Chapter Four Social Theories

The Relational culture theory, or RCT was developed by Jean Baker Miller. The theory was developed with the knowledge in mind that humans are naturally drawn to relationships. Humans strive towards interactions with other humans. We encounter many important relationships throughout our lives, and we achieve significant growth through the relationships we have. In relational culture theory the relationships we have are essential with humans in society. In Mirkin’s (1998) text, he mentions Miller describes RCT as central human necessity, and without them it has the potential to cause various psychological problems.

When using a Marxist lens the viewer must focus on social classes and how power is distributed throughout these classes, including who holds the power and who is inferior to that power in the society. One question that might come about when viewing the

A status hierarchy in which individuals and groups are classified on the basis of self-esteem and prestige developed mainly through economic achievement and savings of wealth and money. In 1920’s American economy began to decrease and the 1920-1921 depressions lasted about a year, but a quick improvement restore full employment by 1923. Fitzgerald tried to show that how did people easily gain their money and how do they use their money to have a good status in the society during 1920’s American economy in his novel. American writer and novelist F. Scott is known for his wavy personal life and his famous novel The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald demonstrates a Marxist critique by separating the setting into two parts called East Egg and West Egg through social-economic

Since it is already past halfway through the semester (time flies!), I have already had midterms in a couple of my classes at Wake Technical Community College. However for one of these classes (Social Psychology) we were given a split midterm in which half of it was an essay portion that was to be taken in class and the other was a multiple choice portion that was to be completed over the weekend. Although they were two pieces to the same midterm, the process of completing each one contrasted drastically in comparison with one another. From my perspective, the essay portion of the test was very high pressure because it not only required me to define, identify, and apply different psychological concepts to a real life scenario, but it forced

As William James has said “consciousness is a stream. Words such as ‘chain’ or ‘train’ do not describe it.” Taking the analogy further but with crime would showcase an unidimensional description of how deviance occurs would be the same as describing it as a train, as it is bounded by a track and never deviating from that point can be seen as analogous to Thornberry’s (1987/2011) view of earlier social control theories. A stream would then describe the trajectories that Thornberry (1987/2011), Sampson and Laub mention (1993/2011), where certain streams may have a fork that leads to two different paths, with new paths being created through erosion, this gradual buildup is similar to that of mutable nature of social control and social learning.

Native Son by Richard Wright has been deemed as one of the most influential pieces of African American literature. This novel explore many faucets of life that is predominantly found in the Black community such as class conflict, alienation by other races, and identity crisis. Yet it also pertains to all people not just one small portion of the population. The themes in this novel can be applied to the background and culture and this is what gives the novel its diversity. The ethnic and very strong racial tensions that Wright highlight are not limited to just the fights between Blacks and Whites but also highlights the discrimination against Jewish and Irish Americans. Wright did this not to only show the oppression are not just deemed

Sociology has three major sociological perspectives. Perspective is just the way of looking at the world. A theory is an arrangement of interrelated recommendations or standards intended to answer an inquiry or clarify a specific wonder. . (Ritzer and Stepnisky, n.d.) It gives us a point of view. According to functionalism society is basically a system of different parts that interconnect together in harmony to have a state of balance and social equilibrium for the whole. It is not about the individual. Instead it is about the greater good of society. The greater good is a functioning society. . (Ritzer and Stepnisky, n.d.) There is no room for the individual because focusing on the individuals causes chaos. The point of society is to

Social work, like other sciences, depends on scientific theories. Thus, what are the theories of social work and what is the theoretical practice of social work? In fact, the theories are the generalized set of ideas that describe and explains our knowledge of the world around us in an organized way. In particular, social work theory is one that helps us to do or to understand social work (Payne, 2014). In addition, the useful definition for the practice theory in social work according to Walsh, (2013). It is a coherent set of ideas about human nature, including concepts of health, illness, normalcy, and deviance, which provide verifiable or established explanations for behavior and rationales for intervention.

Social inequality always was and still is an issue of the high concern among the scholars and sociology researchers. This phenomenon has existed throughout the complete history of the development of society. Moreover, it causes active discussions about why it exists, what factors contribute to its development, and how the society was regarding this problem within different historical periods. In consideration of the relationships between the slaves and masters in antiquity, peasants and landlords in feudalism, and workers and capitalists in capitalism, it is possible to state that class inequality has always existed and is one of the ground foundations of the society. Max Weber and Karl Marx both devoted their work to the explanation of the

In any of the sciences, it is essential to break down the components of the object of study and understand them before delving into the subject and Sociology is one of the major sciences demands us to understand the basic concept of class and it’s background. So theoretically a class are like-minded people who are located at the intersection of economics, society, and politics. The Marxist claim to class rests on the distinctiveness of these three interpenetrating aspects of social life. So basically class is the division of groups based on the economic roles and position that shapes the social world they inhabit and the culture they choose to follow which in turn molds their political choices and actions. The layman ideology would be that what you are led to what our experience which inevitably leads to what you do. According to this ideology, we map people according to these three categories and when the mapping is done these classes should coincide.

In chapter 1.3 of the text we are introduced to the three major theoretical sociological paradigms, their level of analysis, and their main focus. The scope to which we explain theories can depend on the varying issues they cover. The three social paradigms range from macro/mid, macro, or micro. To better understand the difference between macro and micro, macro theories cover a great amount of issues amongst a large group of people. To the adverse, micro theories are more concentrated on a small group of people or

The social concept also social construction of reality (Social constructionism) is considered a theory of knowledge in sociology which evaluates the advancement of mutually created understandings of the world which is a basis for the formation of collective assumptions on reality.

Classical sociological theories are theories with ambition and great scope that either created in the early 1800s and 1900s in Europe. There were many sociological theorists such as Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx was important in its Time and have played a significant role in the subsequent growth and development of sociology. According to the origins of British Sociology, the market economy is a source of order, positive force, integration and harmony in society. According to Jackson (2014), there was a small elite inevitably dominates society on the grounds of enlightened self-interest. On the other hand, the anomie, considered out of any specific social context, refers to the problems

Structural theory implies that the structures of society are the most important influences upon the individuals in that society. Marx assumed that there were two main classes, i.e. the capitalists and the proletariat. Individuals belonging to the proletariat have relatively little freedom of choice and materialistic considerations dominate how society is formed. Karl Marx predicted that the rich would become richer and the poor would become poorer. In practice, in Western Europe, and in particular in the United Kingdom, the rich may have become richer, but the poor have also become richer in real terms. This means over and above the rate of inflation. This situation is not necessarily reflected in some developing

Social constructivism theory is based on a core principle which is that knowledge is constructed and negotiated socially (Bruner, 1990; Fosnot, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978; Wenger, 2000). This theory supports collaboration and meaning construction distribution roles in learning that occurs through social interaction. The concept of Collaboration is purely rooted in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory that claims that learning occurs and cannot be disconnected or detached from the social context (Vygotsky, 1978).