic solidarity (think interdependent organs).
The central concern of structural-functionalism is a continuation of the Durkheimian task of explaining the apparent stability and internal cohesion of societies that are necessary to ensure their continued existence over time. Many functionalists argue that social institutions are functionally integrated to form a stable system and that a change in one institution will precipitate a change in other institutions. Societies are seen as coherent, bounded and fundamentally relational constructs that function like organisms, with their various parts (social institutions) working together to maintain and reproduce them. The various parts of society are assumed to work in an unconscious, quasi-automatic fashion towards the maintenance of the overall social equilibrium. All social and cultural phenomena are therefore seen as being functional in the sense of working together to achieve this state and are effectively deemed to have a life of their own. These components are then primarily analysed in terms of the function they play. In other words, to understand a component of society, one can ask the question, "What is the function of this institution?" A function, in this sense, is the contribution made by a phenomenon to a larger system of which the phenomenon is a part.[4]
Thus, one can ask of education, "What is the function of education for society?" The answer is actually quite complex and requires a detailed analysis of the history of education (see, for instance, this article on the history of education), but one obvious answer is that education prepares individuals to enter the workforce.[5][6] By delineating the functions of elements of society, of the social structure, we can better understand social life.
Durkheim's strongly sociological perspective of society was continued by Radcliffe-Brown.[7] Following Auguste Comte, Radcliffe-Brown believed that the social constituted a separate level of reality distinct from both the biological and the inorganic (here non-living). Explanations of social phenomena therefore had to be constructed within this social level, with individuals merely being transient occupants of comparatively stable social roles. Thus, in structural-functionalist thought, individuals are not significant in and of themselves but only in terms of their social status: their position in patterns of social relations. The social structure is therefore a network of statuses connected by associated roles.[8]
Structural-functionalism was the dominant perspective of sociology between World War II and the Vietnam War.
[edit] Limitations
Structural-functionalism has been criticized for being unable to account for social change because it focuses so intently on social order and equilibrium in society. For instance, in the late 19th Century, higher education transitioned from a training center for clergy and the elite to a center for the conduct of science and the general education of the masses.[5][6] In other words, education did not always serve the function of preparing individuals for the labor force (with the exception of the ministry and the elite). As structural-functionalism thinks about elements of social life in relation to their present function and not their past functions, structural-functionalism has a difficult time explaining why a function of some element of society might change or how such change occurs. However, structural-functionalism could, in fact, offer an explanation in this case. Also occurring in the 19th Century (though begun in the 18th) was the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution, facilitated by capitalism, was increasingly demanding technological advances to increase profit. Technological advances and advanced industry both required more educated workforces. Thus, as one aspect of society changed - the economy and production - it required a comparable change in the educational system, bringing social life back into equilibrium.
Another philosophical problem with the structural-functional approach is the ontological argument that society does not have needs as a human being does; and even if society does have needs they need not be met. The idea that society has needs like humans do is not a tenable position because society is only alive in the sense that it is made up of living individuals. Thus, society cannot have wants and/or needs like humans do. What's more, just because a society has some element in it at the present that does not mean that it must necessarily have that element. For instance, in the United Kingdom, religious service attendance has declined precipitously over the last 100 years. Today, less than 1 in 10 British attend religious service in a given week.[9] Thus, while one might argue that religion has certain functions in British society, it is becoming apparent that it is not necessary for British society to function.
Another criticism often leveled at structural-functionalist theory is that it supports the status quo. According to some opponents, structural-functionalism paints conflict and challenge to the status quo as harmful to society, and therefore tends to be the prominent view among conservative thinkers.
[edit] Manifest and Latent Functions
Merton (1957) proposed a distinction between manifest and latent functions.[10] Manifest functions are the intended functions of a phenomenon in a social system. Latent functions are the unintended functions of a phenomenon in a social system. An example of manifest and latent functions is education. The manifest purpose of public education is to increase the knowledge and abilities of the citizenry to prepare them to contribute in the workforce. A latent function of the public education system is the development of a hierarchy of the learned. The most learned are often also the most affluent. Thus, while education's manifest function is to empower all individuals to contribute to the workforce and society, it also limits some people by creating boundaries of entry into occupations.
[edit] Conflict Theory
A prominent sociological theory that is often contrasted with structural-functionalism is conflict theory. Conflict theory argues that society is not best understood as a complex system striving for equilibrium but rather as a competition. Society is made up of individuals competing for limited resources (e.g., money, leisure, sexual partners, etc.). Broader social structures and organizations (e.g., religions, government, etc.) reflect the competition for resources in their inherent inequalities; some people and organizations have more resources (i.e., power and influence) and use those resources to maintain their positions of power in society.
Conflict theory was developed in part to illustrate the limitations of structural-functionalism. The structural-functionalist approach argued that society tends toward equilibrium, focusing on stability at the expense of social change. This is contrasted with the conflict approach, which argues that society is constantly in conflict over resources. One of the primary contributions conflict theory presents over the structural-functional approach is that it is ideally suited for explaining social change, a significant problem in the structural-functional approach.

The following are three primary assumptions of modern conflict theory:
• Competition over scarce resources is at the heart of all social relationships. Competition rather than consensus is characteristic of human relationships.
• Inequalities in power and reward are built into all social structures. Individuals and groups that benefit from any particular structure strive to see it maintained.
• Change occurs as a result of conflict between competing interests rather than through adaptation. Change is often abrupt and revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
A heuristic device to help you think about society from a conflict perspective is to ask, "Who benefits from this element of society?" Using the same example as we did above, we can ask, "Who benefits from the current higher educational system in the U.S.?" The answer, of course, is the wealthy. Why? Because higher education in the U.S. is not free. Thus, the educational system often screens out poorer individuals not because they are unable to compete academically but because they cannot afford to pay for their education. Because the poor are unable to obtain higher education, this means they are also generally unable to get higher paying jobs which means they remain poor. This can easily translate into a vicious cycle of poverty. Thus, while the function of education is to educate the workforce, it also has built into it an element of conflict and inequality, favoring one group (the wealthy) over other groups (the poor). Thinking about education this way helps illustrate why both structural-functionalist and conflict theories are helpful in understanding how society works.
Conflict theory was elaborated in the United Kingdom by Max Gluckman and John Rex, in the United States by Lewis A. Coser and Randall Collins, and in Germany by Ralf Dahrendorf, all of whom were influenced by Karl Marx, Ludwig Gumplovicz, Vilfredo Pareto, Georg Simmel, and other founding fathers of European sociology.
[edit] Limitations
Not surprisingly, the primary limitation of the social-conflict perspective is that it overlooks the stability of societies. While societies are in a constant state of change, much of the change is minor. Many of the broader elements of societies remain remarkably stable over time, indicating the structural-functional perspective has a great deal of merit.
As noted above, sociological theory is often complementary. This is particularly true of structural-functionalism and social-conflict theories. Structural-functionalism focuses on equilibrium and solidarity; conflict-theory focuses on change and conflict. Keep in mind that neither is better than the other; when combined, the two approaches offer a broader and more comprehensive view of society.
[edit] Symbolic Interactionism
In contrast to the rather broad approach toward society of structural-functionalism and conflict theory, Symbolic Interactionism is a theoretical approach to understanding the relationship between humans and society. The basic notion of symbolic interactionism is that human action and interaction are understandable only through the exchange of meaningful communication or symbols. In this approach, humans are portrayed as acting as opposed to being acted upon.[11]
The main principles of symbolic interactionism are:[12]
1. human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them
2. these meanings arise of out of social interaction
3. social action results from a fitting together of individual lines of action
This approach stands in contrast to the strict behaviorism of psychological theories prevalent at the time it was first formulated (in the 1920s and 1930s). According to Symbolic Interactionism, humans are distinct from infrahumans (lower animals) because infrahumans simply respond to their environment (i.e., a stimulus evokes a response or stimulus -> response) whereas humans have the ability to interrupt that process (i.e., stimulus -> cognition -> response). Additionally, infrahumans are unable to conceive of alternative responses to gestures. Humans, however, can. This understanding should not be taken to indicate that humans never behave in a strict stimulus -> response fashion, but rather that humans have the capability of not responding in that fashion (and do so much of the time).


This drawing illustrates the idea of the "looking-glass self" by illustrating that we can internalize how other people view us and then reflect upon those external appraisals without having to actually converse with others.
This perspective is also rooted in phenomenological thought (see social constructionism and phenomenology). According to symbolic interactionism, the objective world has no reality for humans, only subjectively-defined objects have meaning. Meanings are not entities that are bestowed on humans and learned by habituation. Instead, meanings can be altered through the creative capabilities of humans, and individuals may influence the many meanings that form their society.[11] Human society, therefore, is a social product.
Neurological evidence based on EEGs supports the idea that humans have a "social brain," that is, there are components of the human brain that govern social interaction.[13] These parts of the brain begin developing in early childhood (the preschool years) and aid humans in understanding how other people think.[13] In symbolic interactionism, this is known as "reflected appraisals" or "the looking glass self" and refers to our ability to think about how other people will think about us. A good example of this is when people try on clothes before going out with friends. Some people may not think much about how others will think about their clothing choices, but others can spend quite a bit of time considering what they are going to wear. And while they are deciding, the dialogue that is taking place inside their mind is usually a dialogue between their "self" (that portion of their identity that calls itself "I") and that person's internalized understanding of their friends and society (a "generalized other"). An indicator of mature socialization is when an individual quite accurately predicts how other people think about him/her. Such an individual has incorporated the "social" into the "self."
It should also be noted that symbolic interactionists advocate a particular methodology. Because they see meaning as the fundamental component of human and society interaction, studying human and society interaction requires getting at that meaning. Thus, symbolic interactionists tend to employ more qualitative rather than quantitative methods in their research.
[edit] Limitations
The most significant limitation of the symbolic-interactionist perspective relates to its primary contribution: it overlooks macro social structures (e.g., norms, culture) as a result of focusing on micro-level interactions. Some symbolic interactionists, however, would counter that if role theory (see below) is incorporated into symbolic interactionism - which is now commonplace - this criticism is addressed.
[edit] Role Theory
Another more micro-oriented approach to understanding social life that also incorporates the more structural elements of society is Role Theory.[14] Role theory posits that human behavior is guided by expectations held both by the individual and by other people. The expectations correspond to different roles individuals perform or enact in their daily lives, such as secretary, father, or friend. For instance, most people hold pre-conceived notions of the role expectations of a secretary, which might include: answering phones, making and managing appointments, filing paperwork, and typing memos. These role expectations would not be expected of a professional soccer player.
Individuals generally have and manage many roles. Roles consist of a set of rules or norms that function as plans or blueprints to guide behavior. Roles specify what goals should be pursued, what tasks must be accomplished, and what performances are required in a given scenario or situation. Role theory holds that a substantial proportion of observable, day-to-day social behavior is simply persons carrying out their roles, much as actors carry out their roles on the stage or ballplayers theirs on the field. Role theory is, in fact, predictive. It implies that if we have information about the role expectations for a specified status (e.g., sister, fireman, prostitute), a significant portion of the behavior of the persons occupying that position can be predicted.
What's more, role theory also argues that in order to change behavior it is necessary to change roles; roles correspond to behaviors and vice versa. In addition to heavily influencing behavior, roles influence beliefs and attitudes; individuals will change their beliefs and attitudes to correspond with their roles. For instance, someone over-looked for a promotion to a managerial position in a company may change their beliefs about the benefits of management by convincing him/herself that they didn't want the additional responsibility that would have accompanied the position.
Many role theorists see Role Theory as one of the most compelling theories bridging individual behavior and social structure. Roles, which are in part dictated by social structure and in part by social interactions, guide the behavior of the individual. The individual, in turn, influences the norms, expectations, and behaviors associated with roles. The understanding is reciprocal.
Role Theory includes the following propositions:
1. people spend much of their lives participating as members of groups and organizations
2. within these groups, people occupy distinct positions
3. each of these positions entails a role, which is a set of functions performed by the person for the group
4. groups often formalize role expectations as norms or even codified rules, which include what rewards will result when roles are successfully performed and what punishments will result when roles are not successfully performed
5. individuals usually carry out their roles and perform in accordance with prevailing norms; in other words, role theory assumes that people are primarily conformists who try to live up to the norms that accompany their roles
6. group members check each individual's performance to determine whether it conforms with the norms; the anticipation that others will apply sanctions ensures role performance
[edit] Limitations
Role theory has a hard time explaining social deviance when it does not correspond to a pre-specified role. For instance, the behavior of someone who adopts the role of bank robber can be predicted - she will rob banks. But if a bank teller simply begins handing out cash to random people, role theory would be unable to explain why (though role conflict could be one possible answer; the secretary may also be a Marxist-Communist who believes the means of production should belong to the masses and not the bourgeoisie).
Another limitation of role theory is that it does not and cannot explain how role expectations came to be what they are. Role theory has no explanation for why it is expected of male soldiers to cut their hair short, but it could predict with a high degree of accuracy that if someone is a male soldier they will have short hair. Additionally, role theory does not explain when and how role expectations change.
[edit] Impression Management
An extension of role theory, impression management is both a theory and process. The theory argues that people are constantly engaged in controlling how others perceive them. The process refers to the goal-directed conscious or unconscious effort to influence the perceptions other people by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. If a person tries to influence the perception of her or his own image, this activity is called self-presentation.
Erving Goffman (1959), the person most often credited with formally developing impression management theory, cast the idea in a dramaturgical framework.[15][16] The basic idea is that individuals in face-to-face situations are like actors on a stage performing roles (see role theory above). Aware of how they are being perceived by their audience, actors manage their behavior so as to create specific impressions in the minds of the audience. Strategic interpersonal behavior to shape or influence impressions formed by an audience is not a new idea. Plato spoke of the "great stage of human life" and Shakespeare noted that "All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players".
[edit] Social Constructionism
Social constructionism is a school of thought introduced into sociology by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann with their 1966 book The Social Construction of Reality.[17] Social constructionism aims to discover the ways that individuals and groups create their perceived reality. Social constructionism focuses on the description of institutions and actions and not on analyzing cause and effect. Socially constructed reality is seen as an on-going dynamic process; reality is re-produced by people acting on their interpretations of what they perceive to be the world external to them. Berger and Luckmann argue that social construction describes both subjective and objective reality - that is that no reality exists outside what is produced and reproduced in social interactions.
A clear example of social constructionist thought is, following Sigmund Freud[18] and Émile Durkheim,[19] religion. Religion is seen as a socially constructed concept, the basis for which is rooted in either our psyche (Freud) or man's need to see some purpose in life or worship a higher presence. One of the key theorists of social constructionism, Peter Berger, explored this concept extensively in his book, The Sacred Canopy.[20]
Social constructionism is often seen as a source of the postmodern movement, and has been influential in the field of cultural studies.
[edit] Integration Theory
Recently, some sociologists have been taking a different approach to sociological theory by employing an integrationist approach - combining micro- and macro-level theories to provide a comprehensive understanding of human social behavior. Numerous models could be presented in this vein. George Ritzer's[21] Integration Model is a good example.
Ritzer proposes four highly interdependent elements in his sociological model: a macro-objective component (e.g., society, law, bureaucracy), a micro-objective component (e.g., patterns of behavior and human interaction), a macro-subjective component (e.g., culture, norms, and values), and a micro-subjective component (e.g., perceptions, beliefs). This model is of particular use in understanding society because it uses two axes: one ranging from objective (society) to subjective (culture and cultural interpretation); the other ranging from the macro-level (norms) to the micro-level (individual level beliefs).

The integration approach is particularly useful for explaining social phenomenon because it shows how the different components of social life work together to influence society and behavior.
If used for understanding a specific cultural phenomenon, like the displaying of abstract art in one's home,[22] the integration model depicts the different influences on the decision. For instance, the model depicts that cultural norms can influence individual behavior. The model also shows that individual level values, beliefs, and behaviors influence macro-level culture. This is, in fact, part of what David Halle finds: while there are art consumption differences based on class, they are not predicted solely by class. Displayers of abstract art tend not only to belong to the upper-class, but also are employed in art-production occupations. This would indicate that there are multiple levels of influence involved in art tastes – both broad cultural norms and smaller level occupational norms in addition to personal preferences.
[edit] References
1. ↑ Putnam, Robert D. 2001. Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community. 1st ed. Simon & Schuster.
2. ↑ Durkheim, Emile. 1997. Suicide. Free Press.
3. ↑ Durkheim, Emile, and Lewis A. Coser. 1997. The Division of Labor in Society. Free Press.
4. ↑ Hoult, Thomas Ford (1969). Dictionary of Modern Sociology. p. 139.
5. ↑ a b Marsden, George M. 1996. The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief. Oxford University Press, USA.
6. ↑ a b Smith, Christian. 2003. The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life. 1st ed. University of California Press.
7. ↑ Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1965. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. illustrated edition. Free Press.
8. ↑ Layton, R. 1997. An Introduction to Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 37-38. ISBN 0521629829
9. ↑ Bruce, Steve. 2002. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Wiley-Blackwell.
10. ↑ Merton, Robert (1957). Social Theory and Social Structure, revised and enlarged. London: The Free Press of Glencoe.
11. ↑ a b Herman, Nancy J. and Reynolds, Larry T. 1994. Symbolic Interaction: An Introduction to Social Psychology. Altamira Press. ISBN 1882289226
12. ↑ Blumer, H. 1986. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. University of California Press. ISBN 0520056760
13. ↑ a b Sabbagh, Mark A., Lindsay C. Bowman, Lyndsay E. Evraire, and Jennie M. B. Ito. 2009. “Neurodevelopmental Correlates of Theory of Mind in Preschool Children.” Child Development 80:1147-1162.
14. ↑ Ebaugh, Helen Rose Fuchs. 1988. Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit. 1st ed. University Of Chicago Press.
15. ↑ Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Books. ISBN 0385094027
16. ↑ Goffman, Erving. 1961. Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. MacMillan Publishing Co. ISBN 0023445602
17. ↑ Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. First Thus. Anchor.
18. ↑ Freud, Sigmund. 2009. The Future of An Illusion. CreateSpace.
19. ↑ Durkheim, Emile. 2008. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. abridged edition. Oxford University Press, USA.
20. ↑ Berger, Peter L. 1990. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Anchor.
21. ↑ Ritzer, George, and Douglas J. Goodman. 2003. Sociological Theory. 6th ed. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. P. 357.
22. ↑ Halle, David. 1996. Inside Culture: Art and Class in the American Home. University Of Chicago Press.

Conflict theory
Conflict theories are perspectives in social science which emphasize the social, political or material inequality of a social group, which critique the broad socio-political system, or which otherwise detract from structural functionalism and ideological conservativism. Conflict theories draw attention to power differentials, such as class conflict, and generally contrast historically dominant ideologies.
Certain conflict theories set out to highlight the ideological aspects inherent in traditional thought. Whilst many of these perspectives hold parallels, conflict theory does not refer to a unified school of thought, and should not be confused with, for instance, peace and conflict studies, or any other specific theory of social conflict.

In classical sociology
Main articles: Structural functionalism and Marxism
A common analogy for structural functionalist thought, popularized by Herbert Spencer, is to regard norms, values and institutions as 'organs' that work toward the proper-functioning of the entire 'body' of society.[1] The perspective was implicit in the original sociological positivism of Auguste Comte, but was theorized in full by Émile Durkheim, again with respect to observable, structural laws. Functionalism concerns "the effort to impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable, cohesive system",[2] and to this extent holds allegiance with particular styles of political reasoning. For Durkheim, it was of fundamental importance not to disturb the social organism and to acknowledge our collective consciousness:
To aim for a civilization beyond that made possible by the nexus of the surrounding environment will result in unloosing sickness into the very society we live in. Collective activity cannot be encouraged beyond the point set by the condition of the social organism without undermining health.
– Émile Durkheim The Division of Labor in Society 1883, [3]
The chief form of social conflict that Durkheim addressed was crime. Durkheim saw crime as "a factor in public health, an integral part of all healthy societies."[4] The collective conscience defines certain acts as "criminal." Crime thus plays a role in the evolution of morality and law: "[it] implies not only that the way remains open to necessary changes but that in certain cases it directly prepares these changes."[5]
Of the classical founders of social science, conflict theory is most commonly associated with Karl Marx. Based on a dialectical materialist account history, Marxism posited that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, would inevitably produce internal tensions leading to its own destruction.[6]. Marx ushered in radical change, advocating proletarian revolution and freedom from the ruling classes. It may be noted that Marxism is no less "structural" (or "top-down") in its approach, even if its methodology differs; its major point of difference with Durkheimian functionalism is broadly political.
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
– Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto 1848, [7]
Weber's approach to conflict is contrasted with that of Marx. While Marx focussed on the way individual behavior is conditioned by social structure, Weber emphasized the importance of "social action," i.e., the ability of individuals to affect their social relationships.[8]
[edit] Modern approaches
C. Wright Mills has been called the founder of modern conflict theory.[9] In Mill's view, social structures are created through conflict between people with differing interests and resources. Individuals and resources, in turn, are influenced by these structures and by the "unequal distribution of power and resources in the society."[9] The power elite of American society, (i.e., the military-industrial complex) had "emerged from the fusion of the corporate elite, the Pentagon, and the executive branch of government." Mills argued that the interests of this elite were opposed to those of the people. He theorized that the policies of the power elite would result in "increased escalation of conflict, production of weapons of mass destruction, and possibly the annihilation of the human race."[9]
[edit] Types of conflict theory
Conflict theory is most commonly associated with Marxism, but as a reaction to functionalism and the positivist method may also be associated with number of other perspectives, including:
• Critical theory
• Feminist theory
• Postmodern theory
• Post-structural theory
• Postcolonial theory
• Queer theory
• World systems theory
[edit] See also
• Game theory
• Phronetic social science
• Social defeat
• Social-conflict theory
• Sociology of peace, war, and social conflict
• Structural functionalism
[edit] References
1. ^ Urry, John (2000). "Metaphors". Sociology beyond societies: mobilities for the twenty-first century. Routledge. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-415-19089-3. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ogyDBobOHVEC&pg=PA23.
2. ^ Bourricaud, F. 'The Sociology of Talcott Parsons' Chicago University Press. ISBN 0-226-06756-4. p. 94
3. ^ Durkheim, Émile The Division of Labor in Society [1893] LA Coser: New York: The Free Press, 1984
4. ^ Durkheim, E. (1938). The Rules of Sociological Method. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 67.
5. ^ Durkheim, (1938), pp. 70–81.
6. ^ Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-158591-6.
7. ^ Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, introduction by Martin Malia (New York: Penguin group, 1998), pg. 35 ISBN 0-451-52710-0
8. ^ Livesay, C. Social Inequality: Theories: Weber. Sociology Central. A-Level Sociology Teaching Notes. Retrieved on: 2010-06-20.
9. ^ a b c Knapp, P. (1994). One World – Many Worlds: Contemporary Sociological Theory (2nd Ed.). Harpercollins College Div, pp. 228–246. Online summary Isbn 978-0-06-501218-7
• Stark, Rodney (2007). Sociology (10th ed.). thomas wadsworth. ISBN 0-495-09344-0.
• Lenski, Gerhard E. (1966). Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratificaion. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-037165-2.
• Collins, Randall (1994). Four Sociological Traditions: Selected Readings. Oxford University Press.. ISBN 0-19-508702-X.
• Thio, Alex (2008). Sociology: A Brief Introduction (7th ed.). Pearson. ISBN 0-205-40785-4.
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism. This has led to the very literal use of 'critical theory' as an umbrella term to describe theoretical critique.
Critical theory, in the sociological context, refers to a style of Marxist theory with a tendency to engage with non-Marxist influences (for instance the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud).[1] This tendency has been referred to pejoratively by stricter Marxists as 'revisionism'. Modern critical theory arose from a trajectory extending from the nonpositivist sociology of Max Weber and Georg Simmel, the neo-Marxist theory of Georg Lukács and Antonio Gramsci, toward the milieu associated with Frankfurt Institute of Social Research.
It is with the so-called '"Frankfurt School" of theorists that the term is most commonly associated: Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Jürgen Habermas. With the latter, critical theory shed further its roots in German idealism and moved closer to American pragmatism. The theoretical concern for a cultural "superstructure" derived from a material "base" often stands as the only central Marxist tenet remaining in contemporary critical theory.[2]
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's social roles and lived experience, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, psychoanalysis, economics, literary criticism, and philosophy.[1] While generally providing a critique of social relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on analyzing gender inequality and the promotion of women's rights, interests, and issues. Themes explored in feminism include art history[2] and contemporary art,[3][4] aesthetics,[5][6] discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy.[7][8][9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_theory
Structural functionalism, or in many contexts simply functionalism, is a broad perspective in sociology and anthropology which sets out to interpret society as a structure with interrelated parts. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions and institutions. A common analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer, presents these parts of society as "organs" that work toward the proper functioning of the "body" as a whole.[1] In the most basic terms, it simply emphasises "the effort to impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable, cohesive system."[2] For Talcott Parsons, "functionalism" came to describe a particular stage in the methodological development of social science, rather than a specific school of thought.[3]
Theory
The functionalist approach was implicit in the thought of the original sociological positivist, Auguste Comte, who stressed the need for cohesion after the social malaise of the French Revolution. It was later presented in the work of Émile Durkheim, who developed a full theory of organic solidarity, again informed by positivism, or the quest for "social facts". Functionalism shares a history and theoretical affinity with the empirical method. Latter sociological functionalists such as Niklas Luhmann and Talcott Parsons, however, can be viewed as at least partially antipositivist.[2] Whilst one may regard functionalism as a logical extension of the organic analogies for society presented by political philosophers such as Rousseau, sociology draws firmer attention to those institutions unique to industrialised capitalist society (or modernity). Functionalism also has an anthropological basis in the work of theorists such as Marcel Mauss, Bronisław Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown. It is in Radcliffe-Brown's specific usage that the prefix 'structural' emerged.[4]
Classical functionalist theories are defined by a tendency towards biological analogy and notions of social evolutionism:
Durkheim proposed that most stateless, "primitive" societies, lacking strong centralised institutions, are based on an association of corporate-descent groups. Structural functionalism also took on Malinowski's argument that the basic building block of society is the nuclear family, and that the clan is an outgrowth, not vice versa. Durkheim was concerned with the question of how certain societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. He proposed that such societies tend to be segmented, with equivalent parts held together by shared values, common symbols or, as his nephew Marcel Mauss held, systems of exchanges. In modern, complicated societies, members perform very different tasks, resulting in a strong interdependence. Based on the metaphor above of an organism in which many parts function together to sustain the whole, Durkheim argued that complicated societies are held together by organic solidarity.
These views were upheld by Radcliffe-Brown, who, following Comte, believed that society constitutes a separate "level" of reality, distinct from both biological and inorganic matter. Explanations of social phenomena had therefore to be constructed within this level, individuals being merely transient occupants of comparatively stable social roles. The central concern of structural functionalism is a continuation of the Durkheimian task of explaining the apparent stability and internal cohesion needed by societies to endure over time. Societies are seen as coherent, bounded and fundamentally relational constructs that function like organisms, with their various parts (or social institutions) working together in an unconscious, quasi-automatic fashion toward achieving an overall social equilibrium. All social and cultural phenomena are therefore seen as functional in the sense of working together, and are effectively deemed to have "lives" of their own. They are primarily analyzed in terms of this function. The individual is significant not in and of himself but rather in terms of his status, his position in patterns of social relations, and the behaviours associated with his status. The social structure, then, is the network of statuses connected by associated roles.
It is simplistic to equate the perspective directly with political conservativism.[6] The tendency to emphasise "cohesive systems", however, leads functionalist theories to be contrasted with "conflict theories" which instead emphasise social problems and inequalities.
[edit] Decline of functionalism
Structural functionalism reached its crescendo in the 1940s and 1950s, and by the 1960s was in rapid decline.[7] By 1980s, its place was taken in Europe by more conflict-oriented approaches[8], and more recently by 'structuralism'.[9] While some of the critical approaches also gained popularity in the United States, the mainstream of the discipline has instead shifted to a miriad of empirically-oriented middle-range theories with no overarching theoretical orientation. To most sociologists, functionalism is now "as dead as a dodo".[10]
As the influence of both functionalism and Marxism in the 1960s began to wane, the linguistic and cultural turns led to myriad new movements in the social sciences: "According to Giddens, the orthodox consensus terminated in the late 1960s and 1970s as the middle ground shared by otherwise competing perspectives gave way and was replaced by a baffling variety of competing perspectives. This third 'generation' of social theory includes phenomenologically inspired approaches, critical theory, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, structuralism, post-structuralism, and theories written in the tradition of hermeneutics and ordinary language philosophy."[11]
While absent from empirical sociology, functionalist themes remained detectable in sociological theory, most notably in the works of Luhmann and Giddens. There are, however, signs of an incipient revival, as functionalist claims have recently been bolstered by developments in multilevel selection theory and in empirical research on how groups solve social dilemmas. Recent developments in evolutionary theory—especially by biologist David Sloan Wilson and anthropologists Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson—have provided strong support for structural functionalism in the form of multilevel selection theory. In this theory, culture and social structure are seen as a Darwinian (biological or cultural) adaptation at the group level.
[edit] Prominent Theorists
[edit] Herbert Spencer


Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer, a British philosopher famous for applying the theory of natural selection to society, was in many ways the first true sociological functionalist;[12] in fact, while Durkheim is widely considered the most important functionalist among positivist theorists, it is well known that much of his analysis was culled from reading Spencer's work, especially his Principles of Sociology (1874-96).
While most avoid the tedious task of reading Spencer's massive volumes (filled as they are with long passages explicating the organic analogy, with reference to cells, simple organisms, animals, humans and society), there are some important insights that have quietly influenced many contemporary theorists, including Talcott Parsons, in his early work "The Structure of Social Action" (1937), Cultural anthropology, too, uses functionalism consistently.
This evolutionary model, unlike most Nineteenth-Century evolutionary theories, is cyclical, beginning with the differentiation and increasing complication of an organic or "super-organic" (Spencer's term for a social system) body, followed by a fluctuating state of equilibrium and disequilibrium (or a state of adjustment and adaptation), and, finally, a stage of disintegration or dissolution. Following Thomas Malthus' population principles, Spencer concluded that society is constantly facing selection pressures (internal and external) that force it to adapt its internal structure through differentiation.
Every solution, however, causes a new set of selection pressures that threaten society's viability. It should be noted that Spencer was not a determinist in the sense that he never said that
1. selection pressures will be felt in time to change them;
2. they will be felt and reacted to; or
3. the solutions will always work.
In fact, he was in many ways a political sociologist,[13] and recognised that the degree of centralised and consolidated authority in a given polity could make or break its ability to adapt. In other words, he saw a general trend towards the centralisation of power as leading to stagnation and, ultimately, pressure to decentralise.
More specifically, Spencer recognised three functional needs or prerequisites that produce selection pressures: they are regulatory, operative (production) and distributive. He argued that all societies need to solve problems of control and coordination, production of goods, services and ideas, and, finally, to find ways of distributing these resources.
Initially, in tribal societies, these three needs are inseparable, and the kinship system is the dominant structure that satisfies them. As many scholars have noted, all institutions are subsumed under kinship organisation,[14] but, with increasing population (both in terms of sheer numbers and density), problems emerge with regards to feeding individuals, creating new forms of organisation — consider the emergent division of labour —, coordinating and controlling various differentiated social units, and developing systems of resource distribution.
The solution, as Spencer sees it, is to differentiate structures to fulfil more specialised functions; thus a chief or "big man" emerges, soon followed by a group of lieutenants, and later kings and administrators.
Perhaps Spencer's greatest obstacle to being widely discussed in modern sociology is the fact that much of his social philosophy is rooted in the social and historical context of Ancient Eqyptian times. He coined the term "survival of the fittest" in discussing the simple fact that small tribes or societies tend to be defeated or conquered by larger ones. Of course, many sociologists still use him (knowingly or otherwise) in their analyses, as is especially the case in the recent re-emergence of evolutionary theory.
[edit] Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons was heavily influenced by Durkheim and Max Weber, synthesising much of their work into his action theory, which he based on the system-theoretical concept and the methodological principle of voluntary action. He held that "the social system is made up of the actions of individuals."[15] His starting point, accordingly, is the interaction between two individuals faced with a variety of choices about how they might act,[16] choices that are influenced and constrained by a number of physical and social factors.[17]
Parsons determined that each individual has expectations of the other's action and reaction to his own behavior, and that these expectations would (if successful) be "derived" from the accepted norms and values of the society they inhabit.[16] As Parsons himself emphasised, however, in a general context there would never exist any perfect "fit" between behaviours and norms, so such a relation is never complete or "perfect."
Social norms were always problematic for Parsons, who never claimed (as has often been alleged) that social norms were generally accepted and agreed upon, should this prevent some kind of universal law. Whether social norms were accepted or not was for Parsons simply a historical question.
As behaviors are repeated in more interactions, and these expectations are entrenched or institutionalised, a role is created. Parsons defines a "role" as the normatively-regulated participation "of a person in a concrete process of social interaction with specific, concrete role-partners."[18] Although any individual, theoretically, can fulfil any role, the individual is expected to conform to the norms governing the nature of the role they fulfil.[19]
Furthermore, one person can and does fulfil many different roles at the same time. In one sense, an individual can be seen to be a "composition"[15] of the roles he inhabits. Certainly, today, when asked to describe themselves, most people would answer with reference to their societal roles.
Parsons later developed the idea of roles into collectivities of roles that complement each other in fulfilling functions for society.[16] Some roles are bound up in institutions and social structures (economic, educational, legal and even gender-based). These are functional in the sense that they assist society in operating[20] and fulfil its functional needs so that society runs smoothly.
A society where there is no conflict, where everyone knows what is expected of him, and where these expectations are consistently met, is in a perfect state of equilibrium. The key processes for Parsons in attaining this equilibrium are socialisation and social control. Socialisation is important because it is the mechanism for transferring the accepted norms and values of society to the individuals within the system. Perfect socialisation occurs when these norms and values are completely internalised, when they become part of the individual's personality.[21]
Parson states that "this point [...] is independent of the sense in which [the] individual is concretely autonomous or creative rather than 'passive' or 'conforming', for individuality and creativity, are to a considerable extent, phenomena of the institutionalization of expectations";[22] they are culturally constructed.
Socialisation is supported by the positive and negative sanctioning of role behaviours that do or do not meet these expectations.[23] A punishment could be informal, like a snigger or gossip, or more formalised, through institutions such as prisons and mental homes. If these two processes were perfect, society would become static and unchanging, and in reality this is unlikely to occur for long.
Parsons recognises this, stating that he treats "the structure of the system as problematic and subject to change,"[24] and that his concept of the tendency towards equilibrium "does not imply the empirical dominance of stability over change."[25] He does, however, believe that these changes occur in a relatively smooth way.
Individuals in interaction with changing situations adapt through a process of "role bargaining."[26] Once the roles are established, they create norms that guide further action and are thus institutionalised, creating stability across social interactions. Where the adaptation process cannot adjust, due to sharp shocks or immediate radical change, structural dissolution occurs and either new structures (and therefore a new system) are formed, or society dies.
This model of social change has been described as a "moving equilibrium,"[27] and emphasises a desire for social order.
[edit] Robert Merton
Robert K. Merton was a functionalist and he fundamentally agreed with Parsons’ theory. However, he acknowledged that it was problematic, believing that it was too generalised [Holmwood, 2005:100]. Merton tended to emphasise middle range theory rather than a grand theory, meaning that he was able to deal specifically with some of the limitations in Parsons’ theory. He identified 3 main limitations: functional unity, universal functionalism and indispensability [Ritzer in Gingrich, 1999]. He also developed the concept of deviance and made the distinction between manifest and latent functions.
Merton criticised functional unity, saying that not all parts of a modern, complex society work for the functional unity of society. Some institutions and structures may have other functions, and some may even be generally dysfunctional, or be functional for some while being dysfunctional for others. This is because not all structures are functional for society as a whole. Some practices are only functional for a dominant individual or a group [Holmwood, 2005:91]. Here Merton introduces the concepts of power and coercion into functionalism and identifies the sites of tension which may lead to struggle or conflict. Merton states that by recognizing and examining the dysfunctional aspects of society we can explain the development and persistence of alternatives. Thus, as Holmwood states, “Merton explicitly made power and conflict central issues for research within a functionalist paradigm” [2005:91].
Merton also noted that there may be functional alternatives to the institutions and structures currently fulfilling the functions of society. This means that the institutions that currently exist are not indispensable to society. Merton states that “just as the same item may have multiple functions, so may the same function be diversely fulfilled by alternative items” [cited in Holmwood, 2005:91]. This notion of functional alternatives is important because it reduces the tendency of functionalism to imply approval of the status quo.
Merton’s theory of deviance is derived from Durkheim’s idea of anomie. It is central in explaining how internal changes can occur in a system. For Merton, anomie means a discontinuity between cultural goals and the accepted methods available for reaching them.
Merton believes that there are 5 situations facing an actor.
• Conformity occurs when an individual has the means and desire to achieve the cultural goals socialised into him.
• Innovation occurs when an individual strives to attain the accepted cultural goals but chooses to do so in novel or unaccepted method.
• Ritualism occurs when an individual continues to do things as proscribed by society but forfeits the achievement of the goals.
• Retreatism is the rejection of both the means and the goals of society.
• Rebellion is a combination of the rejection of societal goals and means and a substitution of other goals and means.
Thus it can be seen that change can occur internally in society through either innovation or rebellion. It is true that society will attempt to control these individuals and negate the changes, but as the innovation or rebellion builds momentum, society will eventually adapt or face dissolution.
The last of Merton’s important contributions to functionalism was his distinction between manifest and latent functions. Manifest functions refer to the conscious intentions of actors; latent functions are the objective consequences of their actions, which are often unintended [Holmwood, 2005:90]. Merton used the example of the Hopi rain dance to show that sometimes an individual’s understanding of their motive for an action may not fully explain why that action continues to be performed. Sometimes actions fulfill a function of which the actor is unaware, and this is the latent function of an action. 2.14.08
[edit] Almond and Powell
In the 1970s, political scientists Gabriel Almond and Bingham Powell introduced a structural-functionalist approach to comparing political systems. They argued that, in order to understand a political system, it is necessary to understand not only its institutions (or structures) but also their respective functions. They also insisted that these institutions, to be properly understood, must be placed in a meaningful and dynamic historical context.
This idea stood in marked contrast to prevalent approaches in the field of comparative politics — the state-society theory and the dependency theory. These were the descendants of David Easton's system theory in international relations, a mechanistic view that saw all political systems as essentially the same, subject to the same laws of "stimulus and response" — or inputs and outputs — while paying little attention to unique characteristics. The structural-functional approach is based on the view that a political system is made up of several key components, including interest groups, political parties and branches of government.
In addition to structures, Almond and Powell showed that a political system consists of various functions, chief among them political socialisation, recruitment and communication: socialisation refers to the way in which societies pass along their values and beliefs to succeeding generations, and in political terms describes the process by which a society inculcates civic virtues, or the habits of effective citizenship; recruitment denotes the process by which a political system generates interest, engagement and participation from citizens; and communication refers to the way that a system promulgates its values and information.
[edit] Structural functionalism and unilineal descent
In their attempt to explain the social stability of African "primitive" stateless societies where they undertook their fieldwork, Evans-Pritchard (1940) and Meyer Fortes (1945) argued that the Tallensi and the Nuer were primarily organised around unilineal descent groups. Such groups are characterised by common purposes, such as administering property or defending against attacks; they form a permanent social structure that persists well beyond the lifespan of their members. In the case of the Tallensi and the Nuer, these corporate groups were based on kinship which in turn fitted into the larger structures of unilineal descent; consequently Evans-Pritchard's and Fortes' model is called "descent theory". Moreover, in this African context territorial divisions were aligned with lineages; descent theory therefore synthesised both blood and soil as two sides of one coin (cf. Kuper, 1988:195). Affinal ties with the parent through whom descent is not reckoned, however, are considered to be merely complementary or secondary (Fortes created the concept of "complementary filiation"), with the reckoning of kinship through descent being considered the primary organising force of social systems. Because of its strong emphasis on unilineal descent, this new kinship theory came to be called "descent theory".
Before long, descent theory had found its critics. Many African tribal societies seemed to fit this neat model rather well, although Africanists, such as Richards, also argued that Fortes and Evans-Pritchard had deliberately downplayed internal contradictions and overemphasised the stability of the local lineage systems and their significance for the organisation of society.[28] However, in many Asian settings the problems were even more obvious. In Papua New Guinea, the local patrilineal descent groups were fragmented and contained large amounts of non-agnates. Status distinctions did not depend on descent, and genealogies were too short to account for social solidarity through identification with a common ancestor. In particular, the phenomenon of cognatic (or bilateral) kinship posed a serious problem to the proposition that descent groups are the primary element behind the social structures of "primitive" societies.
Leach's (1966) critique came in the form of the classical Malinowskian argument, pointing out that "in Evans-Pritchard's studies of the Nuer and also in Fortes's studies of the Tallensi unilineal descent turns out to be largely an ideal concept to which the empirical facts are only adapted by means of fictions." (1966:8). People's self-interest, manoeuvring, manipulation and competition had been ignored. Moreover, descent theory neglected the significance of marriage and affinal ties, which were emphasised by Levi-Strauss' structural anthropology, at the expense of overemphasising the role of descent. To quote Leach: "The evident importance attached to matrilateral and affinal kinship connections is not so much explained as explained away."[29]
[edit] Criticisms
Main articles: Conflict theory and Critical theory
In the 1960s, functionalism was criticized for being unable to account for social change, or for structural contradictions and conflict (and thus was often called "consensus theory"). The refutation of the second criticism of functionalism, that it is static and has no concept of change, has already been articulated above, concluding that while Parsons’ theory allows for change, it is an orderly process of change [Parsons, 1961:38], a moving equilibrium. Therefore referring to Parsons’ theory of society as static is inaccurate. It is true that it does place emphasis on equilibrium and the maintenance or quick return to social order, but this is a product of the time in which Parsons was writing (post-World War II, and the start of the cold war). Society was in upheaval and fear abounded. At the time social order was crucial, and this is reflected in Parsons' tendency to promote equilibrium and social order rather than social change.
Furthermore, Durkheim favored a radical form of guild socialism along with functionalist explanations. Also, Marxism, while acknowledging social contradictions, still uses functionalist explanations. Parsons' evolutionary theory describes the differentiation and reintegration systems and subsystems and thus at least temporary conflict before reintegration (ibid). "The fact that functional analysis can be seen by some as inherently conservative and by others as inherently radical suggests that it may be inherently neither one nor the other." (Merton 1957: 39)
Stronger criticisms include the epistemological argument that functionalism is tautologous, that is it attempts to account for the development of social institutions solely through recourse to the effects that are attributed to them and thereby explains the two circularly. However, Parsons drew directly on many of Durkheim’s concepts in creating his theory. Certainly Durkheim was one of the first theorists to explain a phenomenon with reference to the function it served for society. He said, “the determination of function is…necessary for the complete explanation of the phenomena” [cited in Coser, 1977:140]. However Durkheim made a clear distinction between historical and functional analysis, saying, “when…the explanation of a social phenomenon is undertaken, we must seek separately the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfills” [cited in Coser, 1977:140]. If Durkheim made this distinction, then it is unlikely that Parsons did not. However Merton does explicitly state that functional analysis does not seek to explain why the action happened in the first instance, but why it continues or is reproduced. He says that “latent functions …go far towards explaining the continuance of the pattern” [cited in Elster, 1990:130, emphasis added]. Therefore it can be argued that functionalism does not explain the original cause of a phenomenon with reference to its effect, and is therefore, not teleological.
Another criticism describes the ontological argument that society can not have "needs" as a human being does, and even if society does have needs they need not be met. Anthony Giddens argues that functionalist explanations may all be rewritten as historical accounts of individual human actions and consequences (see Structuration theory).
A further criticism directed at functionalism is that it contains no sense of agency, that individuals are seen as puppets, acting as their role requires. Yet Holmwood states that the most sophisticated forms of functionalism are based on “a highly developed concept of action” [2005:107], and as was explained above, Parsons took as his starting point the individual and their actions. His theory did not however articulate how these actors exercise their agency in opposition to the socialisation and inculcation of accepted norms. As has been shown above, Merton addressed this limitation through his concept of deviance, and so it can be seen that functionalism allows for agency. It cannot, however, explain why individuals choose to accept or reject the accepted norms, why and in what circumstances they choose to exercise their agency, and this does remain a considerable limitation of the theory.
Further criticisms have been levelled at functionalism by proponents of other social theories, particularly conflict theorists, Marxists, feminists and postmodernists. Conflict theorists criticised functionalism’s concept of systems as giving far too much weight to integration and consensus, and neglecting independence and conflict [Holmwood, 2005:100]. Lockwood [in Holmwood, 2005:101], in line with conflict theory, suggested that Parsons’ theory missed the concept of system contradiction. He did not account for those parts of the system that might have tendencies to mal-integration. According to Lockwood, it was these tendencies that come to the surface as opposition and conflict among actors. However Parsons’ thought that the issues of conflict and cooperation were very much intertwined and sought to account for both in his model [Holmwood, 2005:103]. In this however he was limited by his analysis of an ‘ideal type’ of society which was characterised by consensus. Merton, through his critique of functional unity, introduced into functionalism an explicit analysis of tension and conflict.
Marxism which was revived soon after the emergence of conflict theory, criticised professional sociology (functionalism and conflict theory alike) for being partisan to advanced welfare capitalism [Holmwood, 2005:103]. Gouldner [in Holmwood, 2005:103] thought that Parsons’ theory specifically was an expression of the dominant interests of welfare capitalism, that it justified institutions with reference to the function they fulfill for society. It may be that Parsons’ work implied or articulated that certain institutions were necessary to fulfill the functional prerequisites of society, but whether or not this is the case, Merton explicitly states that institutions are not indispensable and that there are functional alternatives. That he does not identify any alternatives to the current institutions does reflect a conservative bias, which as has been stated before is a product of the specific time that he was writing in.
As functionalism’s prominence was ending, feminism was on the rise, and it attempted a radical criticism of functionalism. It believed that functionalism neglected the suppression of women within the family structure. Holmwood [2005:103] shows, however, that Parsons did in fact describe the situations where tensions and conflict existed or were about to take place, even if he didn’t articulate those conflicts. Some feminists agree, suggesting that Parsons’ provided accurate descriptions of these situations. [Johnson in Holmwood, 2005:103]. On the other hand, Parsons recognised that he had oversimplified his functional analysis of women in relation to work and the family, and focused on the positive functions of the family for society and not on its dysfunctions for women. Merton, too, although addressing situations where function and dysfunction occurred simultaneously, lacked a “feminist sensibility” [Holmwood, 2005:103], although I repeat this was likely a product of the desire for social order.
Postmodernism, as theory, is critical of claims of objectivity. Therefore the idea of grand theory that can explain society in all its forms is treated with skepticism at the very least. This critique is important because it exposes the danger that grand theory can pose, when not seen as a limited perspective, as one way of understanding society.
Jeffrey Alexander (1985) sees functionalism as a broad school rather than a specific method or system, such as Parson's, which is capable of taking equilibrium (stability) as a reference-point rather than assumption and treats structural differentiation as a major form of social change. "The name 'functionalism' implies a difference of method or interpretation that does not exist." (Davis 1967: 401) This removes the determinism criticized above. Cohen argues that rather than needs a society has dispositional facts: features of the social environment that support the existence of particular social institutions but do not cause them. (ibid)
Influential theorists
• Herbert Spencer
• Émile Durkheim
• Talcott Parsons
• Robert K. Merton
• Bronisław Malinowski
• Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
• Niklas Luhmann
• George Murdock
• Fei Xiaotong
• David Keen