Key People & Contemporary Perspectives

1. Key People&Contemporary Perspectives

2. What is the “glue” that holds societies together? What provides people with a sense of belonging? Why are these bubbles coming out of my head?

3. Emile Durkheim • Concerned with social order and stability • People are a product of their social environment • Human potential is socially based, not biologically based • Societies are built on social facts • Rapid social change produces social strain

4. Key Terms for Durkheim • Social Facts • Patterned ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that exist outside any one individual but that exert social control over each person. • Anomie • Social control becomes ineffective as a result of the loss of shared values and a sense of purpose in society

5. Social Facts Anomie Provide Some Examples

6. Conflict is necessary to produce social change and a better society I think today I will establish a free and classless society I, too, have these bubbles popping out my head!

7. Karl Marx • History is a continuous clash between conflicting ideas and forces • Economic changes are most important • Class conflict between capitalist class (bourgeoisie) and the working class (proletariat) • Alienation • Fetishism of Commodities • Society should be changed • Criticized for too much emphasis on class struggle

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9. Sociology should be value-free – it should exclude the researcher’s personal values and economic interests It really isn’t possible for sociologists to be value-free is it? Then, we need to gain the ability to see the world as others see it

10. Max Weber • Bureaucracies – determines the social relationships among people • These are destructive to human vitality and freedom • Rationalization – the modern world has become dominated by structures devoted to: • Efficiency • Calculability • Predictability • Technological Control • Emphasized the goal of value-free inquiry & necessity of understanding how others see the world

11. Structural Functionalist • Based on the assumption that society is a stable, orderly system (Durkheim) • Societal Consensus • Common set of values, beliefs, behavioral expectations • Society composed of inter-related parts • Social structures and institutions persist because they help society persist • Strains

12. Functionalism & Merton • Manifest Functions • Intended or overtly recognized by participants in a social unit • Examples • Latent Functions • Unintended functions that are hidden and unacknowledged by participants • Examples • Dysfunctions • Undesirable consequences • May threaten a society’s capacity to adapt and survive

13. Conflict Perspective • Groups in society are engaged in continuous power struggle for control of scarce resources (Marx, Weber) • Encompasses several branches: • Neo-Marxist (class struggle) • Racial-Ethnic (exploitation) • Feminist (gender issues)

14. Symbolic Interactionist • Examines people’s day-to-day interactions and their behavior in small groups (micro-level) • Society is the sum of the interactions of individuals and groups • Subjective Reality • Each person’s interpretation or definition of a given situation (shared or not shared symbols)

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16. Post-Modern • Existing theories have not successfully explained social life in a contemporary society • Society focused on a shift from production to consumption • Postmodern Society • Information explosion • Rise of a consumer society • Global Village