structural functionalism theory examples

Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.” But when millions of people are out of work, unemployment is best understood as a public issue because, as Mills (Mills, 1959) put it, “the very structure of opportunities has collapsed. If so, their unemployment would be their own personal trouble. If only a few people were unemployed, Mills wrote, we could reasonably explain their unemployment by saying they were lazy, lacked good work habits, and so forth. We will start with unemployment, which Mills himself discussed. To illustrate Mills’s viewpoint, let’s use our sociological imaginations to understand some contemporary social problems. Mills felt that many problems ordinarily considered private troubles are best understood as public issues, and he coined the term sociological imagination to refer to the ability to appreciate the structural basis for individual problems. Problems in society thus help account for problems that individuals experience. Public issues, whose source lies in the social structure and culture of a society, refer to social problems affecting many individuals. Examples include such different problems as eating disorders, divorce, and unemployment. Personal troubles refer to a problem affecting individuals that the affected individual, as well as other members of society, typically blame on the individual’s own personal and moral failings. Wright Mills’s (1959) (Mills, 1959) classic distinction between personal troubles and public issues. Sociology takes a different approach, as it stresses that individual problems are often rooted in problems stemming from aspects of society itself. When we hear about these individuals, it is easy to think that their problems are theirs alone, and that they and other individuals with the same problems are entirely to blame for their difficulties. For example, many people are poor and unemployed, many are in poor health, and many have family problems, drink too much alcohol, or commit crime. The way one-on-one interactions and communications behave.Many individuals experience one or more social problems personally. The people with the most toys win, and they will change the rules of the game to keep winning.ĭoes education transmit only the dominant certain cultures? The way inequities and inequalities contribute to social, political, and power differences and how they perpetuate power. How does education work to transmit culture? How each organ works to keep your body healthy (or not.)

The way each part of society functions together to contribute to the functioning of the whole. Different sociological perspectives enable sociologists to view social issues through a variety of useful lenses.

Table 1. Sociological Theories or Perspectives. Three paradigms have come to dominate sociological thinking, because they provide useful explanations: structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Paradigms are philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them. In sociology, a few theories provide broad perspectives that help explain many different aspects of social life, and these are called paradigms. Classic sociological theories are still considered important and current, but new sociological theories build upon the work of their predecessors and add to them (Calhoun 2002). Sociological theory is constantly evolving and should never be considered complete. Grand theories attempt to explain large-scale relationships and answer fundamental questions such as why societies form and why they change.

Macro-level theories relate to large-scale issues and large groups of people, while micro-level theories look at very specific relationships between individuals or small groups. Theories vary in scope depending on the scale of the issues that they are meant to explain. Theories can be used to create a testable proposition, called a hypothesis, about society (Allan 2006). A sociological theory seeks to explain social phenomena. Sociologists study social events, interactions, and patterns, and they develop a theory in an attempt to explain why things work as they do. Sociologists develop theories to explain social occurrences such as protest rallies.

Structural functionalism theory examples