Theories Flashcards
According to Parsons (1951) what are the four basic needs that all societies have to satisfy?
- goal attainment: develop ways of setting goals and making decisions about how power and economic resources should be allocated
- adaption: provide adequate standards of life for survival
- integration: feel to limit conflict and bring about consensus
- latency: the unstated consequences of actions; pattern maintenance is when the young are socialised into believing the same values of older members of society
- tension management: tension managed by social institutions e.g. the family
according to Functionalists what are traditional societies?
- status is ascribed at birth
- they diffuse relationships
- particularism may mean that certain people might get special treatment due ti the group they being to
- people aim to satisfy their needs immediately
- people put the needs of the group first
according to Functionalists what are modern societies?
- status is achieved through hard work
- everyone is treated the same way
- people defer and postpone their need for gratification
- people put their needs before other people
evaluate Functionalism
- marxists and feminists argue it over emphasises the level of confuses in society and fails to recognise how much conflict happens
- Parson ignores the differences in power which can impact on society
- Parson views individuals as puppets and fails to realise that people have free will
- Postmodernists say that it does not account for diversity and instability within society
what are the three different types of Neo-Marxism
- humanistic Marxism: argue that workers are active agents who can use their free will to resist capitalism
- the Frankfurt School: criticise Marxism for being an economic determinist
- structuralist/scientific Marxism: focuses on the superstructure of capitalist society
what is cultural hemogony?
-the bourgeousie have won consent to rule from society because the agencies that make up the superstructure have; successfully persuaded society of the legitimacy of ruling class ideology so achieve cultural domination or hemogony/ offered concessions e.g. the welfare state
what is a dual class consciousness?
-the working class can see through ruling class ideology and develop their own ideas
explain the ideas of the Frankfurt school
- it is important to understand why workers rationally choose to work in conditions which they recognise as exploitative
- Marcuse (1964) stresses the role of mass or popular culture in the exploitation and that the role of popular entertainment was to distract the working class from inequality and to discourage critical thinking
- advertisers encourage workers as consumers to purse ‘false needs’
explain structuralist/ scientific marxism
- Althusser (1969) argued that capitalist societies were made up of four components
- the economic system is responsible for the manufacture of goods and control over most of society
- the super structure/ideological state apparatus disseminate ruling class ideology which aims to reproduce and legitimise class inequality
- the political system can choose to exercise ideological or repressive power
- the repressive state apparatus uses forces such as the police or military to impose its will on people
evaluate neo-marxism
- humanistic marxism may be accused of understating the influence of economic factors and overstating the choice of free will
- Althusser replaced economic determinism and replaced it with structural determinism where peoples thoughts and actions are shaped by the ideological state apparatuses
explain the triple system theory
- Walaby (1992) has drawn together the three types of feminism
- she argues that patriarchy intersects with capitalism and racism to produce a triple form of gender inequality
what are the six parts of the triple system
- economy: when women enter work they generally experience lower pay rates
- family: the distribution of housework and child-care is unequal
- mass media: represents females in a narrow range of social roles
- the state: it acts in the interests of men and laws are poor at protecting women from abuse or discrimination
- personal relationships: a double standard exists where men are encouraged to be sexually active while women are negatively labelled if they do the same
- violence: some men use violence as a form of power
what is essentialism?
-the ice that women have a universal experience of patriarchy
what is ethnocentrism?
-they have evaluated the experience of women in other cultures according to their own cultural experiences of patriarchy and have failed to appreciate the global diversity of women’s oppression
what are postmodern feminist views?
-they reject essentialism and emphasises differences between groups of women based on a range of characteristics
