Anatasia Pham

Mehdi

ENG 111-29

25 January 2018

Illustration Essay Draft

Sociology can be simply defined as the study of human society. It evaluates the roles,

norms, values, and culture while studying how these affect and influence humans living within

the society. Although, a society can be understood and viewed through multiple aspects and

lenses. The different perspectives enable sociologists to understand society and how it functions

through multiple ways. There are three major perspectives that remain the main schools of

sociology today: functionalism, conflict, and interactionism.

One of the first popular perspectives, the functionalist theory, was developed by

sociologist Emile Durkheim. Functionalism sees each part of society as important to helping the

system work; every piece allows society to function. For instance, pay and prestige can

exemplify the importance of a certain job. A doctor receives much more money and respect from

others within society because of his or her vital career of saving lives. Furthermore, the lure of

high pay and prestige encourages people to want to become a doctor. This requires them to go to

college and acquire the appropriate knowledge and certifications needed. Furthermore, this

ensures all doctors are qualified, skilled, and proficient at their job, which is functional for

society. Functionalism explains society as working in a consensus to ensure the proper function

of it, whereas the next perspective, the conflict theory, is the opposite.

Next, the conflict theory is another renown and distinct view. This perspective

emphasizes the conflict or struggle for power between classes. The proletariat were the lower,
working class people while the bourgeoisie were the upper, wealthy class. The bourgeoisie

would use their power and authority to remain the top class, while the proletariat would work to

overthrow the upper class due to the unfair differences they are forced to abide by. This became

a cycle because the bourgeoisie would try to stop the proletariats from rebelling. These two

classes struggled for the control of resources within society. This conflict is used to explain

social change and is particularly evident within society’s economic structure. For instance, the

ideology of the American Dream is one of the recognizable ideals and values American society

has had for the longest time. The American Dream encourages people to work hard and

diligently in order to achieve success in their life. Although, under this cover, the bourgeoisie

promoted this message through media to ensure the working class did not try to rebel and

overthrow the class system. This made Americans believe they could achieve success like the

upper class as long as they worked hard, although this ideology eventually began declining when

people began realizing that not everyone could succeed. This became accepted and understood,

especially because of the popular novel “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald. Another

example of how the bourgeoisie control the proletariats is through religion. Religion can be used

to influence the working class by also encouraging them to work hard. An example of how this

happens is the message that if a person works hard in this life, the next one will be better, or if

they are good they will get to the “promised land”. This causes the proletariats to believe they are

working for the better afterlife and to ignore the current inequalities against them. In addition, it

stops them from revolting as well. Thus, the use of social structures such as ideology and religion

can influence how people in society think and work.

All of the perspectives addressed so far have been macrosociological, meaning they have

focused on society’s structure and systems. The last major perspective, symbolic interactionism,
is microsociological instead. The symbolic interactionist theory views society through individual

human interactions and interpretations instead of its structure. This perspective explains society’s

behaviors by understanding what people believe might not necessarily be true. For instance,

smoking has been continuously researched and proven that it is detrimental to one’s health and is

harmful, but this does not stop teens from smoking. In fact, “...studies find that teenagers are well

informed about the risks of tobacco, but they also think that smoking is cool, that they

themselves will be safe from harm, and that smoking projects a positive image to their peers…

the symbolic meaning of smoking overrides that actual facts regarding smoking and risk”

(Crossman). Furthermore, another example of symbolic interactionism is race. The social

construct of race was built on false scientific studies that suggested other races as inferior. This

lead to the development of discrimination and racism on the “inferior” races. An illustration of

this today is believing lighter skin toned people will succeed and are more intelligent than darker

toned people (Crossman). These stereotypes were built into American culture due to our past of

slavery. By labeling the dark skinned slaves as inferior, it gave justification to the white folk for

enslaving and beating them even though the research that suggested it was false. In fact, “greater

genetic variation exists within the populations typically labeled Black and White than between

these populations” (Rivkin). Symbolic interactionism can be used to explain individual human

interpretations and why one does what they do.

In conclusion, sociology utilizes three different perspectives to examine and understand

societies. Those three consist of the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist theory.

Functionalism views social structures as contributing to the successful function of society as a

whole, whereas the conflict theory emphasizes the power struggle for resources between the

bourgeoisie and proletariat. Lastly, symbolic interactionism evaluates and understands individual
human interactions and the underlying meanings behind them. Although no perspective can

perfectly explain society, but by using all of the perspectives, sociologists can have a better grasp

at understanding how society works.

 Works Cited

Crossman, Ashley. “Learn About Symbolic Interactionism, the Theories and

Perspective.”ThoughtCo, www.thoughtco.com/symbolic-interaction-theory-3026633.

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed., Blackwell Publishing,

2004.