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Summary SOC100 - Chapter 2
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Summary of 2 pages for the course SOC100 at U of T (chapter 2)
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Chapter 2 notesStructural Functionalist Theory (macro level)
- A complex system whose parts work together to promote social solidarity and stability
(created by durkehim)
- Interested in the overall structure of society and how each part of society functions and how
they are interrelated and that society works best at equilibrium
- Social structures provide rules and guidelines for how people should behave (norms and
values, anomie)
- One of the jobs of sociologists is figure out the function of each part of society
- Ex. family is an important because they teach kids to behave the way society wants them to
behave. Ex. School is responsible to teach kids how they should behave
- Structural dysfunction is caused by a lack of social solidarity (crime rates)
- Talcot Parsons researched every single part of society to see how they contribute to the
social structure.
- He discovered Manifest and Latent functions
- EX. Manifest function: schools take kids in to socialize them into the norms of our
society (positive functions) // ribbon cutting ceremonies to open a new place up
- EX. Latent Function: putting kids in school takes them away from their parent, giving
them time to work and contribute to society // those ceremonies bring people of
communities together which helps with cohesion
- NOTE: one can argue that social dysfunction can sometimes benefit us as it paves
the way for social change
Conflict theory (macro level)
- Attempt to explain social inequality and why it exists. “Who gets what? And why?”
- Karl Marx was interested in society struggles because thats when he saw opportunity for
change “how people earn their livelihood”
- He developed a relationship between inequality and industrial capitalism and discovered
tensions between profit maximization and workers trying to make a living (Bourgeoise,
Proletariat, Class Consciousness)
- Even though industrial capitalism is on longer a major factor of our lives, conflict theory
comes into play when we think about material and non-material resources that are enjoyed
by some groups more than other (money, political resources, assets)
Symbolic interactionist theory (micro level)
- Max Weber the idea that everyone can be put into 2 categories (berguiose and poreliat) is
not possible (what about white colour workers? / workers that work for high wages rather
than factories)
- Considered people who contribute to the economy for no pay (moms that take care of kids
and husbands to help them help society)
- Main theory: people are more than just bourgeoise and proletariat / wanted to focus on the
actions of individuals rather than focusing on social structures (symbol,
- Is on the basis that most things you do is to make people think something of you.
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