Functioning is all a part of life but, can it work in a sociologist standpoint? According to the You May Ask Yourself by Dalton Conley its possible. Throughout Colney’s works in chapter one he explains three major theories. Including the Functionalist theory, conflict theory, and Symbolic Interaction. In the position as a student of sociology, I believe the Functionalist theory best describes society.
Berger and Luckmann (1967:15-22) argue that social relativity is inherent in reality and knowledge, hence, its collection is defined by social contexts imperative for sociological analysis. They contend that analysis should be conscious of varieties of knowledge in human societies to maintain their position on the social construction of reality. For them, there is a relationship between human thoughts, history and social context. They draw on Mannheim’s work that society is imperative for the content of human ideas to argue that knowledge is always from a particular position. The influence of ideology can only be mitigated by the analysis of diverse socially
In this approach, humans are portrayed as acting as opposed to being acted upon. Mead (1934) proposed that both human development and the meanings we assign to everyday objects and events are fundamentally social processes, they require the interaction of multiple individuals; language is crucial to the development of self and society, the means by which communicate with one another. Society and self were created through communicative acts like speech and gestures; the individual personality was shaped by society, and vice versa. For symbolic interactionists, society is produced and reproduced through our interactions with each other by language and our interpretation of it, and the building block of everything else in society is face-to-face interaction through it we create a meaningful social reality. Blumer in 1969 stipulated three basic tenets the first one says, we act toward things on the basis of their meanings.
The agencies of socialisation are identified as families, peer groups, education, and work. The content will also consider theories of socialisation such as functionalists and social action theorists. These too will be evaluated in the thesis. The members of society learning and sharing behaviour are known as culture. Mike O’Donnell (1997) describes culture as “the way of life of a particular society” (P475).
The purpose of the following paper is to analyze, interpret and discuss individualism vs. collectivism and their significance in understanding cultural differences. Individualism vs. Collectivism In order to understand the different processes and roles that an individual goes through their life span development it is very important to understand what is the meaning of culture and how much does culture matters. Every human being reacts and behaves according to the environment in which is exposed through their life. People live in different societies and as a consequence their cultural perspective and psychological processes are different from others. From a multicultural psychological perspective individualism and collectivism are concepts that enclose essential differences in how the interactions between people and their roles in societies are build.
Sociologists do not simply declare their beliefs indisputable truths – they do research to determine whether those beliefs are correct. Their investigations are rooted in the scientific method that distinguishes the sociological perspective from “commonsense” interpretations of the world. The sociological perspective emphasizes that people’s thoughts and action are strongly influenced by the groups to which they belong as well as by impinging social factors such as beliefs, values, practices and institutions. From birth to death individuals are imbedded within and influenced by groups and larger structures. As sociologists our main goal is to understand social situations and look for repeating patterns in society.
Discuss Philosophy, Goals and Methods Philosophy is aligned to belief, conviction or policy. It is the starting point to acquiring an understanding of how human beings live and work together in an environment, categorized by order and structure. The Philosophy determines the goals and objectives of the group or organization, and the goals determine the methods or methodology to be used for achieving the goals and objectives. Any attempt to understand human functionalities as stand-alone beings or within an organization, requires the researcher to start at the point of examining the ‘Methods.’ Many presuppositions would have to be utilized in the process towards arrive at the higher levels of goals and philosophy. In actual fact, methods always presuppose the existence of goals and objectives, while goals and objectives presuppose the existence of a philosophy.
By understanding the concepts of the each theories a person can see how they can affect the social institution, such as the family, differently and can present a more much better understanding of the concepts as they apply to reality. What are the Sociological theories? Functionalism, the Conflict Theory, and Interactionism comprise the three main sociological theories. These theories affect the way people think and perceive the world around them. As a result, the development, nature and understanding of different social institutions, including the family, health-care systems, religion, education, media, politics and economy, are determined or affected by these three social theories.
There are two major aspects in regards to the sociological perspective, the first being interaction between social structure and an individual and the idea of two levels of analysis. When it comes to the interaction of social structure and the individual, sociologists tend to concentrate not so much on the characteristics of an individuals behavior but rather on the precedents that are collective amongst individuals in regards to society and groups around them. The key to grasping sociology comes from the inevitability and repetition, which are seen in customary social behaviors throughout society and individuals. Social structures are socially embodied in the actions, thoughts, beliefs, and long-lasting temperaments of individual human beings. The typical being often has a
Functionalists see society as a set of parts which work together to form a whole. Functionalism is also called a consensus theory. Marxism and functionalism are similar in that, they see the way society is structured as an important part in determining the way people have relationships and behave between themselves. This is known as structural perspective. Both functionalists and Marxists believe that people are portrayed as creature within the social system.