Dominant Approaches and Ideas Part 1 PDF

Dominant approaches and Ideas Part 1 Lesson 2  MELCs Analyze the basic concepts and principles of the major social science theories: Structural-functionalism Marxism Symbolic Interactionism  MELCs Apply the major social science theories and...

Dominant approaches and Ideas Part 1 Lesson 2  MELCs Analyze the basic concepts and principles of the major social science theories: Structural-functionalism Marxism Symbolic Interactionism  MELCs Apply the major social science theories and its importance in examining socio-cultural, economic, and political conditions: Structural-functionalism Marxism Symbolic Interactionism  Structural Functionalism ❑ It is a sociological theory that revolves around the notion that a society is composed of a system of interconnected parts that have their own particular functions.  Structural Functionalism ❑ Functionalism views societal living shaped and guided by social structures or the patterns of social relationships between groups or individuals.  Structural Functionalism ❑ Social structures formed among groups or institutions are referred to as macrostructures which include religion, education, tradition, and culture. Important Theorists  Auguste Comte ❑ He provide an analysis of social evolution through his Law of Three Stages. ❑ He provided a theory of society and man’s cognitive progression from religious and abstract concepts to a scientific perspective. ❑ His ideas are considered as the precursor to structural functionalism, as he identified tradition and other social structures as elements in shaping the society.  Herbert Spencer ❑ He is the first sociological functionalist. ❑ His comparison of society to the human body is overarching idea of structural functionalism. ❑ He also compared the way organisms evolved to how society develops. ❑ For spencer, the progress or decline of a society will be determined by how it handles constant problems. This idea of progress and decline is called Spencer’s evolutionary model as applied to societies. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) ❑ He is an American sociologist known as one of the primary contributors to the development of structural functionalism. ❑ He identified the different systems that make up the structure of society, which he called systems levels. ❑ All these systems work and interact with one another is some level to provide structure to the society. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) ❑ The cultural system is the structure that the society generated throughout history so that people can socialize and live together as a community. ❑ The social system is understood as the roles people have in society. ❑ The personality system refers to how individuals affect societies through their personalities attitudes, behaviors, beliefs and other characteristics.  Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore ❑ They were American sociologists known for the functionalist theory stratification or Davis-Moore hypothesis. ❑ Their hypothesis suggests that social inequalities are necessary so that society would function.  Robert Merton ❑ An American sociologist ❑ He is also a key contributor to the functionalist theory of society. ❑ He was the one who developed the concepts of manifest and latent dysfunctions. ❑ He also focused on dysfunction as it opposes the idea of functional unity, which presupposes that everything works optimally all the time and that distortions exist in society. Gabriel Almond and Bingham Powell ❑ They were American political scientists who applied structural functionalist theories in comparative politics. ❑ They argued that the study of political systems of different states must be done contextually. They highlighted the need to understand the institutions through which political systems (i.e., democracy, monarchy, and dictatorship.)  How does Structural- Functionalism explain the role of social institutions, such as family or education, in maintaining social stability and order?  Marxism Marxism is a social, political, and economic philosophy named after Karl Marx. It examines the effect of capitalism on labor, productivity, and economic development and argues for a worker revolution to overturn capitalism in favor of communism. Marxism posits that the struggle between social classes—specifically between the bourgeoisie, or capitalists, and the proletariat, or workers—defines economic relations in a capitalist economy and will inevitably lead to revolutionary communism. ― Irene M. Pepperberg  Key Concepts in Marxism Social Inequality ❑ Marx argued that the profit from goods should be equally divided among the laborers since they are the ones who work to produce such goods. ❑ For Marx, capitalists steal by taking the profit for themselves while leaving the workers with salaries disproportionate to the work that they provide. This setup, according to Marx, is a perfect example of social injustice.  Key Concepts in Marxism Class Conflict ❑ Class conflict or Class struggle arises from the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. ❑ Such oppression happens whenever a society has a stratified and hierarchical class division, and it is more evident in a capitalist society, where the manipulative force of capitalism creates tension between the class. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ❑ They were German philosophers and political scientists who are regarded as the fathers of Marxist Theory. ❑ Their most notable work together was Communist Manifesto, published in 1848.  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ❑ The communist manifesto provided a sociological perspective in the understanding of history. ❑ It is determined by the history of class struggles and conflicts between the oppressor and the oppressed.  Gordon Childe ❑ He was an Australian archaeologist and philologist. ❑ Childe used Marxist economics as a tool in distinguishing period of prehistory and in tracing the evolution of Western Civilization.  Gordon Childe ❑ The hunter-gatherer civilizations turned into farming. ❑ The emergence of social classes was primarily caused by the surplus in food production. ❑ Surplus allowed other classes in society to expend efforts in other ventures such as metallurgy.  Theodor Adorno ❑ He was a German philosopher and sociologist. ❑ His most notable work, Dialectics of Enlightenment (1994), was made in collaboration with Max Horkheimer (1895- 1973)who was also a German philosopher.  Theodor Adorno ❑ Capitalist ideology places value and focuses on commodities so that consumers would find necessity in buying material goods. ❑ Marx called this effect of capitalist ideology as fetishism of commodities.  Slavoj Žižek ❑ He is a Slovenian philosopher and sociologist. ❑ Žižek expounds on ideology and how it directly affects everyday reality.  Slavoj Žižek ❑ He argues that reality is constructed by ideology itself. ❑ He explains that ideology blankets society with beliefs that in most circumstances do not reflect reality. Symbolic Interactionism is a theory on society that focuses on the individual’s interactions with objects and other people. It perceives reality through the composition of social interactions and the understanding of the meanings of these social interactions and the understanding of the meanings of these social interactions that provide a perspective on social order and social systems. The basic premise of symbolic interactionism is that behavior and materials are influenced and can only be examined through social interactions.  Interaction-based Meaning ❑ The meaning is not monopolized by a single person or perspective-something it can have different meanings as there are different perspectives. ❑ Actions are determined by the meanings people associate with things.  Interaction-based Meaning ❑ Symbolic interactionism sees reality as an association of meanings. As meanings change, so does society. ❑ Symbolic interaction sees reality not just as meanings but see meanings as constitutive of reality itself.  Human Agency ❑ Humans are perceived to be active social actors who willingly negotiate their roles and identities within and through the system.  Human Agency ❑ The individual can be seen as an active player in the interpretation and modification of the structure’s rules and processes.  Herbert Blumer ❑ He was an American sociologist who coined the term symbolic interactionism. ❑ A central idea to Blumer’s works is that social reality is in a continuous process of creation.  Herbert Blumer ❑ It is through our interactions happening in a society at a given place and time, it follows that social reality is in a constant process of creations and reinvention. George Herbert Mead ❑ He was an American Sociologist, philosopher and psychologist ❑ He developed a theory of the social self, which interprets the self as emerging from social interactions. ❑ Meads three activities are language, play, and games. Charles Horton Cooley ❑ He was an American sociologist whose main contribution in the field was the study of primary groups. ❑ He coined and defined primary group as the first group where a person belongs and where the individual develops his or her ideas, beliefs, values and self.  Charles Horton Cooley ❑ Cooley’s most famous theory of self is the looking-glass self. ❑ The self is understood as that which is formed from interactions, such as those done with the primary group. ❑ The looking-glass self is the process by which self- consciousness emerges through the lens of the other.  Harold Garfinkel ❑ Garfinkel stressed the importance of ethnomethodologists conducting more studies on social order. ❑ He argued that social order is an ongoing process subject to constant change and even misinterpretations by the members of the society.  Harold Garfinkel ❑ He wanted ethnomethodological researchers to focus on the production and accountability of order, and especially on the methods that individuals utilize to maintain order and normality.  How does Symbolic Interactionism explain the way people create and change their social realities through interactions? Thank you!