structural vs action

• STRUCTURAL ACTION - top down - society shapes individuals behaviour with individuals being 'puppets' of society (deterministic)

  manipulated to serve societys functions eg. marxism, feminism, functionalism needs
• ACTION - bottom up approach - individuals shape society and act out of free will and choice (agency)

  individuals actions have meaning which shapes society eg. labelling theory
• STRUCTURAL - macro scale sees society as on ebig social system with interrelated institutions eg. family,education etc

  sociology aims to explain relationship of macro groups and their relation eg. marxists education search how SC inequalities in capitalistic structure causes w/c underachievement
• ACTION - micro scale looking at interactions of individuals and groups eg. teacher pupil

  sociology aims to uncover meanings in social interactions eg. education labelling theorists study teacher pupil interaction and effects of negative labels on w/c seeing if SFP is developed
• STRUCTURAL - positivists assuming objective social structure with positivist methods mirroring science to identify structure determining individual behaviour eg. study crime with quantitative methods of official stats
• ACTION- interpretivists as data is socially constructed by individuals through interactions

  use qualitative methods to gain verstehen and uncover meanings individuals attach to their actions
• STRUCTURATION - combines structural and action theories offers hollistic understanding - structure of society only exists as its created by individuals but individual actions influenced by society structure
• STRUCTURATION - eg. laws shape individuals behavioue but laws can be challenged and changed through micro meaning shift - cannabis gaining popularity laws relaxed on its policing
• STRUCTURATION - structure of society can only change if individuals initiated it which can be seen positive as it maintains social order