Theory - theorists

Question 1

Emile Durkheim (1897)

Quantitative approach

Answer 1

• Collected quantitative data through a positive approach in his study of suicide
• Ground breaking analysis of statistical data
• Concluded social factors rather than individual personalities caused

AO3
* Interprevists argued Durkheim’s positivistic approach overlooked the meaning that lay behind not just suicidal behaviour but also how statistics were interpreted by people like coroners

Question 2

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

Structural consensus theory

Answer 2

• Functionalist
• Heavily influenced by Charles Darwin
• Emphasised the evolutionary development of society and its component parts
• Through organic analogy Spencer compared socety to the human body. Just as an organism is made up of organs tat interrelated and interdependent, then so is society made up of social institutions (e.g. family, education, work) that are interrelated and interdependent

Question 3

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Structural consensus theory

Answer 3

• Functionalist
• Deeloped an understanding of the role that consensus values played in reinforcing social order and stability in society
• Key influence on the development of functionalism
• Functionalists share Durkehim’s ideas such as the value consensus; the role core values that okay on sustaining consensus
• Emphasised the importance of a socially intergrated society held together by the collective conscience of the people
• The indiviual is the point of arrival, not depature
• Implies that individuals have little control over their own lives let alone the ability to change society

Question 4

Talcott Parsons (1902-1979)

Structural consensus theory

Answer 4

• Credited with development of structural functionalism
• Supported Durkheim’s emphasis on the role of core values in reinforcing social order and stability
• Saw agencies of socialisation as the key promoter of these core values
• Social system theory which embraces both structure and functioning
• Viewed society as a system made up of four sub-systems (economic, political, kinship, and cultural) each specifically there to meet essential human needs. Needs are referred to as imperatives/prerequisites. Society is in social equilibrium when these needs are met and a balance exists within the system and its sub-systems
• Collective conscience, describe the moral values that were core to any society, serving to bind people together. Importance of unity and social order is seen to come from the sharing of core values held throughout society. Such core values serve to intergreate society together
• Primary and secondary socialising agencies (social institutions) promote conformity by reinforcing the core valyes of society (e,g, respecting authority). Failure to conform is adressed by these agencies through sanctions of disapproval or punishment
• for society to be healthy it has to deal with 4 problems (adaption, goal attainment, intergration and latency). Called pattern maintenance

Question 5

Karl Marx

Structural conflict theory

Answer 5

• Viewed society as an economic system called capitalism
• Made up of 2 classes bourgeoise (owns wealth expressed as the means of production) and the Proletariat (Do all work, generate all their wealth)
• Interest of 2 clsses will never coincide
• Conflict was endemic with capitalism
• Despite society being fundamentally divided and unfair with oppurtunites shaped by wealth of parents most openly support society
• To explain people’s false consciousness (of their exploited position) Marx recognised that social institutions such as te family, religion etc act as diversionary institutions
• Religion is the opiate of the peoples’ omplies that religion has primarily functioned to influence people to accept their lot in life in return for the promise of a better afterlife
• Workers are too busy becomng slaves to paying the bills and supporting their families to think about their true class position
• Media offers escapism such as the consolation that we have less problems than charaters or generting unsatisifed wants by advertising the next must have product
• Bourgeois ideology to reflect the fact that dominant ideas in society reflect the interests of the dominant class
• Used analogy of the camera obscura to shoe that ideology is a set of ideas capable of making circumstances inverting our perception of reality. The workers support capitalism the very infastructure that exploits them and fills them with a sense of alienation. Ideology that pervades the superstructure therefore alters and distorts the individual’s perception of the outer world - their objective social reality
• Theory of historical materialism Marx portrayed capitalism as a stage (epoch) in history of human development. End of history will be a truly equal communist society
• Driver of social change is class conflict
• All societies are class societies with a dominant and a subordinate class

Question 6

Antonio Gramsci (1971)

Structural conflict theory

Answer 6

• Concept of hegemony
• Neo-Marxist
• Ideology was as important as economic class structure in maintaing the ruling class’ political dominance
• Concept of hegemony - that dominant groups exercise control over minority groups through ideas. Hegemony is a subtle form of control; winning over people’s support for capitalism avoids the need for coercion by agents of control (police, courts, and prisons)
• Hegemony is achieved through the legitimation of power within popular culture
• Social institutions (media, education, and religion) are used to ustify, explain and win support for the system that is actually exploiting the working-class
• Sometimes called humanist neo-Marxism because it is imbedded with people’s ideas rather than class structure

Question 7

Louis Althusser (2005)

Structural conflict theory

Answer 7

• Neo-Marxist
• Ideological state apparatus
• Places importance on the structures that suppor and transmit such ideologies - ideological state apparatuses
• These apparatuses are major social institutions that make up society (family, education, religion, media, NHS)
• Institutions legitimise inequalities by subconsciously introducing a particular set of ideas
• The ruling class maintains its power by having these apparatuses socialise the norms and values that preserve the status quo
• If these apparatuses are inadequate in fulfiling its ideological role then the state will draw upon its repressive state agencies (coercive power of riot police, armed forces)
• Sometimes called structuralist neo-Marxism because of its emphasis on the ideological role of social institutions

Question 8

The Frankfurt school

Structural conflict theory

Answer 8

• Neo-Marxist
• Credited with the development of conflict theory
• Established itself on the USA in 1930s after fleeing Nazi persucation
• Critical theory attempts to explain the perpetual power of the ruling class as stemming from subtle ideologies of consumerism and individualism which promote false class consciousness
• Culture industry whereby all forms of culture get reducted to mass culture manufactured and superficial, devoid of artistic merit but produced to entertain and keep the proletariat under conytol
• Critical theory has been credited with encouragng a questioning of everything
• Walsh (2015) claims they’re responsible for being a leading influence in the social justice movement and even the drive for political correctness

Question 9

Howard Becker (1963)

Social action theories

Answer 9

• Introduced concept of power relations and labelling theory
• Noted how powerful groups can impose labels on the less powerful
• Such labels often stick and can become self-fulfilling

Example
* Teacher lables student as ‘stupid’ or ‘troublesome’
* Can become a shared meaning
* Can then become internalised by the student who then feel an obligation to live up to the given label

Question 10

Jean Baudrillard (1985)

Postmodernist theory

Answer 10

• Sees the profileration of signs and symbols as so extensive that reality becomes confused with fiction
• The images are everything the reality nothing a condtion Baudrillard terms Simulacrum
• Ultimte vision of the future is a society that has imploeded and become like a black hole with humans traped in a type of powerless uniformity
• Not liberates as other postmodernists believe by diversity and choice

Question 11

Bruce (1999)

Postmodernist theory

Answer 11

• Global cafeteria
• Globalisaton has resulted in global brands and icons that are recognised acroos the world with people choosing as if from a global cafeteria
• Global brands (McDonalds, Coca-Cola) are available in all parts of the globe
• In the developing world they’re consumed almost in terms of sharing the american dream that is their consumption conveys a symbolic message that the individual is emulating people in the Western world and is on a journey that implies one day we will have all the materialst trappings of Western society
• Media is increasingly global and offers now hundreds of channels of choice

Question 12

Marshall McLuhan (1962)

Postmodernist theory

Answer 12

• Global village
• Technologies (internet, email, skype) all serve to shrink the world in terms of communication into a global village

Question 13

Jean-Francois Lyotard (1984)

Postmodernist theory

Answer 13

• Classic definition of postmodernism
• Incredulity toward metanarrative
• By this he means that no one believes the narrative that technology can solve all problems
• Postmodern era having 2 characteristics
  1. The search for truth is abandoned as knowledge fragments. No longer one great truth (religion, communism, nationalism etc) that unites and justifies all knowledge
  2. Statements are judged not by whether they are true but whether they’re useful