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Sociological Perspective Analysis

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Recommended: Application of symbolic interactionist theory

In many instances, it can be rather difficult to derive an explanation as to why some individuals are prejudiced or discriminatory. However, by applying the sociological perspective, one can analyze why some individuals assert this kind of aggression and/or negativity towards minority groups. Through socialization, individuals are able to observe and imitate behaviors of others (Major, 2015a). Due to this, prejudiced and discriminatory can be learned through one’s socialization (Major, 2015e). One can examine how one’s upbringing can affect his or her attitude towards another racial/ethnic group – like the White male who was prejudice against my mother and me for example. By observing this incident through the Symbolic Interactionism perspective, …show more content…

The three primary theoretical perspectives provide an explanation as to how society has influenced me, with each perspective conceptualizing society, societal forces, and human behavior. I am able to analyze my life on a micro level with Symbolic Interactionism in which I use symbols to explain how I view the world and communicate with others. Both Functionalism and Conflict Theory can be analyzed on a macro level. With Functionalism, I can inspect the relationships and interrelated parts that make up society and how these aspects of society affect my life. As for Conflict Theory, I can investigate how competition for scarce resources can also affect my …show more content…

My behaviors, characteristics, and how I am as an overall person is largely attributed to socialization. Through socialization, I am able to develop a sense of self and adopt certain values, beliefs, skills, and attitudes by observing and imitating the key players in my life. By considering the role of social categories, such as gender, race and ethnicity, and social class, I am able to have a better understanding and explanation of my behaviors and characteristics. For instance, being born as a Vietnamese-American female into the working poor social class has given me a heart full of pain and agony, a head bursting with extreme anxiety and stress, and a hand chock-full of anger and resentment. My gender, race and ethnicity, and social class have categorized me as a minority. And as a minority, I will face many impediments, such as prejudice and discrimination, that will make my life appear rather unpleasant. I have concluded, however, that these impediments are nothing more than society’s challenges. These obstacles and other social experiences have only made me become

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“We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced,” said Herbert Spencer, a famous philosopher. Prejudice is frequent everywhere and difficult to stop. It is very difficult to destroy something in someone’s mind, and it will inevitably be expressed through various methods with different degrees of subtlety. Any expression of this can hurt. Subsequently, in Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, the main theme is that prejudice is everywhere, and can be of varying degrees.

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Prejudice can control the minds of people and turn them into something they are

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The “Outsiders” made me think about the rules that groups give us are strongly founded on what they see as defiance. It made me think that some rules are given within a group are not remotely necessary and that we as a society are to blame for what is deemed as “socially acceptable”. Deviants may not even be actually deviants but that’s what they are labeled by society because they think, what the deviant did was wrong, which could be made up by what society thinks is okay behavior. The relation to this reading and the sociology course shows how society controls us and how they consider we should act. It reminded me of how society tells us as women that showing off our body parts is deemed as trashy and not lady like, but men can do so without

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Much of what we know about societies, relationships, and social behavior has emerged thanks to various sociology theories. Herbert Blumer, a former student and interpreter of Mead, coined the term ‘symbolic interactionism’ and put forward an influential summary of the perspective stating that: people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them. Serial killers could be described as symbolic interaction theory. the view of social behavior that emphasizes linguistic or gestural communication and its subjective understanding, especially the role of language in the formation of the child as a social being. Some theories have fallen out of favor, while others remain widely accepted, but all contributed tremendously to our understanding of society.

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464 Words | 2 Pages

The Blind Side is explored and defined through several different messages. Views on race are examined and thoroughly described through the sociological concepts; Minority group, racial minority group, prejudice, stereotypes and differential in power. Throughout the entire movie an example that was presented in a sociological perspective is minority group; Experiences systematic advantages and has visible identifying trait. The group is self- conscious, and membership is usually determined at birth (Healey, Pg.9).

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1196 Words | 5 Pages

Around the world, sociologists have researched on human behavior, observing people’s daily decisions and choices, which ultimately causes an effect to the rest of the society. The sociological perspective is how sociologists see the world, a perspective on human behavior and the connections between the behavior of the individual people and structures of society in which we live in. Although there is an overarching view in the sociological perspective, there still lies the different levels and interpretations of it. The three notable sociological perspectives are: symbolic interactionism, functionalism and conflict theory. While symbolism focuses on the face-to-face interactions, functionalism and conflict theory work more on a macro level,

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950 Words | 4 Pages

Another example of this is when two teenaged girls who were best friends were murdered in Detroit by gang members, the parents of these girls had to alter the meaning of their lives due to this horrendous life experience. This assumption leads to the assumptions that human beings have the capacity for thought and that the capacity for thought are developed by interacting with others. Unlike structured functionalism and social conflict, one of symbolic interactionalism’s limitations is that it focuses too much on the micro picture and not the macro. It also does not pay attention to power

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92 Words | 1 Pages

In sociology, there are three theoretical perspectives; symbolic interactionism, functional analysis and conflict theory. The major point of symbolic interactionism is to use symbols to help understand how we as a society view the world, and how we communicate with one another. In functional analysis, the major point is to look at society as a whole, constructed of various parts, or groups, that all have their own function. Lastly, conflict theory is the opposite of functional analysis. In this perspective, society is viewed as different groups, each competing for power, or dominance.

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1000 Words | 4 Pages

In this interview, C.P. Ellis illustrates his racist transformation after interacting with African-Americans. Although, there is not a simple answer to what causes prejudice, three of Parrillo’s theories that have an immense influence on becoming prejudice are socialization, economic competition and social norms. A theory presented by Parrillo, is the theory of the socialization process where individuals are heavily molded by the beliefs of those around them, resulting in the individual carrying on prejudiced beliefs. Parrillo defines, “in the socialization process individuals acquire the values, attitudes,

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917 Words | 4 Pages

One would think prejudice is a thing of the past. Unfortunately, that is not the case, prejudice is still a common factor in todays society. Vincent N. Parrillo’s essay “Causes of Prejudice,” helped me to understand how we are affected not just psychologically but in a sociological way as well, as John A. Camacho explains in his A Few Bad Apples opinion piece published in the Pacific Daily News. Both forms of prejudice are continued to be explained through Stud Turkel’s “C.P Ellis,” he gives us an understanding of psychological and sociological prejudice through C.P Ellis’own experiences. This furthers our understanding on how we can be affected by both psychological and sociological prejudices.

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1180 Words | 5 Pages

With this remark, Ellis reveals that he felt as if it was his obligation to blame the black community because of his father’s example. By the time Ellis shared his experience, he had a better understanding about what was the right thing to do when it comes to dealing with minorities. Ellis’ experiences support the idea that the socialization process theory is one of the causes of prejudice, however; there are other factors such as the action-orientation level of prejudice that can also contribute to prejudiced behavior. In our daily lives, we are often exposed to different scenarios, ideas, judgments, comments, and criticisms, which can influence an individual’s perspective about people from another group.

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1253 Words | 6 Pages

Racial Bias is a form of implicit bias; it is the unspoken prejudice that is embedded within our attitudes and opinions, causing us to conduct unconscious judgements or behaviours that are discriminative towards others. It is can be claimed that “people are either born into their prejudice or form their beliefs at an early age. Once they are formed, nothing will change them.” However, I will argue that this statement is incorrect, and how consequently, that implicit racial bias can be reduced with experience. It is key to recognise that unconscious stereotypes don’t remain forever, through experience, individuals can be taught to unlearn the implicit racial bias from our minds so that we may not discriminate towards anyone in the future.

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1323 Words | 6 Pages

Social categorization theory developed by Turner (1978) describes the categorization of people based on salient attributes like gender, ethnicity or age, resulting in stereotyping on the basis of these differences. Social categorization theory posits that similarities and dissimilarities of demographics can lead formation of different group with resulting effects on member of in-group favorably themselves to the detriment of members of out-groups social (Turner, Brown & Tajfel, 1979). Self-categorization theory explains when individuals categorize themselves by assigning to themselves the manners, actions and other characteristics they link with association within a specific group (Schmitt, Branscombe, Silvia, Garcia, & Spears. 2016). By means of self-categorization and membership of a group, people cultivate a social identity that functions as a social-cognitive scheme (customs, standards and attitudes) for their group associated action. The tendency is for the perceiver to consider these attributes as vital to his or her own personality and thus use these attributes to label others (Hoffman Harburg, & Maier, 2014).

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Introduction Great thinkers, including Plato and Aristotle opened the doors to studying society; they based their thoughts on creating an “ideal society”. The science of Sociology was later developed in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte, who coined the word “Sociology”. He began to study society, using “critical thinking”. Comte believed that only by really understanding society could we begin to change it.

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Journal 1 Article: - Staten Island teen dies from asthma while fleeing racist crew waving gun; ‘I’m gonna shoot you, nigga!’ This story is taken from New York daily news June 3rd 2016. Staten Island is one out of the five boroughs in New York City. Witnesses described seeing a young teenaged boy running from a group of caucasians shouting racial statements while waving a gun. He died from an asthma attack while trying to flee from the group.

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