Tran 1

(Steven) Hung Tran

Sociology 001
Professor Mozzini
24 March 2016
Sociological Perspectives Assignment
The Functionalist Perspective, which also called functionalism, is the major theoretical
perspective in Sociology. Functionalism interprets each part of society of how it contributes to
the stability of the society. All the parts are working together and change in one part affects the
others. An example for Functionalist perspective would be the government and the state,
provides better education for children. However, they have to pays taxes in order to keep itself
running. This saying that the family is dependent upon the school to help the children able to
learn and be educated, so when they grow up they will have a good job so they can help out and
support their own families.
The Conflict Perspective is interpreting society as a struggle for power between groups
engaging in conflict for limited resources. Conflict perspective also sees social life as a
competition. Those who have control over the limited resources hold power and are able to shape
societal norms at their will. An example for Conflict Perspective would be Power and
Powerless, in another word, it could either be a wealthy house owner and a maid, the maid has
to do whatever the owner is asking for because of their wealth. The maid in order to get pay,
must be loyal, listening to whatever their owner is saying. In additional, education can be a great
example as well, such as lower education can be free, but higher education will not be free. In
order to go for higher education, you must be able to afford it. The people who are poor will
unlikely get higher education.

Tran 2
The Interactionist Perspective focuses on the concrete details of what goes among
individuals in everyday life. This saying how communication help make the world make sense.
Communication help us to understand one another better and how we interact with each other. To
make it easier to understand, this perspective usually focusses more on face to face interactions.
An example for this perspective would be that young people are smoking at an early age
knowing that it is unhealthy. They think that by smoking at an early age, they could prevent
themselves from being bullied or get picked on at school. Some of them are smoking because
they think that it will make them look cooler.