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These ____________________ are the fundamental assumptions that sociologists have about the social world , the ones that guide their thinking and research . Sociology is concerned with both the ____________________ , the large scale and the ____________________ , the smaller scale . - - - - - - - - - - Let's start with ____________________ , which originated with a French sociologist named ____________________ . He imagined society as a kind of organism , with different parts that all worked together to keep it alive and in good health . Of course , things could go wrong . But this was always imagined by this scientist as a malfunction , an illness , or a deviation from the normal functioning of things . - - - - - - - - - - So the this perspective makes this same basic assumption : society is seen as a complex system whose parts work together to promote stability and social order . And these different " ____________________ " of society are social structures , relatively stable patterns of social behavior . - - - - - - - - - - For example , this scientist was extremely interested in religion , and also in the division of labor , or how tasks in a society are divided up . And these structures are seen as fulfilling certain social functions . For instance , the family , in most societies , fulfills the function of socializing children - teaching them how to live in that society . - - - - - - - - - - ____________________ functions are intended or obvious consequences of a particular structure , while ____________________ functions are unintended or unrecognized . For example , we often think of the purpose of schools as providing children with knowledge . But schools can also help socialize children . They can have - and historically have had - the additional purpose of creating workers who listen to authority and hit deadlines . - - - - - - - - - - Now , along with functions , we also have social ____________________ , which is any social pattern that disrupts the smooth operation of society . Technological development is a powerful driver of economic improvement , for example , which is a useful function . But it's also a destabilizing force . New machines can put people out of work . Someday soon , we may see the social dysfunction of thousands of long distance truckers being displaced by self - driving vehicles . - - - - - - - - And this brings us to one of the problems with this perspective . Since it sees society as fundamentally functional and stable , it can be really bad at dealing with ____________________ . It can be bad at providing good explanations for why change happens , and it can also interpret bad things in society as having positive functions , which should therefore not be changed .
To take an extreme example , this perspective view might imagine that poverty , although harmful to people , is functional for society , because it ensures there are always people who want work . So this view might see any attempts at alleviating poverty as being potentially damaging to society . - - - - - - - - ____________________ imagine society as being composed of different groups that struggle over scarce resources - like power , money , land , food , or status . This view takes change as being fundamental to society .
The first conflict theory in sociology was the theory of class conflict , advanced by ____________________ . This theory imagines society as having different classes based on their relationships to the means of production - things like factories and raw materials . Under capitalism , two classes were the capitalists , or ____________________ , who own the means of production , and the workers , or ____________________ , who must sell their labor to survive . He saw this conflict between classes as the central conflict in society and the source inequality in power and wealth . - - - - - - - - But there are other conflict theories that focus on different kinds of groups . Race - Conflict theory , for example , was first stated sociologically by ____________________ , another founder of sociology . It understands social inequality as the result of conflict between different racial and ethnic groups . Gender - Conflict theory , meanwhile , focuses on the social inequalities between women and men . - - - - - - - - ____________________ first appeared most clearly in the work of German sociologist ____________________ and his focus on ____________________ , or " understanding . " He believed that sociology needed to focus on people's individual social situations and the meaning that they attached to them . So , because it's more micro - focused , this school of thought understands society as the product of everyday social interactions . - - - - - - - - Specifically , this school of thought is interested in understanding the shared reality that people create through their meeting with each other . . It might seem weird to say that reality can be created , but think back to the idea of raw facts versus interpretation . Waving my hand back and forth is a raw fact , but it only means that I'm waving hello to you because we've agreed to give it that meaning . - - - - - - - - For this school of thought , then , there is no big - T truth . Instead , it looks at the world we create when we assign meaning to interactions and objects . A handshake is only a greeting because we agree that it is . A dog can be a friend or food , depending on what meaning we've given it .