Integrated Approaches Flashcards
How do integrated approaches explain society?
Integration and structuration - how do we use structures to make things whole
- Modernist approach
Weber (1960s)
- The original social action theorist as he rejected structural approaches as too deterministic
- However, he recognised that people did not have complete free choice due to constraining structures of inequality - we do not all have the same access to choice, and our agency and voluntarism are still restricted by structures such as education
- Class, status and party (organisations) all have an effect on the ability to make choices
- It is important to understand these factors when examining people’s actions - verstehen is essential
Giddens (1984) - Third Way sociologist / late modernist
Structuration theory:
- A combination of structure and action; they are 2 sides of the same coin and cannot be separated or examined in isolation
- The existence of social structure, like institutions and values, provide people with a framework of rules and established ways of doing things
- These enable people to live in society, and as a result they reproduce the existing structure
- Social structures can constrain human action, but also enable human action to take place in an orderly way
- People can therefore act to change social structures, as long as they go about it in the right way
- Duality of structure - structure (organisational context, rules, norms etc - what constrains us) <-> agency (decisions, actions, routines and procedures)
Ontological security (structuration theory)
Action reproduces existing structures:
- Ontological Security; the need to feel that the world around us is orderly and stable, and this encourages actions that maintain the structure rather than changing them
How does society change - reflexivity (Structuration theory)
Reflexive monitoring - we constantly reflect on our own actions and their consequences so that we can adjust our actions as needed - we bend and stretch
How does society change - unintended consequences (Structuration theory)
We may change the world around us, but this isn’t always in the way we intended.
Examples -
- The government cut railway infrastructure in the 1960s and built roads. This caused a big growth in car transport. By the 1990s, there was increased demand for trains because of congested roads, yet, train lines were poor.
- Prohibition in the 1920s was introduced to protect individuals from the evils of drunkenness. But other evils then arose such as organised crime.
Structuration theory - cont.
- Two-way process in which people are constrained or shaped by society and social institutions, but the structures can only exist as long as people continue to take actions to support them - focuses on voluntarism
- Individuals can change structures by modifying or ignoring rules or conventional ways of doing things
- People are constrained by particular laws to behave in particular ways and this allows people to go about their daily lives in an orderly fashion as most people abide by the same rules and the conformity of people allows society to continue
- Reflexivity - people reflect on their everyday lives and if decide laws are no longer relevant they campaign to change them e.g. cannabis laws - humans reinforce and destroy structures
- People do not just simply act in the way they like due to ontological security and the reactions of others limit behaviour, as even minor infringements on norms shock people (Garfinkel - breaching experiments in ethnomethodology)
Evaluation of integrated approaches
- Criticised by structuralists for over-emphasising the role of individuals and under-emphasising the role of societal structures and their constraint on people’s actions
- Criticised by action theorists for under-estimating human free will and voluntarism and over-emphasising the impact of social structures on human behaviour
- They appear to have found a happy medium between both areas of sociological theory
