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SA531: Theoretical Perspective in Sociology

M.A SOCIOLOGY

Objectives

The objectives of the course are to help students to a) learn major and diverse perspectives in

sociology, b) learn to comprehend society, social institutions, social processes and human social

agents in alternative ways, and c) learn to utilize such perspectives to carry out research on

social institutions, social processes and human social agents.

I. Sociological Thinking

A. The sociological imagination and the promise of sociology

B. Reductionism and non-reductionism: Sociological versus biological, (and physiological,

genetic, chemical, etc.), psychological, 'natural' and supernatural explanations of social

institution and social change

C. Significance of perspective and theory

D. Sociology of knowledge: Basic principles and protocol

E. History of early sociology: Political, economic, religious and intellectual contexts

F. Classical sociology:

a. Comte's method of social inquiry and the idea of human progress

b. Marx: Overall doctrine and dynamics of social change

c. Spencer and growth, structure and differentiation

d. Durkheim: General approach, individual and society, and religion

e. Weber: Types of authority, and Protestantism and the rise of capitalism

f. Cooley, the 'looking-glass self' and the nature and history of human groups

II.Structural-Functional Perspective

A. Historical context

B. Key arguments

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Whole, part and systemic interrelationships Consensus, stability, order versus conflict, instability and change Functional prerequisites or imperatives Functional unity, universality and indispensability and Merton's reformulation Manifest and latent function and dysfunction Protocol of functional and dysfunctionC. Variants: Societal (Durkheim), Individualistic (Malinowski), Structural(Radcliffe-

Brown), Social systematic (Parsons)

D. Critique

E. Application to: a) Stratification, b) Deviance, c) Religion

III. Marxist Perspective

A. ContextB. Key arguments

Historical specificity of social institutions and capitalism as a specific historicalcategory

Key features of economy, polity and society under capitalism Dialectics Idealism, materialism and dialectical historical materialism Mode of production and infrastructure and superstructure Commodification of social life and alienation Class and class struggle Nature of state Social change and revolutionC. Variants: a) Structural Marxism, b) Conflict functionalism, c)Lenin, d) Luxemburg, e)

Gramsci

D. Critique

E. Application: a) Consciousness, b) Religion, c) Family and marriage

IV. World-System Perspective

A. Context

B. Key arguments:

Evolution of capitalism and the rise of the modern world-system Key features of the modern world system

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Priority of world-system over regional and local systems and simultaneousconstitution of world and regional and local systems

World division of labor and global movement of commodity, labor, finance andculture

Globalization and liberalization

Development and underdevelopment Economic cycles and political, economic and military crises within world system Crisis of world system, hegemonic shift and demise of capitalismC. Variants: a) Wallerstein-Frank debate of the origin of 'modern world-system', b)

World- system and dependency debate, c) Wallerstein and monthly Review debate

D. Application: a) Growth of NGOs and INGOs and INGOs, b) International migration c)

Global mass media

E. Critique

V. Critical Theory and Jurgen Habermas

A. Context

B. Key arguments

Emancipation

Nature of society and human beings

Social change

Critique of science and sociology

Critique of classical Marxist perspective

C. Early critical theory and Habermas

The public sphere Critique of science Legitimation crisis Distorted and undistorted communication System and lifeworld Evolution

VI. Actor-Dominant Perspective

Context

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The idea of interpretation Symbolic interaction

-George Herbert Mead's early synthesis

-Mead's central theories and methods

-Symbolic interaction and the Chicago School

-Herbert Blumer and his perspective

-Erving Goffman and the 'presentaion of self in everyday life

Phenomenology-Alfred Schutz and phenomenological sociology

-Theories of Alfred Schutz

-Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann's the Local Construction of Reality

Ethnomethodology-Defining ethnomethodology

-Diversification of ethnomethodology

-Harold Garfinkel and ethnomethodology

-Examples of ethnomethodology

-Ethnomethodological criticism of 'traditional sociology'

Critique of actor-dominant perspectiveVII. Structuration Perspective

A. Historical contex

B. Classical formulations

Marx: History, structure and the objective versus class consciousness, class struggleand political will and the subjective

Weber: iron cage of rationality and disenchantment of world versus types of humansocial action

Gramsci: Hegemony and political will Durkheim: Externality of social facts, social constraints and the elevation of the

coolecticve and undermining of agency

Parsons: System versus action frame of reference Bourdieu: Habitus versus fieldC. Formulation of Anthony Giddens

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Agent and agency Agency and power Structure and structuration Duality of structure Forms of institution Time, body, encounters Structuration theory and forms of research

VIII. Micro-Macro Perspectives

A. Historical contex

B. Key problems

The polar position: Macro-micro extremism Relative priority of macro versus micro and macro-micro integration George Ritzer Jeffrey Alexander Norbert Wiley James Coleman Peter Blau Randall Collins Richard Munch and Neil Smelser

The Sociological Imagination and the Promise of Sociology

No texto a seguir de autoria de Wright Mills e desenvolve rapidamente a idia sobre

imaginao sociolgica e o objeto de estudo da sociologia. Com o breve texto entitulado The

Sociological Imagination and the Promise of Sociology o autor trabalha o que deve ser estudadocomo objeto sociolgico e como isso deve ser feito, justificando os porques. Esse texto faz parte

do livro Human Societies organizado por Anthony Giddens e publicado em 1992. Apesar de

no ser to atual, o texto traz claras questes que ainda no parecem ter sido vencidas por algunspesquisadores sociais.

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C. Wright Mills

The Sociological Imagination and the Promise of Sociology

The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene interms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of variety of individuals. It enables[the sociologist] to take into account how individuals, in the welter of daily experience, often

become falsely conscious of their social positions. Within that welter, the framework of modern

society is sought, and within that framework the psychologies of variety of men and women areformulated. By such means the personal uneasiness of transformed into involvement with public

issues.

The first fruit of this imaginationand the first lesson of the social science that embodies itisthe idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by

locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming

aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; inmany ways a magnificent one. We do not know the limits of mans capacities for supreme effort

or willing degradation, for agony or glee, for pleasurable brutality or the sweetness of reason.

But in out time we have come to know that the limits of human nature are frighteningly broad.

We have come to know that every individual lives, from one generation to the next, in somesociety; that he lives out a biography, and that he lives it out within some historical sequence. By

the fact of his living he contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the

course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its historical push and shove.

The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between

the two within society. That is its task and its promise

No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography , of history and of their

intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey. Whatever the specific

problems of the classic social analysts, however limited or however broad the features of socialreality they have examined, those who have been imaginatively aware of the promise of their

work have consistently asked three sorts of questions:

1 What is the structure of this particular society as a whole? What are its essential components,

and how are they related to one another? How does it differ from other varieties of social order?

Within it, what is the meaning of any particular feature for its continuance and for its changes?

2 Where does this society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is

changing? What is its place within and its meaning for the development of humanity as a whole?

How does any particular feature we are examining affect, and how is it affected by, the historical

period in which it moves? And this periodwhat are its essential features? How does it differfrom other periods? What are its characteristic ways of history-making?

3 What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And whatvarieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and

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repressed, made sensitive and blunted? What kinds of human nature are revealed in the

conduct and character we observe in this society in this period? And what is the meaning for

humannature of each and every feature of the society we are examining?

Whether the point of interest is a great power state or minor literary mood, a family, a prison, a

creedthese are the kinds of questions the best social analysts have asked. They are theintellectual pivots of classic studies of man in societyand they are the questions inevitablyraised by any mind possessing the sociological imagination. For that imagination is the capacity

to shift from one perspective to anotherfrom the political to the psychological; from

examination of a single family to comparative assessment of the national budgets of the world;from the theological school to the military establishment; from considerations of an oil industry

to studies of contemporary poetry. It is the capacity to range from the most impersonal and

remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human selfand to see the relations

between the two. Back of its use there is always the urge to know the social and historicalmeaning of the individual in the society and in the period in which he has his quality and his

being

Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between

the personal troubles of milieu and the public issues of social structure. This distinction is an

essential tool of the sociological imagination and a feature of all classic work in social science

In these terms, consider unemployment. When, in a city of 100,000, only one man is

unemployed, that is his personal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of the

man, his skills and his immediate opportunities. But when, in a nation of 50 million employees,15 million men are unemployed, that is a issue, and we may not hope to find its solution within

the range of opportunities open to any one individual. The very structure of opportunities has

collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require

us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personalsituation and character of a scatter of individuals.

Consider war. The personal problem of war, when it occurs, may be how to survive it or how todie in it with honour; how to make money out of it; how to climb into the higher safety of the

military apparatus; or how to contribute to the wars termination. In short, according to ones

values, to find a set of milieux and within it to survive the war or make ones death in itmeaningful. But the structural issues of war have to do with its causes; with what types of men it

throws up into command; with its effects upon economic and political, family and religious

institutions, with the unorganized irresponsibility of a world of nation states.

Consider marriage. Inside a marriage a man and a woman may experience personal troubles, but

when the divorce rate during the first four years of marriage is 250 out of every 1,000 attempts,

this is an indication of a structural issue having to do with the institutions of marriage and the

family and other institutions that bear upon them.

Or consider the metropolisthe horrible, beautiful, ugly, magnificent sprawl of the great city.

For many upper-class people, the personal solution to the problem of the city is to have anapartment with private garage under it in the heart of the city, and forty miles out, a house by

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Henry Hill, garden by Garret Ecko, on a hundred acres of private land. In these two controlled

environmentswith a small staff at each end and a private helicopter connectionmost people

could solve many of the problems of personal milieux caused by the facts of the city. But all this,however splendid, does not solve the public issues that the structural fact of the city poses. What

should be done with this wonderful monstrosity? Break it all into scattered units, combining

residence and work? Refurbish it as it stands? Or, after evacuation, dynamite it and build newcities according to new plans in new places? What should those plans be? And who is to decideand to accomplish whatever choice is made? These are structure issues; to confront them and to

solve them requires us to consider political and economic issues that affect innumerable milieux.

Is so far as an economy is so arranged that slumps occur, the problem of unemployment becomes

incapable of personal solutions. In so far as war is inherent in the nation-state system and in the

uneven industrialization of the world, the ordinary individual in his restricted milieu will be

powerlesswith or without psychiatric aidto solve the troubles this system or lack of systemimposes upon him. In so far as the family as an institution turns women into darling little slaves

and men into their chief provides and unweaned dependants, the problem of a satisfactory

marriage remains incapable of purely private solution. In so far as the overdevelopedmegalopolis and the overdeveloped automobile are built-in features of the overdeveloped

society, the issues of urban living will not be solved by personal ingenuity and private wealth.

What we experience in various and specific milieux, I have noted, is often caused by structuralchanges. Accordingly, to understand the changes of many personal milieux we are required to

look beyond them. And the number and variety of such structural changes increase as the

institutions within which we live become more embracing and more intricately connected withone another. To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be

capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieux. To be able to do that is to

possess the sociological imagination.

REDUCTIONISM & NON-REDUCTIONISM

I. Reductionism = the view that (1) the facts of personal identity simply consist in theholding of certain more particular facts about brains, bodies, and series of interrelated

physical and mental events, and (2) these facts can be described in an impersonal way.

On the reductionist view, persons are like nations.

A. We are reductionists about nations.

B. Persons are like nations (in all relevant respects).

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C. Thus, we should be reductionists about persons.

II. Non-Reductionism= the denial of both of reductionisms claims.

A. Denial of Clause (1)

1. Separately Existing Entities View: whats involved in personal identityis some further fact(s), and this fact(s) involves persons as separately

existing entities.

E.G., the Cartesian Ego View: persons are essentially purely mentalsubstances (independent of physical substances).

2. The Further Fact View: whats involved in personal identity is somefurther fact(s), but this fact(s) does not involve persons as separately

existing entities.

B. Denial of Clause (2)The facts of personhood necessarily involve reference to a subject, or owner, of

those experiences.

III. Kinds of Reductionism

A. Physical Reductionism: the facts about personal identity simply consist in factsabout bodies and/or brain, i.e., physical relations.

1. The Body Majority View

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2. The Brain View/Physical Criterion: X at t1 is the same person as Y at t2if enough of Xs brain has survived as Ys brain (and is enough of a brain

to be that of a living person), and theres been no branching.

B. Psychological Reductionism: the facts about personal identity simply consist infacts about psychological relations.

Psychological connections include: memory, beliefs/desires/goals, intentions

fulfilled in action, and general character resemblance.

Psychological Connectedness = the holding of direct psychological connections

(a matter of degree).

Psychological Continuity = the holding of overlapping chains of strong

psychological connectedness.

The two relations together are known as Relation R.

The Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity: X at t2 is the same person as

Y at t1 iff (a) X is psychologically continuous with Y, (b) this continuity has the

right kind of cause, and (c) theres been no branching.

1. The Narrow Version: continuity involves the normal cause.a. involves continuity of brain;

b. cannot involve radical/unwanted changes caused by external forces.

2. The Wide Version: continuity involves any cause.

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ii.STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE IN SOCIOLOGY(CONFLICT THEORY ALTERNATIVE)

Structural Functionalism is a broad perspective in sociology and anthropologywhich interprets society as structure with interrelated parts. Functionalism

addresses the society as a whole in terms of function of its constituent elements

such as norms, customs, traditions, institutions etc. Social structures are tressed

and placed at the center of analysis and social functions are deduced from these

structures.

Functionalism is the oldest and dominant conceptual perspective in society.

Functionalism has its roots in the organicism (Comte) of early 19th century.

rganicism of Comte (and later that of Spencer and Durkheim) influenced the

frunctional anthropologists Malinowski and Redcliffe Brown. Durkheim'stimeless analysis and Weber's emphasis on social taxonomies (ideal types)

began to shape modern /contemporary structural perspective.

2A. HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Legacy of the early functionalist's work

1. Social world was viewed in systemic terms. The system had needs andrequisites to be met to assure survival

2. Systems have normal and pathological states. Systems need systemequilibrium and homeostasis.

3. As a system, the world is composed of mutually interrelated parts. Studyof the parts focused on how they fulfilled the requisites of the systemic wholes

and how they are maintained equilibrium.

4. Causal analysis became vague - lapsing into tautologies and illegitimateteleologies and illegitimate teleologies.

2B. KEY ARGUMENTS

2B1. Whole part and Systemic interrelationship Systems Theory is a framework of

investigating any group of objects that work together to produce some result. This

could be a single organism, any organization or society.

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A system is composed of regularly interacting and interrelating group of activities. It

is a dynamic equilibrium model. There are often properties of the whole which cannot

be found in the properties of the elements.

In some cases behavior of the whole cannot be explained in terms of behaviorof the parts. e.g. properties of these letters which when considered together can

give rise to earning which does not exist in letters by themselves.

Pattern of integration and interrelation of elements/parts determines behavior ofthe system. e.g. integration of 'n' and 'o' may create 'on' or 'no'.

All phenomena can be viewed as a web of relationships amongelements/system.

A system can act as an element. e.g. 'an individual' acts as a system asintegration of its organs and it can act as an elements of a group or society.

2B 2.Consensus, Stability, order versus conflict, instability and change(Consensus and Conflict Perspective)

Consensus Perspective

Consensus perspective sees equilibrium in the society only when there is absence of

conflict. Widespread/general agreement among members of the particular society

brings stability and order. This perspective focuses on maintenance and continuation

of social order in society. Interpretive Sociology and structural functionalism)

Structuralists proposed structural reading of Marxism in the following way (macroperspective of society):

society consists of a hierarchy of structures distinct from one another. Conflict is naturally prevalent within social structures. People are the product

of structural conflict.

Conflict emerges by itself because of incompatible relationships - thereforechange will come.

Just like internal organs of a normal biological organism, society maintains itsstability, order and progress only when social organs, structure and institutions

coordinate and cooperate with each other (are in equilibrium) - NOT conflict

with each other. Society cannot operate for any length of time on the basis of force. Society is

held together by the consensus of its members.

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Conflict Perspective

This perspective emphasizes conflict in the society. It deals with the incompatible

aspects of the society. (Radical Humanism and Radical Structuralism)

Change emerges from the crisis between human beings and their society. Human beings have capacity to think and act against situations that are not

satisfactory to their existence.

Means of conflict between two classes of people can bring change in society.2B3. Functional Prerequisites/Imperatives

Analysis of the things (functions) that a social system needs in order to survive:

What needs to be avoided?These factors threaten the existence of society, so, need to be voided.

o Extinction or dispersion of populationo Highly apathetic populationo War of "all against all"

What needs to be adapted?o Society should adapt the following characteristics: society must have

adequate methods of dealing with environment (ecology + social system)o society must have adequate method for sexual recruitment (couple must

product something above 2 children)

o must have sufficient number of people with diverse interest and skillso must have sufficient differential roles and assignment of people to those

role (social stratification)

o Adequate communication systemo Common/shared value pattern (at individual and group level)o Share articulated set of goalso Requires some method of regulating the means to achieve these goals

(normative regulation of goals)o Society must regulate affective expressions (unnecessary emotions) - but

some are quite necessary, e.g. love, family loyalty)

o Socialization of new membero Effective control over disruptive forms of behavioro Four Types of Functional Prerequisites (Merton)

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1. The Functional Pattern Maintenanceo maintaining the stability of pattern

character of normative person state of institutionalization

o structural category of valueso motivational commitment/tension management (socialization

mechanism)

2. The Function of Goal Attainmenta. Goals are defined for equilibrium > a direction setting

b. Concern should not be on commitment of social values BUT should beon what is necessary for system to function

3. The Function of Adaptationa. Goal attainment is more important than adaptation

b. Facilities in place for achieving goal

4. The Function of integrationa. Systems are differentiated and divided into independent units

b. Focus on most of a system's distinctive properties/process

c. Common value system

2B4. Functional Unity, Universality and Indispensability and Merton's Reformulation.

Functional Unity, Universality and Indispensability

The following three prevailing postulates in Functional Analysis (Malinowski &

Redcliffe Brown) are debatable and are considered unnecessary to the functional

orientation.

Standardized social activities or cultural items are functional for entire social orcultural system

All such Social and cultural items fulfill sociological functions These items are consequently indispensable1. Postulate of Functional Unity of Society Redcliffe Brown: "We may define this

as a condition in which all parts of social system work together with a sufficient

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degree of harmony." (without producing persistent conflicts which can neither

be resolved nor neglected)

In such situation, social activities/cultural items are functional for entire social

system.

[Critic: If the one unqualified assumption is questionable, isn't this twinassumption doubly questionable?]

2. Postulate of Universal Functionalism All standardized social or cultural formshave vital functions. Malinowski: "The functional view of culture insists

therefore upon the principle that in every type of civilization, every

custom/object/idea/belief fulfills some vital function. Malinowski gives

example: mechanically useless buttons on the sleeves of European suit serves

the 'function' of preserving/maintaining tradition.

3. Postulate of IndispensabilityMalinowski: "Every part fulfills some vital function of the system and has some

task to accomplish and hence it represents an indispensable part within a

working whole."

The above postulate is ambiguous in the sense that it is not clear whether the

function is indispensable or the item is indispensable. Davis & Moore try to

clarify that it is institution that is indispensable but soon they too seem

confusing by stating that it is the function of the institution which it is takentypically to perform - is indispensable

Critic: If it is function that is indispensable - what about the concept of

functional alternative and functional equivalent/substitute?

2B5. Manifest and Latent Functions and Dysfunction (Merton)

Structural Functional Approach focuses

on any structure's social function. These

functions are the consequences for th

e operation of society as a whole.Devi Prasad Subedi, MA Sociology, TU Nepal

5

Social functions have 3 components:

1.

Manifest functions

The recognized and intended consequences of

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any social pattern are its manifest

functions. [conscious motivation/motives]

e.g. Manifest function of Education

include preparing for a career by getti

ng good grades, graduation and finding

good job etc.2.

Latent functions

Latent functions are the unrecognized and

unintended consequences of any social

pattern. [objective conseque

nces/functions] e.g. latent functions of Education

include meeting new people, participati

ng in extra curricular activities taking

school trips or maybe finding a spouse.o

the concept of latent function extends the observer's attention BEYOND

the question of whether or not the

behavior attains its avowed purposeo

sociological observers are less likely to examine the collateral/latent

functions of the behavior

3.

Dysfunction

Social pattern's undesirable consequencesfor the operation of the society are

considered dysfunction. [failure to achiev

e manifest function] e.g. Dysfunction of

education include not getting good gr

ade, not getting a job etc.o

functional analysts tend to focus on the

statics of social structure

and to

neglect the study of structural changeo

concept of dysfunction implies the concep

t of strain, stress and tension on

the structural level of a social sy

stem. So it provides the analytical

approach to the study of

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dynamics and change