This conflict can arise between the working class in terms of fighting to give their labour to a better paying manufacturer and between the working class and the upper class in the class where the working class rises up to fight for the wages due to them. The working class which are the proletariats give their labour to the bourgeois and in return are given barely enough to survive while those upper class individuals remain in comfort while exploiting the labour of the working class. It claims that society is in constant conflict because of the fight for limited resources. It focuses on the inequality of different groups within the society. Ĭonflict theory which was coined by Karl Marx sees society as divided along lines of economic class between the proletarian working class and the bourgeois ruling class. Being human involves living in a world which has already been determined (Marsh, 2006). People within a society become dependent on each other for their well-being so there is no sense of individualism because each person relies on what the next person does or wants and this forces interdependence. It puts the social role the individual plays in society over the individual’s own needs. This theoretical approach was introduced by Emile Durkheim and is not safe from criticisms. Another structure is referred to as social facts are ways of doing things and thinking formed by the society before any one individual, they are unique objects that cannot be influenced by an individual, for example religious faiths.Įvery structure has a function that meets the need of a society and all structures work together to keep society balanced It is a macro level of analysis as it focuses on how the whole of society is affected by the different interdependent parts. One structure is institutions which are structures who meet the needs of society like marriage, businesses and laws. Society is made from a lot of different, connected, structures. What this means is that different parts of society are dependent on one another for the functioning of the society as a whole, for example, an increase in the crime rate can result in more arrests and in turn a need for lawyers and therefore more children going to school to study law to help society function better. Another criticism would be that George Herbert Mead focused on human interaction but not on individual thinking capabilities.įunctionalism is an approach that attempts “to relate the parts of society to the whole, and to relate one part to another. The problem is that because symbolic interactionists focus on a micro level of interaction, they fail to see the larger issue or in other words “the big picture”. Anything can be a symbol as long as it refers to someone which is not itself. We can best understand human society from this approach by the simple use of symbols or words (in the case of a text message).Įverything is subject to interpretation and something is almost never interpreted the same by more than one person, like a text message that says “bye” can sound like there is an angry underlying tone for someone, whereas for someone else it is just a message with no underlying meaning. Symbolic interactionism was traced back to Max Weber but George Herbert Mead introduced his perspective to American Sociology, he believed that the development of an individual was a social process and the meanings individuals assigned to things. This theoretical approach focuses on a micro level of analysis, meaning that it is looked at from a day to day level and not on a larger scale. Symbolic interactionism explains the individual in a society and their interactions with others and through that can explain social order and change. One example would be a wedding ring, the meaning attached to that ring is that the person is either engaged or married. Symbols are social objects used to represent whatever people agree they shall represent. Sociologists use symbols to interact with the world around them, in a nutshell, within symbolic interactionism, people attach meanings to symbols. Get original essay Symbolic Interactionalism
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