Structural-functionalism draws its inspiration primarily from the ideas of Emile Durkheim.

[3] Durkheim
was concerned with the question of how societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. He
sought to explain social cohesion and stability through the concept of solidarity. In more "primitive"
societies it was mechanical solidarity, everyone performing similar tasks, that held society together.
Durkheim proposed that such societies tend to be segmentary, being composed of equivalent parts that
are held together by shared values, common symbols, or systems of exchanges. In modern, complex
societies members perform very different tasks, resulting in a strong interdependence between
individuals. Based on the metaphor of an organism in which many parts function together to sustain the
whole, Durkheim argued that modern complex societies are held together by organic solidarity (think
interdependent organs).

The central concern of structural-functionalism is a continuation of the Durkheimian task of explaining

the apparent stability and internal cohesion of societies that are necessary to ensure their continued
existence over time. Many functionalists argue that social institutions are functionally integrated to form
a stable system and that a change in one institution will precipitate a change in other institutions.
Societies are seen as coherent, bounded and fundamentally relational constructs that function like
organisms, with their various parts (social institutions) working together to maintain and reproduce
them. The various parts of society are assumed to work in an unconscious, quasi-automatic fashion
towards the maintenance of the overall social equilibrium. All social and cultural phenomena are
therefore seen as being functional in the sense of working together to achieve this state and are
effectively deemed to have a life of their own. These components are then primarily analysed in terms of
the function they play. In other words, to understand a component of society, one can ask the question,
"What is the function of this institution?" A function, in this sense, is the contribution made by a
phenomenon to a larger system of which the phenomenon is a part.[4]

Thus, one can ask of education, "What is the function of education for society?" The answer is actually
quite complex and requires a detailed analysis of the history of education (see, for instance, this article
on the history of education), but one obvious answer is that education prepares individuals to enter the
workforce.[5][6] By delineating the functions of elements of society, of the social structure, we can
better understand social life.

Durkheim's strongly sociological perspective of society was continued by Radcliffe-Brown.[7] Following

Auguste Comte, Radcliffe-Brown believed that the social constituted a separate level of reality distinct
from both the biological and the inorganic (here non-living). Explanations of social phenomena therefore
had to be constructed within this social level, with individuals merely being transient occupants of
comparatively stable social roles. Thus, in structural-functionalist thought, individuals are not significant
in and of themselves but only in terms of their social status: their position in patterns of social relations.
The social structure is therefore a network of statuses connected by associated roles.[8]
Structural-functionalism was the dominant perspective of sociology between World War II and the
Vietnam War.

Conflict theory was developed in part to illustrate the limitations of structural-functionalism. The
structural-functionalist approach argued that society tends toward equilibrium, focusing on stability at
the expense of social change. This is contrasted with the conflict approach, which argues that society is
constantly in conflict over resources. One of the primary contributions conflict theory presents over the
structural-functional approach is that it is ideally suited for explaining social change, a significant
problem in the structural-functional approach.

September 11, 2001

Edit

On September 11, 2001 modern American culture was disoriented due to an attack . This event affected
both American travel customs, reflecting the Structural Functionalist idea that a change in one element
of society results in changes in other aspects of society. Before the attacks, airport security in the U.S.
existed, but they changed substantially as a result of the attacks. Scrutiny of travelers was heightened
and included new protocols, like the removal of shoes, belts, and eventually liquids, as well as random,
more detailed screenings. Thus, a change in the cultural sense of security resulted in a corresponding
change in travel protocol.

Increase in Technology

Edit

Modern technology has resulted in substantial changes to the economy and the military. Before the
advent of telephones, the internet, and video conferencing, most business meetings occurred face to
face. If an individual had a business proposal for a company in San Francisco but lived in New York, she
would have to travel to San Francisco. Modern technology has changed this, reducing the necessity of
business travel. As a result, the function of face to face meetings in business has changed; they are no
longer a necessary part of social interactions and have therefore begun to lose their structural role.

Likewise, the traditional approach to war between two nations was an all-out invasion involving
hundreds of thousands if not millions of troops. During WWI, America sent over two million men to
fight. During WWII, America sent over eleven million soldiers to fight. During the Korean War America
sent approximately 1.5 million troops. And finally, in 1990, just over 700,000 soldiers fought in Operation
Desert Storm. Due to the increase in military technology and new military tactical norms, the number of
military personnel present in war zones has dramatically decreased. When America invaded Iraq in 2003,
they sent 150,000. Modern technology, including advanced, long-range weapons and unmanned drones,
have changed the function of mass invasions.

The following are three primary assumptions of modern conflict theory:

Competition over scarce resources is at the heart of all social relationships. Competition rather than
consensus is characteristic of human relationships.

Inequalities in power and reward are built into all social structures. Individuals and groups that benefit
from any particular structure strive to see it maintained.

Change occurs as a result of conflict between competing interests rather than through adaptation.
Change is often abrupt and revolutionary rather than evolutionary.

A heuristic device to help you think about society from a conflict perspective is to ask, "Who benefits
from this element of society?" Using the same example as we did above, we can ask, "Who benefits from
the current higher educational system in the U.S.?" The answer, of course, is the wealthy. Why? Because
higher education in the U.S. is not free. Thus, the educational system often screens out poorer
individuals not because they are unable to compete academically but because they cannot afford to pay
for their education. Because the poor are unable to obtain higher education, this means they are also
generally unable to get higher paying jobs which means they remain poor. This can easily translate into a
vicious cycle of poverty. Thus, while the function of education is to educate the workforce, it also has
built into it an element of conflict and inequality, favoring one group (the wealthy) over other groups
(the poor). Thinking about education this way helps illustrate why both structural-functionalist and
conflict theories are helpful in understanding how society works.

Conflict theory was elaborated in the United Kingdom by Max Gluckman and John Rex, in the United
States by Lewis A. Coser and Randall Collins, and in Germany by Ralf Dahrendorf, all of whom were
influenced by Karl Marx, Ludwig Gumplovicz, Vilfredo Pareto, Georg Simmel, and other founders of
European sociology.

Limitations

Edit
Not surprisingly, the primary limitation of the social-conflict perspective is that it overlooks the stability
of societies. While societies are in a constant state of change, much of the change is minor. Many of the
broader elements of societies remain remarkably stable over time, indicating the structural-functional
perspective has a great deal of merit.

As noted above, sociological theory is often complementary. This is particularly true of structural-
functionalism and social-conflict theories. Structural-functionalism focuses on equilibrium and solidarity;
conflict-theory focuses on change and conflict. Keep in mind that neither is better than the other; when
combined, the two approaches offer a broader and more comprehensive view of society.

Symbolic Interactionism

Definition of Symbolic Interaction

When you are in public, do you ever catch yourself changing your stance, adjusting your look, or the way
you speak based on how you think other people are looking at you? You might want people to see you in
a certain way - friendly, attractive, or approachable, or even unapproachable or tough - whatever is ideal
in the moment. Those adjustments that you're making can be explained by symbolic interaction theory,
also called symbolic interactionism, a theory about social behavior and interaction.

This theoretical perspective looks at how people navigate their interactions with others and assign
meanings based on their interpretation of those interactions. As this theory focuses on the behavior of
individuals as opposed to the collective behavior of people as a group (a macro-level approach to social
theory), symbolic interactionism is considered to be a micro-level sociological theory.

The modern-day theoretical concept of symbolic interactionism is the culmination of contributions in the
early 1900s from three major sociological theorists: Herbert Blumer, George Herbert Mead, and Charles
Horton Cooley. In the following sections, we'll discuss each of these theorists' roles in the development
of the theory.

Mead's Concept of Self

George Herbert Mead laid the groundwork for symbolic interaction with his discussion about the self,
which he defines as a dynamic organism that is a being of its own. The self breaks down into two
processes or phases that take place in any human interaction:

The I is described as the unorganized response of the self to the attitudes of others - the spontaneous
disposition or impulse to act

The me, in contrast, is a set of organized attitudes of others that the individual assumes in response -
that is, those perspectives on the self that the individual has interpreted from others

Cooley's 'Looking Glass Self'

Along with his friend Mead, Charles H. Cooley helped originate symbolic interaction theory. Cooley is
best known for the concept of the 'looking glass self,' which Cooley illustrated with the following
statement:

I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think you think I am.

This means that we as individuals define how we perceive ourselves by how we think others perceive us.
To put this component of the theory in perspective, consider this: It's your first day of high school. You're
at lunch, holding your food tray and nervously scanning the crowd to find the best place to sit. As you
find your seat, you internalize the glances you get from the students you pass at the other tables,
interpreting what you think they're thinking of you based on their facial expressions, body language, and
verbiage. You are, in effect, redefining who you think you are based on your interpretation of other
people's reactions to you.

Blumer's Symbolic Interactionism

Herbert Blumer was actually a student of Mead, and he expanded on Mead's discussion of the self in
relation to social behavior. Despite much of the groundwork being established by Mead, Blumer is
traditionally known for being the brains behind the theory of symbolic interactionism. In fact, it was his
work Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method that synthesized his contributions with those of
Mead and Cooley and coined the term symbolic interaction.

Blumer argued that people's behavior is based on the meaning those behaviors have to them. Those
meanings are based on and derived from interactions an individual has with others. It's important to
note that these meanings are subject to change based on an individual's interpretation. This argument
varies from others that preceded it because it's based on an individual's interpretation of something, as
opposed to a structural or functional perspective on how behaviors or actions are given meaning by
humans.

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INSTALL

Edit

In contrast to the rather broad approach toward society of structural-functionalism and conflict theory,
Symbolic Interactionism is a theoretical approach to understanding the relationship between humans
and society. The basic notion of symbolic interactionism is that human action and interaction are
understandable only through the exchange of meaningful communication or symbols. In this approach,
humans are portrayed as acting as opposed to being acted upon.[11]

The main principles of symbolic interactionism are:[12]

human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them

these meanings arise from ongoing processes of social interaction and interpretation

social action results from a "joint action", or the fitting together of individual lines of action

This approach stands in contrast to the strict behaviorism of psychological theories prevalent at the time
it was first formulated (in the 1920s and 1930s). According to Symbolic Interactionism, humans are
distinct from infrahumans (lower animals) because infrahumans simply respond to their environment
(i.e., a stimulus evokes a response or stimulus -> response) whereas humans have the ability to interrupt
that process (i.e., stimulus -> cognition -> response). Additionally, infrahumans are unable to conceive of
alternative responses to gestures. Humans, however, can. This understanding should not be taken to
indicate that humans never behave in a strict stimulus -> response fashion, but rather that humans have
the capability of not responding in that fashion (and do so much of the time).

This drawing illustrates the idea of the "looking-glass self" by illustrating that we can internalize how
other people view us and then reflect upon those external appraisals without having to actually converse
with others.

This perspective is also rooted in phenomenological thought (see social constructionism and
phenomenology). According to symbolic interactionism, the objective world has no reality for humans,
only subjectively-defined objects have meaning. Meanings are not entities that are bestowed on humans
and learned by habituation. Instead, meanings can be altered through the creative capabilities of
humans, and individuals may influence the many meanings that form their society.[11] Human society,
therefore, is a social product.
Neurological evidence based on EEGs supports the idea that humans have a "social brain," that is, there
are components of the human brain that govern social interaction.[13] These parts of the brain begin
developing in early childhood (the preschool years) and aid humans in understanding how other people
think.[13] In symbolic interactionism, this is known as "reflected appraisals" or "the looking glass self"
and refers to our ability to think about how other people will think about us. A good example of this is
when people try on clothes before going out with friends. Some people may not think much about how
others will think about their clothing choices, but others can spend quite a bit of time considering what
they are going to wear. And while they are deciding, the dialogue that is taking place inside their mind is
usually a dialogue between their "self" (that portion of their identity that calls itself "I") and that
person's internalized understanding of their friends and society (a "generalized other" called the "me").
An indicator of mature socialization is when an individual quite accurately predicts how other people
think about him/her. Such an individual has incorporated the "social" into the "self" and will thus
experience the world through an ongoing internal communication process that seeks to determine "if I
do this, what will be thought of me."

It should also be noted that symbolic interactionists advocate a particular methodology. Because they
see meaning as the fundamental component of human and society interaction, studying human and
society interaction requires getting at that meaning. Thus, symbolic interaction tends to take two
distinct, but related methodological paths. Processual Symbolic Interaction seeks to uncover the
elaboration and experience of meanings in natural settings of social interaction through primarily
qualitative methods (e.g., examining the process whereby people become and signify selves) while
Structural Symbolic Interaction seeks to map the contours of the self through primarily quantitative
methods (e.g., examining the structure of the self by asking who people believe themselves and others
to be).

Symbolic Interaction arose through the integration of Structural Functionalism and Conflict Theories.
Specifically, Symbolic Interaction seeks to uncover the ways "meanings" are deployed within interactions
and embedded within larger social structures to facilitate social cohesion (Structural Functionalism) and
social change (Conflict Theories). To use the case above, Symbolic Interaction may be used to explain the
distinction between Conflict and Structural Functionalist approaches to education. If people act toward
education based on the meaning they have for it, for example, then people that believe (or are taught to
believe) that education serves an important function for all of society (e.g., Structural Functionalism) will
be hesitant to change this social structure. On the other hand, if people believe (or are taught to believe)
that education transmits social inequalities from generation to generation (e.g., Conflict Theory), then
they will be more likely to attempt to change this structure over time. In either case, societies (and the
people that form them) will move towards cohesion (Structural Functionalism) or conflict (Conflict
Theory) concerning educational structures based upon the meanings these people have for the current
educational structure. Symbolic Interaction thus often focuses on elaborating the multitude of ways that
micro patterns of interaction and interpretation justify, sustain, and / or change large scale social
structures and patterns of activity within the world.

Central to Symbolic Interaction is the notion that selves and societies exist in an ongoing reciprocal
relationship wherein each acts back upon the other. Stated another way, Symbolic Interactionism argues
that people become selves by learning and internalizing the symbolic materials of the social and
historical context and culture they are born into and raised within (e.g., the individual is formed by the
society), and then act back upon and alter societies (e.g., norms, cultures and structures) by deploying
the symbolic resources at their disposal throughout the course of their ongoing lives (e.g., the society is
formed by the joint action of individuals). As a result, Symbolic Interactionists argue against the division
of society into micro, meso, and macro forms, and instead focus on the ways that interconnected people
continuously construct, alter, signify, and affirm themselves and others in ways that create, sustain, and
change existing social structures. They thus argue that society is always an ongoing information exchange
between individuals, groups, and social structures that each depend on the other for their meaning and
by extension their existence and survival.

Limitations

Edit

The most significant limitations of symbolic interactionism relate to its primary contribution: it focuses
on the ongoing construction and contestation of meanings in society (e.g., norms, rules, cultures, and
interpersonal experiences), which can only be grasped via examination of small groups or individual
beings. As a result, Symbolic Interactionism typically focuses on "how" things are done (e.g., the ways
people accomplish things that can be observed in real time and in the natural world) rather than "why"
things are done (e.g., hypotheses that can only be examined within mathematical and / or experimental
settings disconnected from the natural world). As a result, Symbolic Interaction is more adequately
suited to explaining how the world is, but is unable to demonstrate and document predictions about
how the world might differ, if circumstances were hypothetically altered.

Social conflict theory sees social life as a competition and focuses on the distribution of resources,
power, and inequality. Let's take a look at a few of the key aspects of this perspective and test our
knowledge with a quiz.

Definition of Social Conflict

Social conflict theory is a macro-oriented paradigm in sociology that views society as an arena of
inequality that generates conflict and social change. Key elements in this perspective are that society is
structured in ways to benefit a few at the expense of the majority, and factors such as race, sex, class,
and age are linked to social inequality. To a social conflict theorist, it is all about dominant group versus
minority group relations. Karl Marx is considered the 'father' of social conflict theory. Let's examine this
perspective deeper and take a look at a few key definitions.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, sociologist, economist, and revolutionary socialist.
Marx offered a theory of capitalism based on his idea that human beings are basically productive - in
order to survive, people have to work. He also believed that people have two relationships to the means
of production: you either own the productive property or you work for someone who does.

The clash between the owners and the workers is at the heart of Marx's thinking. In an industrial,
wealthy, society, how can so many people be poor? At the heart of Marx's thinking is social conflict,
which is the struggle between groups in society over scarce resources. Marx's primary concern, however,
was class conflict, which arises from the way society produces material goods.

Karl Marx lived in the early stages of industrial capitalism in Europe. Marx believed the owners of these
industries were the capitalists, those people who own and operate businesses in pursuit of profits. The
system of capitalism turns most people in any society into proletariats, those people who sell their labor
for wages. To Marx, such a system will inevitably lead to class conflict between the capitalists and
proletariats.