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Durkheim and Mills were alive during different time periods. Durkheim lived during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and couldn’t predict society failing. Mills, on the other hand, lived through WW2 and witnessed society fail due to the stock market crash in 1929. Since the Industrial Revolution produced a vast amount of products people were willing to buy, Durkheim felt optimistic and hopeful.
From the three main sociological perspectives I think the functionalist views on family fits the American family and how it’s changed in the last fifty years. The family creates well-integrated members of society by instilling the social culture into children (“The Functionalist Perspective.” Boundless Sociology, 21 Jul. 2015). Functionalist understand that times have changed over the last fifty years and you have to be willing to change with society. American families can’t be stuck where families were fifty years ago.
In a family there are many different roles; there's the role of the mother, the father, the child, the grandparents, then there’s the brothers and sisters. Every single one of those roles has different responsibilities. The father, according to most of society, is supposed to be the breadwinner for the family. However, nowadays the mother is actually quite capable of being the breadwinner just as much of as the father. As they work to show their children what it is to be an adult they are teaching them as well on how to be an active member of society.
The sociological imagination has three areas that are analyzed. First it can start out as an individual’s personal issue, that personal issue develops into a larger scale problem that affects both a society and then it impacts history. For example, look at how unemployment can impact society as a whole. Being from Michigan, the main industry has been automobile manufacturing on the east side of the state. When I was getting ready to graduate from college several automobile manufacturing plants were closing or downsizing.
The sociological imagination refers to Mills notion on how social forces can influence an individual. He refers to it as an ability to see situations in a broader social spectrum and see how interactions can influence an individual and situations. It is important in terms of studying society because it is a way to help us see things not how they appear to be on a surface elements but through an alternative perspective. The differences between micro and macrosociology is that micro sociology studies people at an interpersonal way, such as face to face interactions while macro sociology studies people on a much larger scale by looking at the bigger picture. A societal issue that can be studied using both perspectives would be divorce.
Sociology is the study of the society and human behavior whereas, the word perspective can be defines as a view of things in their true connection or importance. Hence, the social perspectives provide standpoints used to look at human behavior and interaction as they relate to individuals and groups within society. The social perspective emphasizes that to understand humans for not what is inside of them, but what’s influencing them that should be observed. There are four theoretical perspectives used to understand society and human behavior. The four discussed here are structure functional, consensus and conflict, the gender problem and symbolic interaction.
1.1 Introduction In this essay I will be discussing the sociological imagination and the problems of families. The sociological imagination allows us to see the difference between personal problems and public issues and be able to link them. It basically allows a person to think outside of their personal perspectives and see beyond the outer appearance. 1.2
Through sociological thinking, troubles, problems faced by an individual, and issues, problems that transcend individuals to society at large, can be attributed to a historical and societal cause. Each societal circumstance or institution that has impacted my life, has its own influence from societal beliefs of that time period. The modern family is one example of such institutions that can be attributed to a greater societal norm or belief. Family is considered by many, to be the most important aspect of their life. My mother swears by her family, while my father has excommunicated his side.
In this Essay I will compare and contrast two major theoretical perspectives in Sociology. The Functionalist theory of Emile Durkheim and the Marxist theory of Karl Marx (Giddens, 2009, p. 72) Sociology is the scientific study of social life. It describes and analyses social behaviour. It seeks to discover how human society has come to be the way it is, and reveal the social forces that shape people’s lives.
In this Essay I will compare and contrast two major theoretical perspectives in Sociology. The Functionalist theory of Emile Durkheim and the Marxist theory of Karl Marx (Giddens, 2009, p. 72) Sociology is the scientific study of social life. It describes and analyses social behaviour. It seeks to discover how human society has come
Introduction The Sociological Imagination Defined The sociological Imagination is a form of analytic thinking, a concept that enables one to take into context the set societal patterns that affect and impact both an individual and the wider society. These patterns are characterised as personal troubles and/or societal issues. Sociologist C. Wright Mills was one of the initial social scientists to have written on this concept, in one of his books titled The Sociological Imagination (1959). According to Mills (1959), the task of sociology was to understand the relationship between individuals and the society in which they lived.
(Blumer, H (1969) p. 1). According to Blumer, there are three basic premises of Symbolic interactionism. The first premise is that human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them. (Gasa and du Plessis p.154).
In a usual family, there are set roles. A father, mother, and children. Stereotypically, each role is supposed to have a set job- the father is in charge of the family, making the rules, the mother cooks and helps the children, and the children play. This stereotype is slowly changing throughout the years, and some could argue that it is different for their family. One thing that should be true in all families, is that the parents are good role models for their children, leading them in the right direction in life.
Emile Durkheim’s theories on social solidarity have been leading the debate on the effects of a shift between two types of solidarity for decades. Solidarity can be seen as the bonding force that hold our societies together. One type of solidarity is mechanical solidarity. Mechanical solidarity is a society that functions as a collective, like a machine, with the same goals, dreams and fears that are driven by the ideals of a god or religious figure. In the modern world we have transitioned into organic solidarity.
2.3 Sociological perspective: Macionis (), analyzed that sociology is efficient study of human society. Society refers to public who live in a defined region and share a way of existence. Sociology’s analysis of society is a special point of view called a sociological perspective. To define the sociological perspective there is an additional way to define that is considering the general in the particular. It tells that that sociologist look for common pattern in particular human’s behavior.
