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BTEC Level 3 Health and Social Care Unit 10 Sociological Perspectives
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- Newham Sixth Form College (NEWVIc)
BTEC Level 3 Health and Social Care Unit 10 Sociological Perspectives
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lOMoARcPSD|3013804Unit 10 sociological perspectives:
P1: Explain how sociological perspectives are applied to the understanding of health and social
care?
Introduction:
Sociology can be defined as a study of the social patterning of health. Some examples of
social factors can be race, religion, gender, region, disability. Which includes Socialization,
socialization is the process through which people of society develop awareness of social norms
and values to help them achieve an identity for themselves. This is known as primary
socialization because it usually happens in early years and secondary socialization, continues
throughout life.
Interactionism:
The interactionist approach suggests that health and illness are social constructions. This
conveys that many physical and mental conditions have no objective reality but instead are
considered healthy or ill conditions. The interactionist approach has provided us with
significant studies that proves the interaction between patient and health care professionals. A
strength of this approach is that it sees humans are active, and as creative participants who can
construct their own social world, not as passive, conforming objects of socialization. However, a
weakness can be that overestimates the power of individuals to create their own realities,
ignoring the extent to which humans inhabit a world not of their own making. An example of
interactionist theory would be that the word ‘dog’ does not have any meaning in and of itself.
However, everyone understands what ‘cat’ means through our social interactions with others
and with real life cats.
Types of social action:
Instrumental rational action means whatever it takes to achieve a goal as long as it our desirable
objective. For example,
Value rational action is an action towards a goal that is desirable for its own profit. An
example of value rational action would be that many individuals who are looking in professions
such as doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants or even nursery manger are assumed to
choose any goal and accomplish it.
Traditional action is a routine action that is done without a though or choice. An
example of traditional rational action would be putting on dresses on Monday.
Affection action is an action that reveals emotion. Weber stated that affection action is important in
religion and politics movements with influential leaders who draw attention to followers based
on emotional appeal. An example would be crying with grief.
Conflict:
Conflict theories are theories that see society as being made up of two or more groups with
compatible and incompatible interests. The two main theories that we study in sociology are
Marxism and feminism which see society divided by social class and gender, respectively.
Marxist:
Marxist feminism theory is made by Karl Marx which is a political and economic theory where
society has no class. Marxist studies medical care believes that political power and economic
dominance in capitalist society. He argues that the problem is not about accessing the
healthcare services but
, lOMoARcPSD|3013804
states that the main goal of medicine is not health but profit. This implies that he thinks that
healthcare services are open to everyone but the doctors and nurses there are only helping
people to make a profit out of them.
There are two feminisms called:
liberal feminism is defined as a focus on achieving gender equality through politics. liberal
feminism believes that the major causes of gender equality are ignorance and socialisation. This
is because they do not believe that social foundations are patriarchal. This indicates that people
are gradually becoming more equal over time. As a result, it shows that girls are outperforming
boys in education, this means that there are now equal amounts of people in paid work. As
evidence this shows that men are doing more domestic work such as housework and childcare
in the household than women. people can make decisions between them; this shows that
they are becoming more equal.
Radical feminists see society as patriarchal because everything is dominated by men and in the
social class, men are the ruling class and women are the subject class. Radical feminists argue
that women have been given a dual burden of paid work, and unpaid housework and the men
benefit from women's paid earnings. This suggests that many radical feminists argue that women
endure a triple shift of paid work, domestic labour, and emotional work. Research shows that
BCSDV (British crime survey domestic violence) states that 1 in 4 all women experience DV in
their life. An advantage could be that this theory studies power and conflict in society. This
shows how there is an uneven number of power and status (wealth) between social classes.
Functionalism:
Functionalism theory is made by five theorist called August Comte, Herbert Spencer, Talcott
Parsons, Davis and Moore and Robert Merton. They stated that functionalism is a theory that
views society as a complex but orderly and stable system with interconnected structures and
functions or social pattern that operate to meet the needs of individuals in society. An
example of functionalism would be ageing. As people age, they eventually withdraw
themselves from society and are relieved from all their responsibilities which is providing an
orderly transition between generations. An advantage would be that the functionalism
approach suggests how social institution can work at two diverse levels, both fulling the
needs of every individual and meeting the needs of everyone in the society.
Another advantage can be that family is seen as key point in passing on the shared norms and
values which are common in society. A weakness of this approach can be that the theorist
does not consider functions to be performed by other institutions such as education system,
then the family. Fletcher disagrees that Parsons was false to imply that the family had lost its
values soon as industrialisation started.
Postmodernism:
Postmodernism is a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to
explain reality. In other words, postmodernism is a movement that emphasises on the truth of an
individual and refuses statements that are true to other people. Jacques Derrida stated that
many people believe to hold a holistic approach towards health and that believe that every
individual’s responsibility is to achieve health, reject any medical authority towards them and
prefer natural products such as herbs over prescribed drugs. An advantage of this approach
can be that it challenges many assumptions everyone makes as a society. This makes every
sociologist’s research differently. A weakness can be that it is difficult to argue about
postmodernism because it is a fragmented movement which shows that is not presented as part
of a method. Another weakness
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can be that Marxist theorists such as Greg Philo and David Miller declare that postmodernism
ignores the point that media is maintained by the bourgeoisie.
P2: Explain how sociological perspectives contribute to the understanding of society.
Interactionism:
Social action and interactionism can be defined as micro level,’ bottom up’ approaches that focus
on the actions and interactions of the individual. In other words, Interactionism is a social action
theory, that suggests how our actions affect society. It is a study to show how individuals
interact within society. For example, at school they would be more worried about how
students and teachers interact with each other than the role of education in society.
Interactionism states that individuals learn about society by interacting with other people.
Interactionism helps us understand society through the study on how individuals’ behaviour in
a society and believes that it is produced through the interaction of individuals. Interactionists
stated that gender stratification exists because certain people behaviour a certain way towards
others. Interactionism theory suggests that society has addressed the subjective meaning
based on how people impose on objects or even their behaviours. Subjective meanings are
given priority because it is believed that people behave in a certain way due to what they
believe and what is objectively true in their belief.
Marxist:
Marxist feminism theory is made by Karl Marx which is a political and economic theory where
society has no class. Marxist feminism argues that the major cause of women's oppression is
capitalism. A criticism of the Marxist theory is that women are seen to be a consequence of
the emergence of private property and their lack of ownership. However, from a Marxist's
perspective he argues that the nuclear family performs functions for capitalism, this means
that he sees the oppression of women in the family as the exploitation of the working class.
So, he argues that the nuclear family should be destroyed before it replaces capitalism with a
classless society. Marxist feminism argues that the major cause of women's oppression is
capitalism. He believes that women are seen to be a consequence of the emergence of
private property and their lack of ownership. However, from a Marxist's perspective he argues
that the nuclear family performs functions for capitalism, this means that he sees the oppression
of women in the family as the exploitation of the working class. So, he argues that the nuclear
family should be destroyed before it replaces capitalism with a classless society. Marxist
argues that inequalities in a society establishes on social differences. This is because he claims
that to be able to improve society, things need to be fairer to others. And then he is criticised
for ignoring significant factors such as gender and ethnicity then focusing more on social
class.
There are two types of feminism:
liberal feminism is defined as a focus on achieving gender equality through politics. liberal
feminism believes that the major causes of gender equality are ignorance and socialisation. This
is because they do not believe that social foundations are patriarchal. This indicates that people
are gradually becoming more equal over time. as a result, it shows that girls are outperforming
boys in education, this means that there are now equal amounts of people in paid work. As
evidence shows that men are doing more domestic work such as housework and childcare
in the household than women.
People can make decisions between them; this shows that they are becoming more equal.
Radical feminists see society as patriarchal because everything is dominated by men and in the
social class, men are the ruling class and women are the subject class. Radical feminists argue
that women
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