Question

Social life can be interpreted from one of three major theoretical frameworks. Describe the major points of each framework. List at least one sociologist who has been identified with each framework.

Answer 1

Sociology utilizes three major theoretical frameworks: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, each providing a different perspective on social life and associated with key sociologists like Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber respectively.

Step-by-step explanation:

Sociologists use different theoretical frameworks to observe and interpret social life, each offering unique insights. These frameworks help us understand social institutions, behaviors, and interactions.

Functionalism

Associated with sociologist Émile Durkheim, functionalism views society as a complex system where each part works together to maintain stability and social order. This perspective emphasizes the importance of social institutions and their roles in maintaining social stability and functionality.

Conflict Theory

Conflict theory, identified with Karl Marx, focuses on society's inequalities and the resulting conflicts and changes. It suggests that social order is maintained through power and coercion, with societal tensions arising from differences in power, resources, and status.

Symbolic Interactionism

​Max Weber and George Herbert Mead are central figures in the development of symbolic interactionism, which explores how individuals interact based on shared meanings and symbols. It's a micro-level theory that looks at the everyday social interactions of individuals to understand society.

Answer 2

The three are: the symbolic interactionist perspective, the functionalist perspective, and the conflict perspective.

The term symbolic interaction was coined by Hebert Blumer, whose theory emphasizes the symbolism of interaction.

The main points of symbolic (more general) interactionism are: actors act according to the meaning that individuals give to the action, which is mutually oriented; Feeling is never independent of interaction; Interactions occur through their own logic.

In this theory, 'society' is more a process than a structure - the rules of social structure do not determine actions - pointing to a microsociology.

There is attention in the “action / interaction” and not in the social order, that is, stuck by the study of the order of interaction, with face-to-face relationships being privileged.

the functionalist perspective

The importance of functionalist theory is to make explicit the functions developed by the mass communications system, unlike the others it does not intend to study the effects, but the functions performed by mass communications in society.

Contributors to the functionalist theory were Hebert Spencer, Talcott Parsons, and Robert Merton. Functionalist theorists understand society as each part of society according to its function for the stability of society as a whole.

the conflict perspective

Conflict is the denial of cooperation and, according to Norberto Bobbio any social group, any historical society can be defined at any time, according to the forms of conflict and cooperation between the various actors that arise in it.

The process of defining the phenomenon involves two fundamental elements, namely: the declaration of the social structure with its respective components and the bond that unites them.

Conflict has a polysemic and transdisciplinary character, when one must consider the different approaches