Advanced Theories

Question 1

Advanced functionalism- AGIL

Answer 1

Parsons- society is a system w its own needs, but what are the systems needs, identifies the AGIL schema
Adaption- social systems must cope with external boundary conditions like their physical environment, economic activity serves to solve the problems of adaptation (Instrumental)
Goal attainment- goals of societies have to be defined, political activity organises and directs the goal attainment of modern social systems (Instrumental)
Integration- different parts of the system must be integrated together to pursue shared goals, role of education, media and religion (Expressive)
Latency- encultured patterns of behaviour required by social system must be maintained, tensions must be managed and cultural patterns must be maintained, role of family (Expressive)
By carrying out their respective functions, four subsystems ensure that all societys needs are met and social stability is maintained

Question 2

Advanced functionalism- Social change

Answer 2

Parsons identifies two types of society- trad and modern, modern is individual self interest and universalistic standards
for parsons, change is a gradual, evolutionary process of increasing complexity, organic analogy is relevant here- changed from single amoebas to complex organisms
in trad society, a single institution (family) performs many functions, organises production and consumption (adaptation), provides political leadership (goal attainment) etc. as societies develop they lose these functions to other sub systems, parsons calls it structural differentiation, also sees gradual change occurring through dynamic equilibrium- change occurs in one part of system and so produces compensatory change in another

Question 3

Advanced functionalism- Internal critique: Merton

Answer 3

criticises three key assumptions of Parsons:
Indispensability- Parsons assumes everything in society is functionally indispensable in its existing form, for example he assumes primary socialisation is best performed by nuclear family but others may do it better
Functional unity- he assumes all parts of society are tightly integrated into single unity and each part is functional for the rest, some parts may actually be independent from the others
Universal functionalism- assumes everything in society performs positive function for society as a whole, some things may acc be dysfunctional for the others

Question 4

Advanced functionalism- External critiques: Logical and Postmodernist

Answer 4

Logical- argue functionalism is teleological (idea that things exist bc of their effect or function), functionalist claim that family exist bc children need to be socialised is teleological, real explanation of something is one that identifies its cause and logically a cause must come before its effect, also is unscientific as it is not falsifiable
Postmodernist- assumes society is stable so cannot account for the diversity and instability of todays postmodern society, functionalism is example of meta narrative but society today is too fragmented

Question 5

Advanced functionalism- External critiques: Conflict perspective

Answer 5

Marxists- unable to explain conflict and change, society is not harmonious as a whole and is based on exploitation and divided into classes w conflicting interests and unequal power, stability result of ruling class using coercion to inhibit change
conflict theorists see functionalism as conservative ideology, does not focus on change and conflict which justifies social order as inevitable

Question 6

Advanced functionalism- External critiques: Action perspective

Answer 6

Wrong- functionalism too deterministic and sees humans as shaped by society, action perspective sees that individuals create society by their interactions
functionalism reifies society- treats it as a distinct thing above individuals, with its own needs, action approach argues that society is not a thing and is constructed

Question 7

Advanced marxism

Answer 7

structural perspective that sees society as based on class conflict, bourgeoisie exploit proletariat and maintain position through repressive state apparatus and ideology and hegemony, revolution leading to communist society is inevitable
had an early classless society called primitive communism, as forces of production grow, different types of class society come and go, had three types of successive class societies - ancient society (exploitation of slaves), fuedal (exploitation of serfs) and capitalist (exploitation of free wage labourers)

Question 8

Advanced marxism- Internal criticism: Gramsci

Answer 8

humanist marxist- introduces concept of hegemony, how the ruling classes implant idea that capitalism is legitimate to the WC, proletariat must develop own counter hegemony to win leadership of society, maintain dominance through coercion and consent (hegemony)
hegemony of ruling class never fully complete bc the ruling class are a minority- need to create a power bloc by making alliances w other groups like MC and the WC have dual consciousness- ideas influence by both ruling class ideology but also material conditions of their life, can see through dominant ideology to some degree
ruling class hegemony has chance to be undermined but will only lead to revolution if they can make counter hegemonic bloc- have to offer moral and ideological leadership to society

Question 9

Advanced marxism- Internal criticism: Gramsci- Criticisms

Answer 9

accused of overemphasising the role of ideas and underemphasises role of state coercion and economic factors, may be fearful to overthrow bc of unemployment

Question 10

Advanced marxism- Internal criticism: Althusser, criticism of marx

Answer 10

structural marxist, rejects economic determinism and humanism
in marx’s og base-superstructure model, societys economic base determines its superstructure of institutions, ideologies and actions, contradictions in the base cause changes in superstructure and bring downfall of capitalism. althusser rejects this model for a more complex one Craib- structural determinism where capitalist society has three levels- economic, political and ideological. in base-superstructure there is one way causality where economic level determines everything abt the other two levels, in althussers model the other two levels have relative autonomy and can affect what happens to the economy and so we have two way causality

Question 11

Advanced marxism- Internal criticism: Althusser, criticism of humanism

Answer 11

our sense of free will and choice is illusion, everything abt us is product of underlying social structures, humanists believe that ppl use their creativity and free will to change society. Althusser argues that our free will is simply false consciousness produced by ISA, we are merely products of social structures that determine everything abt us
revolution will instead come about from crisis of capitalism bc of over determination- contradiction in the three structures resulting in whole collapse of the system

Question 12

Advanced marxism- Internal criticism: Althusser- Criticisms

Answer 12

discourages political activism by stressing the role of structural factors that individuals can do little to affect
ignores the fact it is the active struggles of the WC that can change society, he is elitist

Question 13

Advanced feminism- Liberal

Answer 13

laws and policies can secure equal opportunities for women, also call for cultural change in terms of prejudices and stereotypes
sexist attitudes are culturally constructed and transmitted through socialisation so must change societys socialisation patterns
evaluation- over optimistic, ignore possibility of deep rooted structures causing womens oppression

Question 14

Advanced feminism- Radical

Answer 14

patriarchy is universal, men are womens main enemy, all men oppress all women
patriarchal oppression is direct and personal, see the personal as political, personal relationships are political as one person dominates over another, refer to these power relationships as sexual politics
patriarchy constructs sexuality to satisfy mens desires
three ways to change oppression:
Separatism- living apart from men and so free from patriarchy, Greer- matrilocal households
Consciousness-raising- sharin experiences in women only groups
Political lesbianism- lesbianism is only non oppressive form of sexuality
evaluation- class is main form of inequality not patriarchy (marxists), no explanation as to why female subordination takes diff forms in diff societies

Question 15

Webers social action theory

Answer 15

saw both structural and action theories as necessary to understand human behaviour, adequate sociological explanations involves the level of cause (structural factors that shape peoples behaviour) and level of meaning (subjective meanings individuals attach to their actions), identifies 4 types of actions based on meaning for actor- instrumentally rational, value rational, traditional and affectual
evaluation- valuable corrective to the over emphasis on structural factors in marxism and functionalism
Schutz- too individualistic and doe not explain shared nature of meanings
difficult to apply

Question 16

Labelling theory- symbolic interactionism

Answer 16

use interactionist concepts:
definition of the situation- definition of something is a label for that thing, Thomas- if people define a situation as real then it will have real consequences, belief in something will affect how we act
looking glass self- Cooley- describes how we develop our self concept, it arises out of our ability to take the role of the other, by taking the role of the other we come to see ourselves as they see us, leads to SFP bc we become what we want others to see us as
career- Becker- extends concept to apply to groups like medical students, weed smokers, things become our master status
voluntaristic theory that emphasises free will and choice, accused of being deterministic

Question 17

Goffmans dramaturgical model- symbolic interactionism

Answer 17

describes how we actively construct our self by manipulating peoples impressions of us, uses analogies w drama as framework for analysing social interaction, we are all actors w scripts and props with the aim to give convincing performance of the role we have adopted, we seek to present a particular image of ourselves to audiences so must control impression our performance gives- study audience to see how they react, we are not really the roles we play

Question 18

Evaluation of symbolic interactionism

Answer 18

loose collection of descriptive concepts than explanatory theory, ignores wider social structures, cannot explain consistent patterns we observe in peoples behaviour, not all action is meaningful

Question 19

Symbolic interactionism

Answer 19

Mead- behaviour is not shaped by instincts, we respond to the world by giving meaning to the things that are significant to us, have to interpret meaning before we can choose a response, we show our meanings through symbols (language, gestures etc), need to take the role of the other person to interpret their meaning, this develops through social interaction, to function as members of society we need the ability to see ourselves as others see us
Blumer- three key principles: our actions are based on meanings we give to events, these meanings arise from interaction process, meanings we give to situations are result of interpretive procedures we use
blumer strongly contrasts w structural theories as it does not see people as puppets of society and we have choice in how we perform our functions

Question 20

Ethnomethodology

Answer 20

Garfinkel- stems from phenomenology and rejects idea of society as a real objective structure, interested in how social order is achieved, argues social order is created from the bottom up, social order is something members actively construct everyday using their commonsense knowledge, interested in methods we use to produce meanings in the first place while interactionists look at how meanings affect people
EM sees meaning as always potentially unclear- indexicality, nothing has a fixed meaning and everything is up to interpretation which is threat to social order, cannot be huge problem as society carries on bc we have tools to deal with ambiguous meaning- reflexivity which is commonsense knowledge. Language most important in achieving reflexivity, as we describe something we create it which removes ambiguity
evaluation- denies existence of wider society seeing it as shared fiction, ignores wider structures of inequality, uncover obvious things

Question 21

Giddens structuration theory

Answer 21

duality of structure, structure and action cannot exist without the other, through our actions we produce and reproduce structures which is what makes our actions possible in the first place, illustrates this with language- language is a structure, made up of a set of rules of grammar that dictate how we use it to express meanings, action (communication) depends on existence of structure (language rules)
action generally reproduces structure bc of rules and resources, societys rules have knowledge on how to live our lives but we need resources to execute it which reproduces existing structure of society, can also change structures by monitoring our actions
evaluation- underestimates capacity of structures to resist change, doesnt actually explain what happens in society

Question 22

Postmodern vs modern society

Answer 22

postmodernism is relativist, there is no one truth, reject any theory that suggests meta narrative bc society is too diverse
Lyotard language games- if there is no true knowledge then what is there, many diff versions of the truth that compete against each other, winner of this (dominant discourse) is one who can argue their case the best and so all there is is language games

Question 23

Advantages and disadvantages of meta narratives and diverse truths

Answer 23

adv MN- provides certainty bc there is only one truth so stronger value consensus, simple
adv DT- takes everyones diff experiences into account, allows for change
disadv MN- does not account for diff experiences so how can there be only one truth, lack of choice, stops change
disadv DT- causes confusion as how can there be many truths, weak value consensus, easiest argued choice may not acc be the best one

Question 24

Postmodernity- simulacra and hyper reality

Answer 24

as we have departed from grand truths the concept of core knowledge is increasingly fuzzy, knowledge now is often fictitious and not bearing to reality and have entered a world of hyper reality, hyper reality is made up of symbols and signs that stand for something that is not reality but made up and we end up believing these are real
Baudrillard- calls such signs simulacra, signs appear more real than reality itself, critical of television

Question 25

Late modernity

Answer 25

modern era did not end and society today is just a continuation, trad meta narrative theories still have value, today the rate of social change is much faster bc of disembedding and relexivity:
disembedding is unsticking of roles in society and we become more individualistic, bc tradition no longer tells us how to act we are forced to become reflexive where we constantly monitor and modify our actions which leads to rapid social change
Beck- in Enlightenment tradition where he believes in power of reason to create better world but todays society is a risk society

Question 26

Marxism and postmodernity

Answer 26

Harvey- agree with postmodernists that we are in diff era to modern era where trad marxism grew, still see a meta narrative, post modern era is new stage of capitalism bc of economic changes of the 70s
flexible accumulation- shift away from fordism and goods now made on smaller more personalised scale

Question 27

Is sociology a science- Popper

Answer 27

Positivist, believes in importance of falsification where we should be trying to falsify (disprove) theories rather than prove, if a theory cannot be disproved then it is close to being a fact of science, good theory stands up to all attempts of being disproven and its bold (claims to explain a great deal), to be falsifiable it must be open to criticism from other scientists
believes much of sociology is unscientific bc it consists of theories that cannot be put to the test- marxism, if revolution doesnt happen then marxists are right but if it does happen then they are also right, no way of being falsified so is unscientific but they are still valuable as may become testable later

Question 28

Is sociology a science- Kuhn

Answer 28

each branch of science conforms to accepted pardigm, a model or way of doing things and a core set of ideas and beliefs, provides a framework that those scientists work with and is essentially a culture (set of norms and value), scientists who subscribe to this paradigm tend to be more successful as work more likely to be published and attract more funding
accepted paradigm in science for ages was creationism and then evolution appeared, created scientific revolution and darwin went by different paradigm so scientists then choose what paradigm they join and old one dies out as younger scientists join the new one
sociology does not have a paradigm and so not scientific as it id divided into difference schools of thought

Question 29

Is sociology a science- Realism

Answer 29

see science as broad and having closed and open systems
closed science- variables controlled, ideas measurably falsifiable, results repeatable, chem and physics
open science- cant control variables, ideas cannot always be measured to accuracy, not usually repeatable, meteorology
positivists wrong bc they only want to focus on measurable phenomena to create social facts but realists believe its still important
interpretivists wrong bc it can scientific in the open sense and meanings can in theory be studies in a scientific way

Question 30

Is sociology a science

Answer 30

positivists- see sociology as study of causes, the social facts or structures external to individuals that cause them to behave as they do, same approach as natural sciences
intepretivists- sociology is study of meaningful social action, human actions not goverened by external causes unlike events in nature and cannot be studied the same as a science

Question 31

Values- Weber and the interactionist approach

Answer 31

real facts and values are not related, a fact should not have to lead to a particular value, a value can neither be proved or disproved by facts, your value does not change the facts and ppl take diff meanings from the same fact
values help us select our research, they ensure we take moral responsibility for our research, they should not be used in data collection as you have to be objective and values help us interpret data
weber sees values as relevant to the sociologist in choosing what to research and interpreting but must be left out of data collection

Question 32

Modern positivists and value freedom

Answer 32

they made a concerned effort to approach sociology in a value free way, they wanted to be as objective as possible:
the desire to appear scientific- science concerned with fact not value so sociologists should remain morally neutral, reflects desire to make sociology respectable
social position of sociology- sociology became reliant on the state to give it work to do and became a hired hand (Gouldner) which took on other peoples problems to solve so these other people didnt want values of sociologists meddling with the work

Question 33

Committed sociology

Answer 33

Myrdal- sociologists should not only spell out their values (as weber recommends) and should openly take sides, myrdal and gouldner argue it is neither possible nor desirable to keep values out of research, value free sociology is impossible bc values bound to be reflected and undesirable bc without values theyre selling their services to the highest bidder

Question 34

Committed sociology- Becker and the underdog

Answer 34

he feels a sociologist should actively seek to represent the role of minorities and underdogs in society, previously functionalists and positivists represented the views of the powerful but sociologists should focus on underdog as theyre often powerless in society and it gives them a voice
becker- should focus on the deviant and marginalised
gouldner- should focus on those influencing political change

Question 35

Social policy

Answer 35

Func- society based on value consensus so would use science and reason to improve society, discover cause and solutions to them
Social dem- favours major distributions of wealth and income from the rich and poor, Townsend- should research social problems and eradicate them
Marx- society divided by fundamental conflict between classes
Fem- conflict between genders, see social policy as bad
NR- ppl should not depend on the state and should only have minimal involvement in society