Perspectives in Sociology There is no clearly identifiable date when sociological theory began. However, the mid-to-late 1800s marks the period when social thought turned to what we today call sociology. There are currently three major theoretical paradigms in sociology: the structural-functionalist paradigm, the social conflict paradigm, and the symbolic-interactionist paradigm (Babbie 1994). No one of […]
Sociologists and other social theorists use the concept of social stratification to describe inequalities that exist between individuals and groups within human societies. Often, we think of stratification in terms of assets or property, but it can also occur because of other attributes, such as gender, age, religious affiliation or military rank. Individuals and groups
Among American sociologists, C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) is the best known (for Sociological Imagination) recent theorist whose work combines a conflict perspective with a strong critique of the social order. Mills was born and raised in Texas; he never left the state until he was in his twenties, when he won a research fellowship to
Critical Theory and Frankfurt School: Although all the theorists discussed in this section provide a critique of contemporary society, the term critical theory is also associated specifically with the theorists of the Frankfurt School. The work of the older Frankfurt theorists only became well-known among English-speaking sociologists in the 1960s. However, Jurgen Habermas, the most
Marx on class conflict has argued that at any one time, it is the class conflict or struggle that defines the essential character of a society. It is the product of, first, the irreconcilable differences in interest between classes and, second, the fact that a class’s common interests will encourage its members to group together
List of Sociology and Political Science Journals in SCOPUS Source Title Publisher Administrative Science Quarterly Cornell University Press Journal of Service Research SAGE Leadership Quarterly Elsevier Social Issues and Policy Review Wiley-Blackwell Government InformationQuarterly Elsevier New Media and Society SAGE American Sociological Review SAGE Cambridge Journal of Regions,Economy and Society Oxford University Press Journal of
Karl Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, on May 5, 1818 (Beilharz, 2005e). His father, a lawyer, provided the family with a fairly typical middle-class existence. Both parents were from rabbinical families, but for business reasons the father had converted to Lutheranism when Karl was very young. In 1841 Marx received his doctorate in philosophy
Auguste Comte was born in Montpelier, France, on January 19, 1798. His parents were middle class, and his father eventually rose to the position of official local agent for the tax collector. Although a precocious student, Comte never received a college-level degree. He and his whole class were dismissed from the Ecole Polytechnique for their
Alexis de Tocqueville was born on July 29, 1805, in Paris. He came from a prominent though not wealthy aristocratic family. The family had suffered during the French Revolution. Tocqueville’s parents had been arrested but managed to avoid the guillotine. Tocqueville was well educated, became a lawyer and judge (although he was not very successful
Ibn-Khaldun was born in Tunis, North Africa, on May 27, 1332. Many modern scholars, particularly Islamic scholars consider him the first Sociologist.
The Sociological Perspective The basic insight of sociology is that human behavior is shaped by the groups to which people belong and by the social interaction that takes place within those groups. We are who we are and we behave the way we do because we happen to live in a particular society at a
Georg Simmel (1858-1918) Among the great early sociologists, Simmel was the most interested in identifying universal patterns in human behavior. Whereas Marx and Weber wanted to understand what made a particular society operate, Simmel concentrated on developing what is almost a mathematics of society: a collection of statements about human relationships and social behavior that
Elite Theory Although the major elements of conflict theory were set out by Marx and Weber, a number of other theorists developed comparable ideas that have also had a significant impact on modern analysts. The most important are the elite theorists (namely Pareto, Mosca, and Michels), Thorstein Veblen, and Joseph Schumpeter. The most prominent elite
Max Weber and Conflict Theory Max Weber was born into a prominent bourgeois German family. His father was an important member of the National Liberal Party, with a seat in the Reichstag (Parliament); his mother came from a wealthy but also intensely religious and cultured background. There was considerable tension in his parents’ marriage. As
Karl Marx and Conflict Theory Conflict theory in sociology is the creation of Karl Marx. Indeed, Marxism and conflict theory are sometimes discussed as though the two were synonymous. There can also be no better example than Marxism of the close connection between a theorist’s ideas and the events of the “real world”; for it
What is Neofunctionalism? Neofunctionalism is a recent theoretical development that emerged in the mid-1980s, both in the United States and in Germany. In 1984, the American Sociological Association devoted two sessions to a conference on neofunctionalism at its annual meeting, where most of the papers presented were reappraisals and reconsiderations of the empirical implications of
Impact of Globalization on Agriculture:
Unsustainable agricultural practices are increasing like the excessive use of fertilizers.
It is the big MNCs and private players who are actually getting benefitted from agriculture in the modern globalized world and not the actual tiller of the land or the farmer.
Chicago school has been contributing to the development of the sociology field for years. The principal focus of specialists has lied in thorough research of cultural and population diversity making the city a kind of search laboratory. It should be noted that the area of urban sociology was developed and widened due to the number
Sanskritisation This concept or term was coined by M.N. Srinivas (a famous Indian Sociologist). Sanskrutization can be defined as the process by which a ‘low’ caste or tribe or other group takes over the customs, ritual, beliefs, ideology and style of life of a high and, in particular, a ‘twice-born (dwija) caste’. Impact of sanskritisation
Meaning •What is socialisation? Socialisation is an important process for the functioning and continuation of society. Different societies have different ways and methods to train their new born members so that they are able to develop their own personalities. This training of and building the personality of the child is called socialisation. •Socialisation is a
Early humans would have obtained food in a number of ways, such as gathering, hunting, scavenging, and fishing. The gathering would involve collecting plant foods such as seeds, nuts, berries, fruits, and tubers.
Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) is a profound and transformative work that interrogates the evolution of punishment and the mechanisms of power in modern societies. Foucault, a French philosopher and historian, explores the transition from public spectacles of punishment in pre-modern times to the more insidious and pervasive systems
The modern nation-state, with a centralized structure and elaborate bureaucracy, is a relatively recent human innovation (Bottomore 1979) having been in existence for only about 6,000 years (Berberoglu 1990). Prior to the rise of the state, authority was determined by kinship relations or religious rituals with no specific group charged with decision-making responsibility (Bottomore 1979).
Authority implies legitimacy or legitimate use of power. According to Weber, there are three systems of legitimation, each with its corresponding norms, which justify the power to command. It is these systems of legitimation which are designated as the followingtypes of authority. (i) Traditional authority This system of legitimation flows from traditional action. In other
Social Action: Action is ‘social’ insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course.
