SOCIOLOGY

Sociology is the scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social

interaction, and culture. Sociologists study all things human, from the interactions between two

people to the complex relationships between nations or international corporations. It is believed

that human actions are patterned; Individuals still have room for choices. Human beings are

becoming aware of the social processes that influence the way we think, feel, and behave along

with having the will to act can help individuals to shape the social forces they face on a day to

day basis.

INTERACTIONISM

In sociology, interactionism is a theoretical perspective that understands social processes such as

conflict, cooperation, identity formation as emerging from human interaction. This perspective

study how individuals act within society and believe that meaning is produced through the

interactions of individuals. According to interactionists, gender stratification exists because

people act toward each other on the basis of the meanings they have for one another.

Interactionists believe that these meanings are derived through social interaction and that these

meanings are managed and transformed through an interpretive process that people use to make

sense of, and handle, the objects that constitute their social worlds.

FUNCTIONALIST

The functionalist perspective sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to

promote solidarity and stability. This approach looks at society through a macro-level orientation

and broadly focuses on the social structures that shape society as a whole.
Functionalism interprets each part of society in terms of how it contributes to the stability of the

whole society. Society is more than the sum of its parts; rather, each part of society is functional

for the stability of the whole. Durkheim actually envisioned society as an organism, and just like

within an organism, each component plays a necessary part, but none can function alone, and one

experiences a crisis or fails, other parts must adapt to fill the void in some way.

Within functionalist theory, the different parts of society are primarily composed of social

institutions, each of which is designed to fill different needs, and each of which has particular

consequences for the form and shape of society. The parts all depend on each other. The core

institutions defined by sociology and which are important to understanding for this theory

include family, government, economy, media, education, and religion. According to

functionalism, an institution only exists because it serves a vital role in the functioning of

society. If it no longer serves a role, an institution will die away. When new needs evolve or

emerge, new institutions will be created to meet them. One perfect example of a functional

society is one where there is a relationship between and functions of some core institutions in

most societies which is the government, or state, provides education for the children of the

family, these parents pay taxes on which the state depends to keep itself running. The family is

dependent upon the school to help educate their children so they can grow up to have good jobs

so that they can raise and support their own families. In the process, the children become law-

abiding, taxpaying citizens, who in turn support the state. From the functionalist perspective, if

all goes well, the parts of society produce order, stability, and productivity. If all does not go

well, the parts of society then must adapt to produce new forms of order, stability, and

productivity.
Functionalism emphasizes the consensus and order that exist in society, focusing on social

stability and shared public values. From this perspective, disorganization in the system, such as

deviant behaviour, leads to change because societal components must adjust to achieve stability.

When one part of the system is not working or is dysfunctional, it affects all other parts and

creates social problems, which leads to social change.

CARL MARX

Karl Marx never wrote anything directly on education; however, his influence on writers,

academics, intellectuals and educators who came after him has been profound. The power of his

ideas has changed the way we look at the world. Whether you accept his analysis of society or

whether you oppose it, he cannot be ignored. As Karl Popper, a fierce opponent of Marxism has

claimed ‘all modern writers are indebted to Marx, even if they do not know it.

He was not unique in discovering the existence of classes. Others had done this before him. What

Marx did that was new was to recognize that the existence of classes was bound up with

particular modes of production or economic structure and that the proletariat, the new working

class that Capitalism had created, had a historical potential leading to the abolition of all classes

and to the creation of a classless society.

EDUCATION

Karl Marx’s relevance to knowledge and education

Karl Marx made it clear that “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life”

and what he meant by life was actual living everyday material activity. Human thought or

consciousness was rooted in human activity not the other way round as a number of philosophers

felt at the time. What this meant was the way we went about our business, the way we were

organized in our daily life was reflected in the way we thought about things and the sort of world
we created. The institutions we built, the philosophies we adhered to, the prevailing ideas of the

time, the culture of society, were all determined to some extent or another by the economic

structure of society. This did not mean that they were totally determined but were quite clearly a

spin-off from the economic base of society. The political system, the legal system, the family,

the press, the education system were all rooted, in the final analysis, to the class nature of

society, which in turn was a reflection of the economic base. Marx maintained that the economic

base or infrastructure generated or had built upon it a superstructure that kept it functioning. The

education system, as part of the superstructure, therefore, was a reflection of the economic base

and served to reproduce it. This did not mean that education and teaching was a sinister plot by

the ruling class to ensure that it kept its privileges and its domination over the rest of the

population. There were no conspirators hatching devious schemes. It simply meant that the

institutions of society, like education, were reflections of the world created by human activity

and that idea arose from and reflected the material conditions and circumstances in which they

were generated.

This relationship between base and superstructure has been the subject of fierce debate between

Marxists for many years. To what extent is the superstructure determined by the economic base?

How much of a reflection is it? Do the institutions that make up the superstructure have any

autonomy at all? If they are not autonomous, can we talk about relative autonomy when we

speak about the institutions of society? There have been furious debates on the subject and whole

forests have been decimated as a result of the need to publish contributions to the debate.

I now want to turn to Marx’s contribution to the theory of knowledge and to the problem of

ideology. Marx maintained that “the class which is the dominant material force in society is at

the same time its dominant intellectual force”. What he meant by that is that the individuals who
make up the ruling class of any age determine the agenda. They rule as thinkers, as producers of

ideas that get noticed. They control what goes by the name “common sense”. Ideas that are taken

as natural, as part of human nature, as universal concepts are given a veneer of neutrality when,

in fact, they are part of the superstructure of a class-ridden society. Marx explained that “each

new class which puts itself in the place of the one ruling before it, is compelled, simply in order

to achieve its aims, to represent its interest as the common interest of all members of society

which is to give its ideas the form of universality and to represent them as the only rational and

universally valid ones. Ideas become presented as if they are universal, neutral, common sense.

However, more subtly, we find concepts such as freedom, democracy, liberty or phrases such as

“a fair days work for a fair days pay” being banded around by opinion makers as if they were not

contentious. They are, in Marxist terms, ideological constructs, in so far as they are ideas serving

as weapons for social interests. They are put forward for people to accept in order to prop up the

system.

What Marx and Marxists would say is that ideas are not neutral. They are determined by the

existing relations of production, by the economic structure of society. Ideas change according to

the interests of the dominant class in society. Antonio Gramsci coined the phrase “ideological

hegemony” to describe the influence the ruling class has over what counts as knowledge. For

Marxists, this hegemony is exercised through institutions such as education, or the media, which

the Marxist philosopher and sociologist referred to as being part of what is called the Ideological

State Apparatus. The important thing to note about this is that it is not to be regarded as part of a

conspiracy by the ruling class. It is a natural effect of the way in which what we count as

knowledge is socially constructed. The ideology of democracy and liberty, beliefs about freedom

of the individual and competition are generated historically by the mode of production through
the agency of the dominant class. They are not neutral ideas serving the common good but ruling

class ideas accepted by everyone as if they were for the common good.

This brings us back to the notion of education as part of the super-structural support for the

economic status quo. If this is the case, there are a number of questions that need to be asked.

The first is can society be changed by education? If not, why not? Secondly, can education be

changed and if so, how?

REFERENCE

(n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/introtosociology/Documents/Field of

sociology033108.htm#whatissociology.Karl Marx and education.

(n.d.). Retrieved from http://infed.org/mobi/karl-marx-and-education/.Learning, L.

(n.d.). Introduction to Sociology. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/cochise-

sociology-os/chapter/the-interactionist-perspective/.