theory + methods

• functionalist - spencer

  influenced by Darwin, emphasised the evolutionary development of society and its component of society through his organic analogy- comparing society to the human body, just as organism is made of organs that are interrelated and interdependent, society is made up of social institutions that are interrelated and interdependent.
• functionalist - durkheim

  role that consensus values play in reinforcing social order and stability in society. developed collective conscience to describe moral values that were core to any society.
• structural functionalist - parsons


  stressed importance of the role of socialisation in promoting consensus values, arguing that a commitment to core values ensured social order. 4 subsystems:

  -economic

  -political

  -kinship

  -cultural

  each of these subsystems functions to meet essential human needs. for society to be healthy and survive it has to deal with 4 problems: adaptation, goal attainment, integration and latency.
• functionalism + marxism = top down/macro approaches as they explain the operation of society as a system.
• Marxism- marx

  The driver of social change is class conflict, all societies are class societies with a dominant and a subordinate class, the interests of these 2 classes can never coincide and ultimately the subordinate class will overthrow the dominant class. under Capitalism The dominant class = bourgeoisie, the subordinate class = the proletariat. 'bourgeois ideology'= dominant ideas in society reflect interests of dominant class.
• marx

  false class consciousness= the subordinate class can be duped and fooled into supporting the society that actually exploits it.

  'camera obscura' shows that ideology is set of ideas capable of making circumstances 'appear upside down'/'inverting' our perception of reality. workers end up supporting capitalism the very infrastructure that exploits them/fills them with alienation. ideology that pervades the superstructure alters/distorts individuals perception of outer world- objective social reality.
• marx--Institutions that can distort reality and prevent workers seeing their true class position


  • Family
  • Media
  • Religion
  • Education
• interactionism - blumer + herbert mead


  rejects any attempt to make sense of society as a system, choosing instead to try and understand the meanings behind individual actions. Micro-sociology - starting point is how individuals make sense of the world not how society works.
• interactionism- 3 key characteristics


  -focuses on the interaction between individuals and the world.

  -its interested in the actions of individuals rather than structures in which they operate.

  -it stresses the importance of individuals ability to interpret the social world, theres no objective reality instead the world is real inside head of each individual.
• interactionist perspective- self


  focuses on the self - most important part of this perspective, as individuals we are very conscious of the people around us and how they think about us and our behaviour. Self can be interpreted in 3 ways:

  • how we imagine we appear to others
  • how we imagine their judgement of that appearance
  • our response to those perceived judgements
• interactionist - beck- labelling


  noted how powerful groups can impose labels on the less powerful, such labels often stick and can become self fulfilling.
• interactionist-goffman

  developed idea of 'self' he recognised the discrepancy between our 'all too human selves and our socialised selves'. the tension is between what people expect us to do and what we spontaneously want to do.
• feminism

  structural theory in the sense that its centred on how patriarchy shapes the experiences of women across society. interpretive since it wants to make sense of womens experiences by portraying the meanings of being a woman in patriarchal society.
• liberal feminism


  gender inequality as stemming primarily from ignorance of men that derives primarily from the strength of socialisation and 'sex-role conditioning'. solution to gender inequality= education/reform men.
• marxist-feminists


  feminists who adopt marxist view that the economic dependence women have on men has been created by capitalism. serves 2 functions:

  • provide cheap female workers who can be exploited even more than men.
  • ensure that the household chores are done cheaply.

  when women enter the workforce they traditionally work in low paid/low status mainly part time jobs. solution to womens oppression is the abolition of capitalism, would eradicate the double oppression of patriarchy in the home and economic exploitation in the workplace.
• radical feminism

  most extreme form of feminism. focus their attention on the power relations between men and women. all women are oppressed by men, in particular within the home and need to break this imbalance of power through a collective identification of their interests through a sense of 'sisterhood'. see gender as a shared class identity. women share same sex class position as theyre controlled and abused b violent men. womens liberation can only be achieved by actively challenging/eradicating the prevailing systems of patriarchy.
• black feminism


  evolved as black women felt that white feminists failed to recognise that some women were oppressed not only by patriarchy but racism as well. they criticise the ethnocentricity of most feminism for being blinkered and focused on just white womens experiences. in order to eliminate womens subordination the system of racism must be challenged alongside the patriarchy and capitalism.
• post feminists


  shift towards an increasingly gender equal society has made feminism no longer relevant.
• postmodernist feminism

  now living in an increasingly fragmented and pluralistic society centred on individuality and multiple identities. recognise gender is clearly very important determinant of life chances, experiences of individual women differ. some women are oppressed more by men than others and different factor like social class,age,ehtnicity,appearance all shape/individualise womens experiences.
• new right = neo-liberal political theory


  similar to functionalism such as support for meritocratic society and traditional family but more focused on neo-liberal ideology. traditional institutions maintain social order. family is most important social institution as it socialises kids in traditional norms and values and reinforces the traditional roles of male breadwinner and female housewife. favour nuclear family and marriage is crucial. society is breaking down and this is because decline in moral standards blame family structures, welfare being overly generous, too much sexual freedom.
• postmodernity

  society is fundamentally different now than it was during era of industrialisation, argue its now characterised by its preoccupation with consumerism,shopping,style- different to old society centre on production and work. society has become fragmented and individualistic-more diversity allowing people to make personal choices in almost every field of life, doesnt recognise objective reality, reality is whats in someones head and since theres multiple versions of reality, postmodernists rejects the very idea of grand theories.
• positivism - comte

  researches society by focusing on the macro level, it does this by observing how the social structures of society influence and shape the behaviour of individuals. behaviour is influenced by external social factors , sociology should be scientific and analyse social facts. use quantitative data, use statistics to measure relationships between different factors, interested in cause and effect relationships. objective/reliable methods like questionnaires, official statistics.
• Interpretivism

  Approach advocated by Weber to truly understand human behaviour
• Verstehen


  To understand, Weber advocated this approach to understand human behaviour
• Interpretivist approach


  1. Put ourselves in the shoes of those we are studying

  2. Focus on interpreting the meanings behind peoples actions
• Weber's action theory

  Focuses on the micro level of social life - the way in which individuals behave with one another. Behaviour in Weber's action theory=Seen as agency driven, shaped by personal choice.
• interpretivists: Qualitative methods


  Used to understand human behaviour from the point of view of the individual person. Qualitative methods: Participant observation,,,Unstructured interviews. Qualitative research:Aims to build up rapport and produce a valid detailed picture.
• realists

  sociological research rarely falls into positivist or interpretivist approaches, reality is they use a combination of both. Believe that a structured reality exists but disagree this reality is necessarily directly observable. Collect both quantitative and qualitative data and tend to use each to offset the weakness of the other= use triangulation.
• structuration

  developed by Giddens to illustrate complex interplay that exists between structures and agency, argues its impossible to isolate structure and action from each other - as a result of action we create structures-e.g. choose to get married so create a family structure. Structure enables us to act, e.g. if we're unhappy in marriage we chose agency action of divorcing our partner. structure and agency cannot be viewed in isolation.
• post-structuralism


  to get the truth, researchers need to go beneath the surface of society. say that all perspectives include both structure and agency, conclude that the sensible conclusion to draw from the structure versus agency debate is that distinction doesnt so much present a problem to be solved but rather is a way describing reality.
• jackson - self-completion questionnaires


  studied lads and ladettes in year 9, researching gender and fear of failure, big sample, she used this method to explore academic goals and disruptive behaviours, academic performance and aspirations and views about ladishness and popularity. pupils responded on 5 point agreement scale with anonymity encouraging honesty. the questionnaire had to assume pupils understood her concept of 'ladishness' and there was the potential problem of pupils exaggerating their ladishness.
• archer - interviews


  studied muslim boys and education in context of race, masculinity and schooling. working with 2 non-academic asian british women, archer held group interviews using semi-structured interview schedule. she discovered that the boys were willing to talk about racism with asian interviewers but that her whiteness silenced the boys in some of the discussions - e.g. of interviewer effect.
• sissons - field experiment


  actor dressed in suit and bowler hat and then as a labourer, asked to stand in Paddington Station and ask strangers for directions to hyde park, using exact same question/words each time, sissons observed the different reactions - people responded far more positively and gave more detailed directions to the actor in a suit - variable of social class was key factor in explaining peoples reaction to being asked to give directions.
• hawthorne effect


  Mayo= undertook research at hawthorne plant of western electric company designed to increase workers productivity. found that what changed the workers work rates was the fact they were being studied rather than any of the changes consciously made by the research team, experimenter effect became known as hawthorne effect.
• fulcher + scott

  the reliability and validity of any historical document can be assessed by asking 4 questions:

  • how authentic is the document? is complete and can it e credited to particular author?
  • what were the motives for writing the document? is it creditable or exaggerated or biased?
  • is the document representative or typical?
  • are the feeling and emotions expressed in the document clear?
• archer - documents

  studied how working class ideas and identity shape young peoples life choices such as whether to go to university. she got 8 students to complete photographic diaries and found that young people who subscribe to working class youth styles were self limiting their own access to routes for academic success.
• kellett + dar - official statistics

  undertook research on whether poor childhood literacy was linked to subsequent adult poverty. their starting point was official statistics which indicated a limited improvement in literacy rates following the government targeting literacy over the 10 year period prior to their research, found that the impact of these policies had in fact been quite limited.
• neo - marxism

  took marxs ideas and interpreted them in light of changes they saw between the world in which marx made his observations and the world they saw around them. offer criticisms of traditional marxist analysis.
• neo - marxist = gramsci


  ideology just as important as economic structure in maintaining ruing class political dominance = concept of 'hegemony'= dominant groups exercise control over minority groups through ideas, its a subtle form of control - winning peoples support for capitalism through media/education/religion.
• neo-marxist =althusser

  ideological state apparatus= structures that support/transmit such ideologies. these apparatuses are major social institutions that make up society like family,education,religion,media,NHS-- legitimise inequalities by subconsciously introducing a particular set of ideas. ruling class maintains it power by having these apparatuses socialise the norms/values that preserve the status quo.