Theory and methods - key theorists Flashcards
What did Althusser say about the structure of society?
> Society has three structures/levels: economic, political and ideological.
The economic level dominated in capitalism
The state performs the political and ideological functions that ensure the reproduction of capitalism
The state has two apparatuses: repressive state apparatus (army, police); the ideological state apparatuses (education media)
The ISA manipulates the working class into accepting capitalism as legitimate
Freewill is an illusion - everything is the product of underlying structures
Change will come when a crisis in capitalism causes it to collapse
What did Crenshaw say about intersectionality?
> Intersectionality describes how race, class, gender and other personal characteristics ‘intersect’ with one another and overlap.
Researchers should think beyond unique attributes like skin colour and gender and recognise that humans often have more than one characteristic that is subject to discrimination or hostility.
While a woman may experience sexism, a black lesbian will be at risk of experiencing sexism, racism and homophobia.
Researchers cannot fully understand the lived experience of someone else. However, they can listen to and respect people when they share their experiences.
What did Goffman say about how we construct our ‘self’?
> We carry out ‘impression management’ through props, gestures, etc
We seek to present a particular image of ourselves to our audiences
There is ‘front stage’ where we act out our roles, but ‘backstage’ we can be ourselves
There may be role distance between our real self and our roles
What did Parsons say about society as a system?
> Organic analogy - society like a biological organism
Society has system needs - AGIL schema
Different parts of society have different functions
Value consensus makes social order possible
Parsons’ model of society is like a series of building blocks: normas, status roles, instututions, sub-systems and the social system
Traditional and modern societies have different sets of norms (pattern variables)
As societies develop functionally specialised institutions develop (structural differentiation)
What were Marx’s main ideas and concepts?
> Historical materialism
Class society and exploitation
Capitalism
Ideology
Alienation
The state, revoltion and communism
What did Mead say about the meanings we give to situations?
> We create the social world through our interactions
He distinguished between symbols and instincts
There is an interpretive phase between a stimulus and our reponse to it
We interpret other people’s meanings through taking the role of the other
What did Phipps say about feminism in society today?
> Was critical of the whiteness of mainstream feminist campaigns against sexual violence (#metoo)
She argues that these centre on privileged white women at the expense of more marginalised people.
She also argued that women’s bodies are politicised through arguments such as ‘breast is best’ and ‘natural birth’ and these views stigmatise working class and minority ethnic women
What did Baudrillard say about postmodern society?
> huge expansion in media technology. >
society has an increased reliance on the media to tell us what is going on in the world.
the media creates something called ‘hyper reality’ where what we see in the media is different from and yet more real than reality.
the media coverage of war for example is different to reality, yet is the only reality most of us know.
The media is thus a world different from reality, and thus a modernist project that focuses on how ‘reality’ influences people’s lives and how we should try to ‘improve’ society seams irrelevant in a society where most people have not lived experience of this social reality.
What did Beck say about risk society?
> We now face high consequence risks e.g. environmental harm
These manufactured risks result from technology not nature
We can make rational plans based on objective knowledge to reduce risks and achieve progress
What did Giddens say about late modern society?
> High modernity has two features that encourage globalisation and rapid chage
Disembedding - the lifting out of social relations from local contexts of interaction (geographical barriers are broken down but interactions are more impersonal)
Reflexivity - Tradition and custom no longer serve as a guide for how we should act
We are forced to become reflexive - to reflect on and modify our actions in the light of information about risks
We are constantly re-evaluating our ideas so culture becomes increasingly unstable
What did Harvey say about postmodernism and globalisation?
> political decisions do make a real difference to people’s lives and that knowledge can be used to solve human problems.
society has moved from modernity to postmodernity.
postmodern culture is characterised by the importance of media images, diversity and instability.
capitalism is a dynamic system, constantly developing new technologies and ways of organising production to make profits. However, capitalism is prone to periodic crises of profitability, and these produce major changes.
the compression of time and space - The commodification of culture (for example, foreign holidays), the creation of worldwide financial markets, and new information and communications technologies, all serve to shrink the globe.
What did Kuhn say about the nature of science?
> Science operates within a paradigm which is a shard framework held by members of a given scientific community
A science cannot exist without a shared paradigm, without one will only be rival schools of thought and perspectives, not a unified science.
What did Popper say about the nature of science?
> What makes science unique is that if a statement is scientific, it is capable of being falsified (disproved) by evidence.
A good theory is one that can be falsified .
Mush of sociology is unscientific is because many of its theories cannot be proved false.
What did Weber say about the nature of science?
> Sociology cannot be a science as it only deals with the laws of cause and effect, not meanings.
> Sociologists must put themselves in the place of the actor, using what Weber calls verstehen or empathetic understanding to grasp their meanings.
What did Comte say about objectivity and values?
> Positivists, such as Comte, believe that it is possible and desirable to apply the logic and methods of the natural sciences to the study of society. Doing so will bring us true, objective knowledge of the same type as that found in the natural sciences. This will provide the basis for solving social problems and achieving progress.
