Sociological perspectives for health and social care:
LO1: Understand sociological perspective:
P1: Explain the principle sociological perspectives:
Sociology is the study of human social relationships, their behaviours and reasons
for their behaviour. The key concepts of sociology are macro, micro, culture, values
and norms.
Norms: something that is socially accepted because members of society are used to
it, it isn’t unexpected.
Values: what is right and wrong in society, what is accepted and must be maintained.
Attitudes: perspective or judgement.
There are three main groups of sociologists; these are functionalists, Marxists and
feminists. There are other sociological groups that are not considered main, as they
are more like sub-groupings; these include Postmodernists, Neo-Marxists, and other
feminist groups such as Marxist feminists, radical feminists and black feminists.
Within society, people are placed into multiple social groupings. The three main
groupings being upper class, middleclass and working class.
Upper class is at the top of the hierarchy, it is made up of only a small number of
extended families who are wealthy. Children from these families tend to share a
common education level received from expensive private schools. The values
associated with the upper class are privilege, authority and hierarchy; they are all
considered important aspects of being part of the upper class. People who are
wealthy usually take part in more classical activities that focus on high achievements
such as opera music and ballet. This social grouping usually look down upon the
other classes and are a group that people see as closed to anyone who is not upper
class.
The middle class are those who are non-manual workers. It is mostly made up of
those who are professionals, managers, self-employed owners, white collars or
clerical workers. The middle class are more likely to have a university degree than
those in the working class. Since the middle class is mostly defined off occupation
and educational status, children of this social grouping are encouraged to do well in
education and to go onto further education. Many children will also be sent to private
schools and families will move into catchment areas to be able to send their children
to the best schools. The middle class also value home ownership, they are more
likely to own their own home and take out a mortgage than other social groupings.
They are firm believers that if they work hard enough they will be able to move up
into a higher social grouping.
, The working class are made up of manual workers and are aware of their social
class position, as they know they are at the bottom of the hierarchy. They often do
not have a service type occupation or a university degree; instead, they are likely to
work as factory workers or unskilled labourers. As many factories have closed down
in modern Britain, the traditional working class of factory workers are less important
because there is less demand for manual work over the past years.
Other social groupings include gender, age and ethnicity. Between the genders,
there are many social differences. For example, girls are more likely to do better at
school in the more academic subjects as they are surrounded by more positive role
models. As majority of primary school teachers are female, they are some of the first
high achieving people that young girls look up to. There are also differences between
age groups. Older age groups are more likely to not agree with opinions of younger
people as they are more stuck in their ways and are not likely to change their opinion
or educate themselves of things that are more recent. This creates social groupings
based on opinions. Another social group that has differences within it is ethnicity. For
example, those of Asian descent are likely to have a higher level of education as a
whole. This is because their parents push them more to do well in school. This has
advantages because it means they are likely to have better health care than ethnic
groups such as African-Caribbean’s. African-Caribbean’s stereotypically want to
achieve things instantly, they would rather have the outcome straight away than
learn and work for it. This means they are not likely to have degree level jobs, as
they did not want to work for the outcome.
When carrying out research, sociologists often look at different social institutions
individuals are surrounded by. One institution is family. When researching,
sociologists will often consider the individuals primary and secondary socialisation,
the family is a main agent present in both processes of socialisation. During primary
socialisation, the individual’s family are influential to their development and have an
effect on their social learning. Having close social connections with family members
is how children learn how to communicate and interact with others; this is when they
also start to become aware of themselves. These close relationships also teach
children to be aware of their social role, for example, the role of a sibling or a
student. As they continue this process, they learn their feelings and skills, for
example, they learn that sadness and happiness are emotional responses to
situations and that they are allowed to feel these emotions, they also learn how to
emphasize with others. Functionalists see the family as where personalities come
from, where the child has no personality at birth; the mother and father are naturally
able to train the child to fit in with society. The child’s parents are able to train them
into sharing the followed cultural norms and values to ensure they fit in with the rest
of society and feel a sense of belonging. However, Marxists disagree with the
functionalist view on primary socialisation. The Marxists view from Zaretsky is that
family are used to imprint values such as respect and appreciation of authority that
results in the child supporting the capitalist system. As a result, this gives the
