Structural Functionalism Essay
Midterm Study Guide/Sociology 102/Winter 2014
Use this outline of concepts in conjunction with the lecture outlines, your lecture notes, and the assigned reading in the Ritzer textbook to prepare for the exam. A supplemental guide including study questions for the discussion section articles will be posted in a few days.
I. Structural Functionalism
A. Basic Assumptions
1. Society as a consensus on values
a. social structures, institutions, organizations, and roles all embody these common values and serve to preserve them. A function is vital to the extent it supports the dominant value system.
2. Organicism - Society as a system
a. Society is made up of parts that are inter-connected, interdependent, and purposeful. No matter …show more content…
Contrast with a Marxist explanation of inequality
C. Achieving value consensus through socialization processes: internalization, and social control - rewards and punishments
1. internalization - society motivates its members to want to fulfill its most vital functions. Teach them to believe that their society's values are just, moral, and universal. Proper internalization will make the needs of the individual congruent with the needs of society.
2. Rewards: People serve society because they expect to be rewarded with prestige. The most important or functional roles in society have the most prestige attached to them to make them the most desirable (i.e., the more prestigious a role, the more necessary a role). The conclusion is that the unequal distribution of fame, fortune and power is necessary because "society" rewards those roles that are most crucial to its maintenance and stability.
B. Talcott Parson's Functionalist Theory
1. The "motivational problem" of social order: Individuals must be socialized to serve society; to carry out social roles; at the same time, society must meet the biological and psychological needs of its …show more content…
Ralf Dahrendorf
1. The inevitability of both authority and conflict
2. critique of Marxism
3. distinction between power and authority
4. The root of all social conflict is authority relations.
5. the dichotomous nature of conflict: between those who have authority and those who do not.
6. latent interest and manifest interests
7. quasi groups, interest groups, conflict groups
8. Under what conditions do quasi groups evolve into interest groups: technical conditions, political conditions, and social conditions.
9. The counteracting effects of social mobility on interest group formation
D. Randall Collins
1. Micro Theory of Stratification
a. Society as the repetition of interaction patterns, that are constantly being negotiated and redefined.
b. Society is characterized by unequal control of the means of material production (e.g., Marx), mental production (education), emotional production (religion, culture), and coercion (force). The first three forms of production ultimately rest on control of the means of coercion.
c. Rituals that dramatize one's position in the system of stratification.
d. three-way model of occupational stratification: lower, middle, and upper class. The extent to which you give or take orders has powerful influence on one's self image, and one's attachment to the social
Use this outline of concepts in conjunction with the lecture outlines, your lecture notes, and the assigned reading in the Ritzer textbook to prepare for the exam. A supplemental guide including study questions for the discussion section articles will be posted in a few days.
I. Structural Functionalism
A. Basic Assumptions
1. Society as a consensus on values
a. social structures, institutions, organizations, and roles all embody these common values and serve to preserve them. A function is vital to the extent it supports the dominant value system.
2. Organicism - Society as a system
a. Society is made up of parts that are inter-connected, interdependent, and purposeful. No matter …show more content…
Contrast with a Marxist explanation of inequality
C. Achieving value consensus through socialization processes: internalization, and social control - rewards and punishments
1. internalization - society motivates its members to want to fulfill its most vital functions. Teach them to believe that their society's values are just, moral, and universal. Proper internalization will make the needs of the individual congruent with the needs of society.
2. Rewards: People serve society because they expect to be rewarded with prestige. The most important or functional roles in society have the most prestige attached to them to make them the most desirable (i.e., the more prestigious a role, the more necessary a role). The conclusion is that the unequal distribution of fame, fortune and power is necessary because "society" rewards those roles that are most crucial to its maintenance and stability.
B. Talcott Parson's Functionalist Theory
1. The "motivational problem" of social order: Individuals must be socialized to serve society; to carry out social roles; at the same time, society must meet the biological and psychological needs of its …show more content…
Ralf Dahrendorf
1. The inevitability of both authority and conflict
2. critique of Marxism
3. distinction between power and authority
4. The root of all social conflict is authority relations.
5. the dichotomous nature of conflict: between those who have authority and those who do not.
6. latent interest and manifest interests
7. quasi groups, interest groups, conflict groups
8. Under what conditions do quasi groups evolve into interest groups: technical conditions, political conditions, and social conditions.
9. The counteracting effects of social mobility on interest group formation
D. Randall Collins
1. Micro Theory of Stratification
a. Society as the repetition of interaction patterns, that are constantly being negotiated and redefined.
b. Society is characterized by unequal control of the means of material production (e.g., Marx), mental production (education), emotional production (religion, culture), and coercion (force). The first three forms of production ultimately rest on control of the means of coercion.
c. Rituals that dramatize one's position in the system of stratification.
d. three-way model of occupational stratification: lower, middle, and upper class. The extent to which you give or take orders has powerful influence on one's self image, and one's attachment to the social