Perspectives on social policy and sociology Flashcards
Postivism and functionalism
Early positivists, such as Comte and Durkheim, took the view that?
- Sociology is a science and would discover both the cause of social problems and scientifically based solutions to them
- Their approach was part of the enlightenment project to use science and reason to improve society
Postivism and functionalism
Funtionalists see society based on?
- Value consensus
- See the state as serving the interests of society as a whole, producing rational social policies for the good of all
- These policies help society run more smoothly, such as education policies promoting equal opportunity
Postivism and functionalism
For both functionalists and positivists, the sociologists role is to provide the state with?
- Objective, scientific information
- The sociologist is like a medical researcher whose role is to investiage social problems scientifically
Postivism and functionalism
Evaluation
Marxists argue that educational polices aimed at equalising opportunity for childern of different classes are often defeated by the influence of poverty in wider society
The social democratic perspective
Social democratic perspective
- Favours major redistribution of wealth
- Townsend (1979) - argues that sociologists should be involved in researching social problems and making policy recommendations to eradicate them
- Black report on class inequalities 37 far reaching policy recommendations for reducing these deep rooted inequalities such as free school meals and improved working conditions
The social democratic perspective
Criticisms
- Postmodernists - all knowledge produced by research is uncertain and so sociologoical findings cannot providea satisfactory basis for policy making
Marxism
In their view, the state represents the ruiling class and its social policies serve the interests of capitalism, not those of society as a whole:
- Polices provide ideological legitimation to mask capitalist exploitation e.g., the welfare state gives capitalism a human face’
- They maintain the labour force for further exploitatione.g the NHS keeps workers fit
- They are a means of preventing revolution when class conflict intensifies and threatens the stability of capitalism
Marxism
Marxists do recognise that socail polices do sometimes?
- Provide real, if limited, benefits to the w/c. However such gains are constantly threatened with reversal by capitalism’s tendency to go into periodic crises of profitability
- Therefore, research that reveals the truth about the social problems capitalism creates will not be used to formulate policies to solve these problems
- The only solution to social problems is a revolution
Marxism
Evaluation
Critics argue that marxist views on social policy and the role of sociologists are impractical and unrealistsic. Social democrats criticise them for rejecting the idea that research can help beirng about progressive policies
Feminism
How do they view society and policies?
- Society is patriarchal, benefiting men at women’s expense
- Family policies may assume that the ‘normal’ family is a conventional nuclear family with a hetrosexual married couple. If the stae assumes this and offers benefits to married couple and not benefiting ones it can create a SFP
Feminism
How has feminist research had an impact on policy?
- In education, it has influenceed policies such as learning materials that promote more positive images of females
- Many of these polices reflect the liberal feminist view that anti-discrimination reforms will ultimately bring about gender equality
- Radical fems have had an impact as well, e.g refuges for women escaping domestic violence, such as the Women’s Aid Federation supports a national network og over 500 such services
Feminism
Criticisms
Many feminists reject the view that reformist social policies can liberate women such as Marixst and radical feminists
