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Assumptions of Conflict and Functionalist Theories Compared

Assumptions of Conflict and Functionalist Theories Compared. Conflict Theory Functionalist Theory change is ubiquitous society is relatively stable conflict is ubiquitous society is well integrated everything contributes everything is functional to change

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Assumptions of Conflict and Functionalist Theories Compared

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  1. Assumptions of Conflict and Functionalist Theories Compared Conflict Theory Functionalist Theory change is ubiquitous society is relatively stable conflict is ubiquitous society is well integrated everything contributes everything is functional to change society rests on the society is based on value coercion of some consensus by others

  2. Conflict and Meaning: Weber • Functionalism and conflict theories are STRUCTURAL: they examine how social relations affect action. They ignore how people create different meanings in similar situations and may be inspired by values to cause social change. • These were problems addressed by Weber, who advocated a sociology based on VERSTEHEN or understanding. • For example, he showed how Protestantism provided ideas of frugality that invigorated the rise of capitalism in Western Europe.

  3. Symbolic Interactionism & Ethnomethodology • SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISTS examine how people create, maintain, and change the meanings of their social worlds. They emphasize that interpretations of the same “objective reality” vary over time and space. E.g., overweight people are seen as weak-willed and unattractive in our society but as wealthy and prestigious elsewhere. • ETHNOMETHODOLOGISTS examine how people endlessly account for and justify their actions to take account of new contingencies, producing realities that are made to seem objective. E.g., suicide statistics reflect not just the number of people who have taken their own lives, but also coroners’ decisions on how to report deaths, which often depend on the feelings of family members, insurance claims, etc. • Both schools of thought have been criticized for neglecting how social structures influence behaviour.

  4. Sociological Theory: A Scientific Approach • What is a theory? • Concepts • Statements • Propositions

  5. Hypotheses • Variables

  6. THEORY: The Traditional Scientific Approach ! The TRADITIONAL (or classical approach) consists of three stages. ! Stage 1 is what takes place at the conceptual level. It consists of defining the concepts a writing a proposition stating a relationship between them.

  7. ! Stage 2 bridges the gap between the conceptual and empirical levels. It consists of devising ways to measure the concepts empirically. ! This stage includes writing a testable hypothesis that links the empirical measures of the two concepts. ! The hypothesis of stage 2 is identical to the proposition of stage 1 except that stage 2 is on the empirical level (relates empirical measures) while stage 1 is on the conceptual level and cannot be tested as it contains no empirical measures.

  8. ! Stage three (the final stage) consists of gathering and analyzing data in an attempt to verify the hypothesis.

  9. SOME EXAMPLES

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