Sociology is the study of human behavior in relation to the society and includes the origin, development and network of institutions. Sociologists study the concept of sociology and employ three major theoretical perspectives which include the symbolic perspective, functionalist perspective and the conflict perspective. These greatly help to understand how society affects the behavior of people and vice versa. The symbol interaction perspectives help to consider and understand the meaning of symbols of life and how people interact with each other. According to this perspective, people attach meanings to symbols and act with respect to their interpretations. Anything can serve as a symbol as long as it has a deeper meaning beyond itself. Conversations are interactions of symbols repeated between individuals who interpret the world around them. Written music is also part of symbolic interactions since they involve the organization of notes to make musical sense. The American institution of marriage is an …show more content…
Functionalists claim that society is held together by the cohesion of people who agree to work together to achieve what is best for it. The government educates children in the society who intern pay taxes which are essential in running it. This means that the society depends on the state to educate their children who in turn grow up to become responsible law abiding, taxpaying citizens who later support the state. The functionalist perspective has been criticized for not considering the negative aspects such as divorce for the case of the marriage institution. This perspective does not encourage people to participate in changing the society even though the change benefits them. It however sees the active role as unnecessary since the various parts of society will naturally be compensated in case of any problem