Sociological Perspectives

Theoretically, functional analysis and the conflict theory share similarities because they both comprehend society's at a larger viewpoint and both group individuals together by class or either symbols. Rather than this functionalist approach beginning with the individual, the functionalist analysis of deviance begins with society as a whole. The functionalist perspective believes deviance serves two primary roles in creating social stability for a society. The first primary goal is systems of recognizing and punishing deviance create norms and tell members of a given society how to properly behave by laying out the guidelines of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Mainly, everyone must be aware of what behaviors are considered deviant in order to avoid an unsettling society.

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.

Here the basic line of argument is that groups come into being in a psychological sense ‘not because their members necessarily are similar to one another (although they may be); rather, a group exists when people in it realize their fate depends on the fate of the group as a whole’ (Brown 1988: 28).  Behaviour within a group: - After collecting experimental evidence, Lewin concluded that groups with a democratic setup were likely to perform better than ones with autocratic

Social Learning Theory is different from the Behaviourist Theory as it recognises the significance of cognition, as we are not submissive learners. Cognition includes mental processes used to help us make choices in what we do. We learn through: observation, modelling and indirect and direct reinforcement. Bandura believed that vicarious positive reinforcement is the most common reason for behavior modelling. A strength is that it is less deterministic than the behaviorist approach and can account for cultural differences in behaviour.

Epistemologically it takes a standpoint from subjectivists. If realities exists only in peoples minds, “subjective interaction seems to be the only way to access them” (Guba, 1990, p. 26). To many scholars, the idea of social constructivism is liberating. It can remind us that society and its meanings are not always unchangeable and fixed. In Hacking’s works he uses an example of motherhood and argues that its meanings are not unchangeable.

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Karl Marx used the word “struggle” repeatedly for the social changes in describing how society move forward. In his theory, a commodity is something that is bought and sold, or exchanged in a market. It has a “use – value” determined by the qualities of things and the purposes or needs because the commodity can satisfy human’s need and it also has a “exchange – value” determined by quantities of things and what can be gotten for them. As use – values, commodities have all of different qualities, but in terms of exchange – values, they are just different quantities and do not contain the use – value.

There are three sociological perspective approaches: The Structural-function approach, Social-conflict Approach, and Symbolic-Interaction approach. The Structural-function approach is a framework for building theory that society as complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. It forms how we are in a group

They positively or negatively affect the individual, in other words, family support might be weak for any number of reasons effecting attachment and commitment resulting in the search for others like themselves for attachment. This theory is very relevant seeing that it doesn’t reside in just one class of society. However, it does seem to be more prevalent in the poorer areas due to the lack of financial opportunities, broken families and the encouragement of education. In my own perception, the theory could go more into detail in the belief phase. I feel if the self-control part of the general theory of crime could be incorporated into the belief component of the social bond theory, it would further elaborate on the ability of an individual to commit crime believing it to be wrong to do so.

However, social critics like Marx, Sorel, Fanon and others have identified violence as an important catalyst for desirable changes in society. Violence erupts when there is an oppression of the ruled by the ruling, the powerless by the powerful, whatever the context is. Any oppression mounts tension on both sides, which at one point of time would naturally find an outlet. Whether the oppressed take the

For this reason, ethnomethodology is a practical approach in sociology to uncover social norms by disrupting which people take for granted to see how others react. In this paper, I use a series of examples of greeting to explain how norms affect people’s lives and how they construct it. The paper starts with the introduction