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Sociology - Theory and Methods > Theory > Flashcards

Theory Flashcards

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Sociology 101 flashcards
1
Q

What is meant by the conflict vs consensus divide?

A
  • Divide between those who believe society is dominated by powerful groups who run for their own advantage, and those who try and produce an advantage for everyone.
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2
Q

What do consensus theorists believe?

A
  • Cooperation is essential in society.

- Inequality is essential - we cannot all be the same.

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3
Q

What do conflict theorists believe?

A
  • Conflict is always present in society

- We need different groups of people for society to work - we need bin men as much as we need teachers.

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4
Q

What do structuralist theorists like to look at?

A
  • The whole picture - the macro approach.
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5
Q

What do structuralists believe about human behaviour?

A
  • It is shaped by society
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6
Q

What do social action theorists like to look at?

A
  • The actions of the individual rather than the whole of society - micro approach.
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7
Q

What do social actionists believe?

A
  • People control their own actions
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8
Q

What kind of society do positivists prefer?

A
  • One that you can measure
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9
Q

Who was Functionalism founded by?

A
  • Durkheim
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10
Q

What view does Functionalism support?

A
  • Consensus
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11
Q

What approach do Functionalists take?

A

Macro - looking at society from a large scale perspective

Consensus - always looking at the positives

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12
Q

What does Functionalism do?

A

Examine the structures that are used to make up society and how each part maintains a stable society.

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13
Q

What state do Functionalists believe society is heading to?

A

Equalibruim

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14
Q

What do structural approaches support?

A
  • Idea that society has power over individuals
  • Idea that the individual is controlled by society
  • Idea that behaviour is shaped by society - we learn norms, values and roles and act accordingly.
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15
Q

What do consensus approaches support?

A
  • Consensus - the agreement on what is right and wrong.
  • The idea that without consensus society would collapse.
  • Consensus and shared values enables members of society to cooperate.
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16
Q

Are New Right perspectives macro or micro approaches, and what does this mean?

A
  • Macro - they look at society as a whole.
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17
Q

When were New Right ideas popular?

A
  • In the 1970s and 1980s.
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18
Q

How do the New Right view the government and its policies?

A
  • Negatively
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19
Q

What do they believe about the welfare system?

A
  • It creates a culture of dependency.
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20
Q

Give at least two similarities between Functionalist and New Right ideas.

A

At least two from:

  • Both believe that we live in a meritocratic society.
  • Both believe that some people are naturally more talented than others.
  • Education should be designed to prepare pupils for work and support the economy.
  • Education should socialise people into having shared norms and values with the rest of society.
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21
Q

Is Marxism a macro or micro approach, and what does this mean?

A
  • Macro - it looks at society as a whole.
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22
Q

Is Marxism a conflict on consensus theory?

A

Conflict

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23
Q

What does Marx believe?

A
  • The system we live in is capitalised - thinking that everyone is only interested in themselves and materialistic items.
  • He predicted that communism will become more common and everyone will help each other.
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24
Q

Fill in the blank:

Marxism is a s___________ theory.

A
  • Structuralist
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25
Q

What do Marxists believe?

A
  • The poor become poorer and the rich become richer.
  • The bourgeoisie own most of the money and the means of production.
  • The bourgeoisie employ the proletariat, pay them very low wages and give them just enough to live.
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26
Q

What do feminists believe?

A
  • Society is patriarchal and sexist.
  • Men oppress women.
  • Education, the law and the family keep women in a second class position in society.
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27
Q

What did First Wave Feminism focus on?

A
  • Gaining suffrage for women in the early 1900s.
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28
Q

What did Second Wave Feminism focus on?

A
  • Gaining gender equality in the law.
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29
Q

Why was Third Wave Feminism developed?

A
  • Because the first and second waves were seen as essential.
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30
Q

What did Third Wave Feminism focus on?

A
  • Gaining more job opportunities for women.
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31
Q

What do liberal feminists believe?

A
  • Men and women WILL eventually be equal but that this will take time.
  • Women can gain equality through the law.
  • People’s attitudes need to change to allow for equality between men and women.
  • Sex is biologically dictated and gender can be changed through socialisation.
  • When parents stop socialising their children into specific roles then sexism in the home and workplace will stop.
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32
Q

What do radical feminists believe?

A
  • Society is patriarchal and this is the most fundamental form of conflict.
  • Men are the enemy.
  • All men oppress all women.
  • Women should live their lives separately to men.
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33
Q

What does Rich (radical feminist) believe?

A
  • All women are forced to be heterosexual and that this is not satisfying women but instead limiting them.
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34
Q

What does Brownmiller (radical feminist) believe?

A
  • Women are controlled by their fear of violence and rape of men.
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35
Q

What does Firestone (radical feminist) argue?

A
  • Women will never be equal to men because of their biology. Giving birth to children means that women are seen as second class and in need of care.
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36
Q

How can liberal feminist ideas be evaluated?

A
  • Liberal feminists are a ‘march of progress’ - they are more about progression and gradually helping women to be equal to men.
  • Liberal feminists have developed the equal pay act and sex discrimination act.
  • Both liberal and radical feminists focus on gender.
  • Marxists would criticise feminists for not considering class inequalities.
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37
Q

What is interactionalism?

A
  • The idea that we have shaped the society that we live in.
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38
Q

What do interactionalists believe?

A
  • We are not controlled by society and that, instead, that people influence each other behaviour and this behaviour influences society.
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39
Q

What is symbolic interactionalism?

A
  • The idea that humans figure out the world around them by looking out for symbols and signs.
40
Q

What do social interactionism theorists believe?

A
  • The symbols won’t mean anything without the meanings we have associated with them.
  • That the context is most important because someone can do the same action in two different situations and it will have a different meaning.
41
Q

How can interactionalism be evaluated?

A
  • Structural theories (Marxism, Feminism and Functionalism) would argue that interactionalists underestimate the importance of structures which are seen in society.
  • Marxists would argue that interactionalists do not pay enough attention to the role of capitalism and the oppression of the proletariat.
42
Q

What is modernity?

A
  • The idea of modern society where people believe more to rational thought, believing more in science and technology rather than religion.
43
Q

Fill in the blank:

Modern society is c__________

A

Capitalist

44
Q

What is globalisation?

A

The idea:

a) that the boundaries between countries have been broken.
b) of rapid change.
c) that businesses operate on an international scale.

45
Q

What do postmodernists believe?

A
  • Postmodernity is an era of diversity where people can pick and mix different aspects of life.
  • That all other theories in sociology are no longer relevant because they are focussed on modernity and we now live in postmodernity.
46
Q

How can postmodernism be evaluated?

A
  • Feminists argue that postmodernists are wrong as people are not free to choose their identity.
47
Q

What factors impact on whether sociological research succeeds in influencing social policy?

A
  • Electoral popularity.
  • Ideological and policy preferences of governments.
  • Globalisation
  • Critical sociology
  • Cost
48
Q

What beliefs do feminists have about social policy?

Give at least three examples.

A

At least three from:

  • State maintain patriarchal society and women’s oppression.
  • State policy favours marriage over family diversity.
49
Q

What have feminists campaigned for? Give at least three examples.

A

At least three from the following:

  • Equal Pay Act
  • Sex Discrimination Laws
  • Benefits for single parents
  • Refuges for female victims of domestic violence.
  • Equal rights to divorce
  • For rape within marriage to be made illegal (1991).
50
Q

What do structural approaches focus on?

A
  • A macro approach to examine society as a whole.

- Believe society shapes individuals.

51
Q

What do social action/interactionalist approaches focus on?

A
  • A micro approach which focusses on the meanings of social actions of individuals rather than social structures.
  • Believe the individual creates the society.
  • Believe individuals control their own actions.
52
Q

What do consensus approaches focus on?

A

Believe that:

  • Cooperation is essential in society.
  • Inequality is necessary for society to function.
  • Conflict is destructive to society.
53
Q

Fill in the blank:

Consensus theories believe that conflict is _______ to society.

A
  • Destructive
54
Q

What do Functionalists believe?

YEAR 13 LEVEL

A
  • There is a compatibility and integration between all parts of society.
  • Social order is needed to stop society from collapsing.
  • We have social order because individuals are integrated into society on the basis of value consensus.
55
Q

What is value consensus?

A
  • Shared agreement on norms and values
56
Q

According to Functionalists, how is social order possible?

A
  • Due to the existence of a shared culture and value consensus.
57
Q

What is Parsons’ idea of AGIL SCHEMA?

A
  • The idea that society is a system with its own needs and that the shared value system coordinates the different parts of society to ensure that these needs are met.
58
Q

What does AGIL SCHEMA stand for?

A

Adaptation - Material needs are met through the economy that needs to continue to change to allow society to change.
Goal Attainment - Goals are set and these are met through political subsystems.
Integration - People need to feel like they belong to a society, and this is met through religion, education and the media.
Latency - Society needs to be maintained over time and these are met through kinship.

59
Q

According to functionalists, what function does health perform?

A

It ensures that all workers remain in work.

60
Q

According to functionalists, what function does the family perform?

A
  • It provides primary socialisation and stabilisation of adult personalities.
61
Q

According to functionalists, what function does work perform?

A
  • Allows the economy to be provided for.
62
Q

According to functionalists, what function does religion perform?

A
  • To give people values and unite them.
63
Q

According to functionalism what function does the media perform?

A
  • Makes people aware of what is happening in society to create social order.
64
Q

According to functionalists, what function does education perform?

A
  • Provides secondary socialisation through norms and values, and teaches students universalistic values.
65
Q

According to functionalists, what function does the law perform?

A
  • Reinforces norms and values.
66
Q

According to functionalists, what function does politics perform?

A
  • It aims to keep social order.
67
Q

Give at least one criticism of Functionalism according to conflict perspectives.

A

At least one from:

  • Functionalists cannot explain conflict and social change.
  • Functionalism is a conservative ideology that seeks to justify the existing social order as inevitable and desirable.
68
Q

Give at least one criticism of Functionalism according to postmodernists.

A

At least one from:

  • Functionalism is merely another meta narrative, trying to produce an entire theory to explain how the world works.
  • Meta narratives such as Functionalism cannot explain how society works because today’s society is becoming easily fragmented.
69
Q

Give at least one logical criticism of of Functionalism.

A

At least one from:

  • Popper would accuse functionalism of being unscientific because it cannot be falsified by test.
  • Functionalists claim that deviance is both functional (by reinforcing norms and values) and dysfunctional (societies needs can only be met if people conform) at the same time. Therefore, it cannot be falsified which means functionalism is not scientific.
70
Q

With regards to Marx, what is materialism?

A
  • Leo view that humans have material needs such as food and shelter, and must work to meet them using the forces of production.
71
Q

What does Marx believe to be the forces of materialism?

A
  • First, these forces are just on aged labour but over time these develop as people develop tools and machines to help.
72
Q

What does Marx believe with regards to historical materialism?

Give at least one example.

A

At least one from:

  • Humans cooperate with each other, entering into social relations of production - ways of organising production.
  • Relations of production going to change. A Division of labour develops that eventually becomes a division between two classes - A class that owns the means of production and the class of labourers.
  • Production is then directed by class owners to meet their own needs.
73
Q 
What does Marx believe with regards to class society and exploitation?
Give at least one example.
A

At least one from:

  • In the earliest stage of human history, everything was shared and there were no class divisions.
  • As the forces of production grow different types of class in society develop.
74
Q

What are three classes in which Marx identifies?

A

1) Ancient society: based on the exploitation of slaves legally tied to their owners.
2) Feudal society: based on the exploitation of serfs legally tied to their land.
3) Capitalist society: based on the exploitation of free wage labourers.

75
Q

Give at least two examples of the features of Capitalism in which Marx identifies.

A

At least two from:

  • The proletariat are legally free and separated from the means of production, I have to sell their labour power to the bourgeoisie in exchange for wages.
  • Through competition, ownership of the means of production becomes concentrated in even fewer hands e.g. large transnational companies. These drives small independent producers into the ranks of the proletariat and they become proletarianised.
  • Competition also forces capitalists to pay the lowest wages possible causing impoverishment of the proletariat.
  • Capitalism continued continually expands the forces of production in its own pursuit of profit, production becomes concentrated in ever large units and technological advances deskill the workforce.
76
Q

What does Marx believe about class consciousness? Give at least two examples.

A

At least two from:

  • Capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
  • Polarising the classes, bringing the proletariat together in ever large numbers and driving down their wages means capitalism creates the conditions under which the working class can develop consciousness.
  • The proletariat then moves from being merely a class in itself to becoming in class for itself, whose members are class conscious and aware of the need to overthrow capitalism.
77
Q

What does Marx believe with regards to alienation?

Give at least two examples.

A

At least two from:

  • Alienation is the result of a loss of control over our labour and its products and therefore our separation from a true creative culture.
  • Under capitalism, alienation reaches its peak because workers are completely separated from and have no control over the means of production.
78
Q

What does Marx believe with regards to the state, revolution and communism?
Give at least two examples of his ideas.

A

At least two from:

  • The state exists to protect the interest of the class of owners who own it - the ruling class.
  • Previous revolutions has always been one minority class overthrowing another, but the proletarian revolution overflow is capitalism will be the first revolution by the majority against the minority.
  • It will abolish the state, create classless communist society, abolish exploitation, replace private ownership with social ownership and end alienation.
79
Q

What stages does Marx suggest society has been through?

A
  • Primitive communism.
  • Slavery
  • Feudalism
  • Capitalism
80
Q

What did Marx believe to be the result of exploitation?

A
  • Serious class conflict in capitalist society.
81
Q

What did Marx believe was responsible for false class consciousness?

A

Ideology spread by the bourgeoisie.

82
Q

Give at least three evaluation points for Marxism that support Marxist ideas.

A

At least three from:

  • There are growing disparities of wealth in Britain today.
  • Many so-called middle class people are proletarianised as far as their working conditions are concerned.
  • The collapse of communism occurred because these nations have implemented a distorted version of Marxism.
  • Marxist ideas on education are still valid to the extent that working-class children still underachieve.
  • Even though there are few left-wing media, and they quickly disappear through lack of funding most people who are wealthy enough to own and control media inevitably have right-wing views.
  • Marxism is realistic about the potential for conflict in society, whereas consensus theories are over optimistic.
  • It is and was right to stress the importance of the nations economic base, whether it is communist or capitalist, it still dictates the sort of government it will have and the government decides on the laws, types of schools and whether to commit freedom of the press.
  • It is impossible for us not to be influenced by the dominant views of our society, supporting Marxist ideas of ideological state apparatus.
  • Marxist ideas on crime are misguided. We have more reason to fear working-class street crime and corporate crime.
83
Q

Give at least three evaluation points for Marxism that oppose Marxist ideas.

A

At least three from:

  • We now have a welfare state and few people live in absolute poverty.
  • People now create their identities, preaching towards what ever image and lifestyle they want on an individual basis.
  • Society is no longer divided between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat - most people are now middle-class.
  • People can only afford to create their own identities if they have plenty of money.
  • The collapse of communism suggests that Marx’s’ ideas were misguided.
  • Marx focused too much on class, ignoring other sources of inequality such as gender and ethnicity.
  • There is increased social mobility now, with almost half of the young population going to university, undermining Marxist ideas on education.
  • Ideas are too deterministic. They ignore the individuals ability to reason and resist ideologies.
  • Marxism exaggerates the potential for conflict in society.
  • Marxism is even more relevant in a globalised world where Capitalist transnational companies exploit the people of poorer nations.
  • Marxism is a metanarrative which tries to explain everything from one viewpoint.
84
Q

Is Gramsci and humanist or structuralist marxist?

A

Humanist

85
Q

What does Gramsci argue?

A
  • He introduces the concept of hegemony to explain how the ruling class maintains its position.
  • He argued that the proletariat must develop its own counter-hegemony to win the leadership of society from the bourgeoisie.
  • He rejects economic determinism as an explanation of the change: The transition from capitalism to communism will never come about simply as a result of economic forces.
86
Q 
How does Gramsci see that the ruling class maintains its dominance over society?
Give at least one example.
A

At least one from:

  • Coercion - It uses the army, police, prisons and court of the capitalist state to force of classes to accept its rule.
  • Consent (hegemony): It uses ideas and values to persuade subordinate classes that its role is legitimate.
87
Q

What reasons does Gramsci give for the idea that the hegemony of the ruling class is never complete?

A
  • Ruling class are a minority.

- The proletariat have a dual consciousness.

88
Q

What does Gramsci believe with regards to society?

A
  • As long as the rest of society except the ruling class hegemony there will not be a revolution.
  • Humans have free will. They are free agents who make their own history. Their consciousness is central in changing the world.
89
Q

Is Althusser a structuralist or humanist marxist?

A
  • Structuralist
90
Q

What does Althusser do?

A
  • Rejects the base superstructure model in favour of a more complex one called structural determinism.
91
Q

With regards to structural determinism, what are the three levels of capitalist society?

A
  • The economic level comprising of all those activities that involve producing something in order to satisfy a need.
  • The political level comprising of all forms of organisation.
  • The ideological level involving the way that people see themselves and their world.
92
Q

How can the ideas of Gramsci be evaluated?

Give at least one example.

A

At least one from:

  • He is accused of over emphasising the role of ideas and under emphasising the role of both state coercion and economic factors.
  • Sociologists within a Marxist framework have adopted a similar approach. They stressed the role of ideas and consciousness as a basis for resisting divination and change in society.
93
Q

How can the ideas of Althusser be evaluated?

Give at least one example.

A
  • He claims to oppose both humanism and determinism but he is harsher on humanism.
  • Although he rejects economic determinism, he simply replaces it with more complex structural determinism in which everything is determined by three structures and the interrelationships between these.
  • For Humanistic Marxists, this scientific approach discourages political activism because it stresses the role of structural factors that individuals can do little to affect.
94
Q

What approach do social action theories take?

A

Interpretivist approach

95
Q

Do social action theories take a micro or macro approach?

A

Micro - concentrate on the meanings of the social actions of individuals.

96
Q

What do social actionists believe?

A
  • People are reflective beings who actively create society.

- That to understand social behaviour, we need to understand the reasons people give for their actions.

Sociology - Theory and Methods (2 decks)

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