...influence their thinking. Marxists would describe society as dominated by the ruling class ideology where ‘the ideas of the ruling class, are, in every age, the ruling ideas’ (Marx and Engles). Pluralist ideology directly opposes the ideas of the Marxists, describing how there are many ideas and many groups, and in the presence of democracy no one claim is superior to another. Marxists can be criticised as too deterministic as sometimes the ruling class don’t have total control and the working class can break through the misleading ideas of the ruling class. Gramsci described a dual consciousness, where sometimes the working class see through the ruling class capitalist system but don’t have the option to totally reject it. Postmodernist perspectives describe metanarratives rather than ideologies. Some postmodernists would argue that metanarratives in modern society such as communism or scientific rationalism that aimed to improve the situation in society inevitably ended in disaster. The conclusion postmodernists gather from this is that postmodern society do not believe in metanarratives such as this, leading to a declining influence of ideology on our thinking. Philo and Miller have argued, however, that postmodernism is itself an ideology and supports capitalism – postmodernism is described as supportive of inequality by ignoring the fact that the poor cannot afford to consume as the wealthy can. Feminists argue that patriarchal ideology is in more control than the ideology...
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...Assignment Title:- How can we apply sociological perspectives in HSC? |STUDENT DECLARATION | |I understand the rules of plagiarism and I declare that the work produced for this assignment is my own. | | | |Student Signature ____________________________________Date_____________ | |Assignment Launch Date |Tuesday 3rd November 2011 | |Assignment Hand in Dates |Assignment 1 |2011 | | |Assignment 2 |2011 | | | | | | | |GRADING CRITERIA | |To achieve a pass grade you must show that you |To achieve a merit you must show that you are |To achieve a distinction you must show | |are able to: |able to: ...
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...Examine the reasons for the changes in the patterns of marriage In the last 30 years, the British society has experienced many changes affecting the family. There have been changes in attitudes to and expectations of family life, as well as official changes such as government legislation. Society has been affected by feminism, which has led to increased awareness of women’s rights and freedoms, as well as postmodernism and secularisation. The changes resulting have affected marriage rates, which are decreasing, and more people are now marrying later in life and more than once. More people are choosing to cohabit, either before or instead of marrying, and this is becoming increasingly common in young couples. Divorce rates have also increased in the last 30 years, following changes in legislation and attitudes. As society’s view of a ‘conventional family’ has changed over the last 30 years, the acceptable norms have widened. In the past, an unmarried woman would be looked down on, as it was expected that women would marry and invest their time in raising a family. If they didn’t, it could be presumed that could they couldn’t find a willing partner, or that there was something wrong with them. Although 95.1% of British women still marry before they are 49, it has become more acceptable to choose not to get married, and rather than being looked down on, single women are more likely to be viewed as strong, focussed, and independent. This means there is less pressure on...
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...BTEC L3 Extended Diploma Health & Social Care 2014/15 |Name of unit |Assessor | |U7 Sociological Perspectives for Health and Social Care | | | |J Gurney | |Assignment title Assignment 2 |Verifier |Date | | |B. El-Fares |12/10/10 | |Date issued: 25th Nov 2014 | |Submission date 6th Jan 2015 | |Scenario | | ...
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...Outline and Assess Sociological Explanations of Age Inequality (40 Marks) Most theoretical explanations of age inequality focus on the inequalities faced by the youth and the elderly. Functionalists look at different roles taken on during ageing and have a positive outlook of the stages of ageing as it is believed to benefit society. In contrast, Marxists focus on an underlying class struggle and believe that age is a social construct made to uphold capitalism. However, the Weberian outlook is more complex as it has an interactionist approach and delves deeper into different experiences of age. Similarly, Postmodernists stress the importance of recognising that identities have become fluid and experiences are not fixed so age inequalities have become blurred. However, many of these explanations can be criticised and it is important to note that some of them do not directly refer to age inequality but can be applied to it. The functionalist approach is that society benefits from the way it treats people according to their age. Parsons, believes that people learn their role in society according to their age. He sees a child in their teen years as someone who is going through the transition of becoming an adult, whereas old age is considered as a time of dependency, created by pensions and a drop in status as the elderly become cut off from mainstream society. Eisenstaedt agrees with this as he also argued that differential age groups enable individuals to learn and acquire new...
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...P1: Explain the principle sociological perspectives. In this assignment I will be explaining some of the different sociological perspectives in today’s society. The sociological perspectives which I will be explaining will be Functionalism, Marxism, Feminism, and interactionism, Collectivism, Postmodernism and The New Right. The first perspective which I will be explaining will be Functionalism. Functionalism is the view that our society is based onagreed norms and values. A norm is social rules that define correct behaviour in society. An example of a norm can be an individual attending school until they are the age of 18. Values are what are important to an individual and this differs in class, culture, ethnicity and gender. An example of a value which is important to most of our society is going to school, going to church or volunteering. Functionalists see social structure or the organisation of society as more important than the individual itself. They say that people are born into society and become the product if all social influences around them because they’re socialised by different institutions such as family, education, media and religion. Sociologist Talcott Parsons sees society as a system that works together to keep things running smoothly just like the human body. Social consensus is a key belief of functionalism. It allows society to continue to progress because the theory believes that we have shared norms and values in society which we must follow. Another...
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...Feminism: Feminism is a diverse, competing, and often opposing collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women, especially in terms of their social, political, and economical inequalities. One institutionally predominant type of feminism focuses on limiting or eradicating gender inequality to promote women's rights, interests, and issues in society. Another opposing type of modern feminism, with deep historical roots, focuses on earning, and establishing equity by and for women, vis-a-vis men, to promote those same rights, interests, and issues, regardless of gender considerations. Thus, as with any ideology, political movement or philosophy, there is no single, universal form of feminism that represents all feminists. The most well-known types of feminism are: liberal feminism, social feminism, radical feminism, and post-modern feminism. Liberal feminism seeks no special privileges for women and simply demand that everyone receive equal consideration without discrimination on the basis of sex. Liberal feminists would seek to remove barriers that prevent equal access for women to information technology jobs not only to provide economic equality but to provide access to higher-paying jobs for women. In contrast to liberal feminism, socialist feminism rejects individualism and positivism. Social feminism believes that technology and the social shaping of technology have often been conceptualized...
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...poetry of 1905-1914 which had reacted against the ‘excess’ of modernism in 1934, (Rose 1991: 171) “Postmodernism” became very popular. It has been used in the fields of art (Christo-Bakargiev 1987), architecture (Pevsner 1967), literature (Hassan 1971), video, economics, films (James 1991), ideology (Larrain 1994: 90-118), theology (Tilley at al 1995), and philosophy (Griffin et al 1993). In trying to understand ‘postmodern’, we have to understand ‘modern’ first. According to Rose (1991: 1), there are many related yet different meanings associated with the term ‘modern’. First of all, Arnold J. Toynbee understands modern as referring to the historical phenomenon of The most significant of the conclusions that suggest themselves is that the word ‘modern’ in the term ‘Modern Western Civilization’, can, without inaccuracy, be given a more precise and concrete connotation by being translated ‘middle class’. Western communities became ‘modern’ in the accepted Modern Western meaning of the word, just as soon as they had succeeded in producing a bourgeoisie that was both numerous enough and competent enough to become the predominant element in society. We think of the new chapter of Western history that opened at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as being ‘modern’ par excellence because, for the next four centuries and more, until the opening of a ‘post-Modern Age’ at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the middle class was in the saddle in the...
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...Sociology should abandon the task of acquiring truth about an objective reality and accept all sociological accounts have equal validity. No one theory can point the way to a modern Utopia. Developments now occurring are profound. What’s happening is a movement beyond modernity and a postmodern era is arriving. Modern societies took their inspiration from the idea that history has s shape, i.e. that it goes somewhere and leads to progress. The possibility of gaining knowledge of the world is known as modernism. The destruction of this optimism is an origin of postmodernism. It’s argued it’s not possible to arrive at a final truth about society and attempts to do so are dangerous, e.g. Marxist doctrine led to regime in Stalinist Russia. Lyotard argues there are no longer grand narratives which make sense. In a postmodern world where structural theories are obsolete and it’s inevitable that multiple claims for truth compete with each other. Therefore postmodernists claim knowledge is pluralistic. Postmodernists celebrate relativism and pluralism, emphasising people work through who they are in different ways, rather than finding out who they are on the basis of science and moral absolutes. Recently there have been changes which have caused a debate about the future of modernity: * Intellectual life is dominated by a crisis of faith in the big modern ideas of science, progress and reason * Rapid population growth and urbanisation taking place in underdeveloped world...
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...Sociological perspectives Sociological perspectives is a perspective on human behaviour and its connection to society as a whole. It invites us to look for the connections between the behaviour of individual people and the structures of the society in which they live. The structures are functionalism, Marxism, Feminist, Interactionism, Collectivism, Postmodernism and New right. Functionalism Functionalism is a perspective created by Emile Durkheim. He believed society was made up of inter-connected institutions for an example education, family and government which depended on each other to function. Functionalists see society as being similar to the human body. In the same way the body relies on the heart to pump blood round to other vital organs like the lungs and brain. Functionalists see society as being constructed of different inter-dependent components like the family and education system. So in the same way the human body would fail if the heart stopped, functionalists’ argue society would stop working properly if the family stopped functioning properly. Functionalists say this would happen because the family is an institution in which primary socialisation occurs. Primary socialisation is where younger members of a family are taught societies norms, values, roles and beliefs, By having the same values which we all share, a value consensus is establish. Therefore we can see the family has a function in the social system. This perspective of society differed...
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...‘Society has now entered a postmodern age and we need new theories to understand it.’ Assess this view. Society has experienced important changes in recent times. Some sociologists argue that these changes are so reflective that they represent an important shift, from the modern society of the past two centuries, to a new, postmodern society from the era of modernity to the era of postmodernity. Other sociologists disagree and argue that although recent changes have been very significant, these are actually part of modernity itself. In addition to this, opinions are also divided on what theory we need to understand these changes in society. Some have adopted the perspective known as postmodernism to describe society today while others have adopted existing modernist theories such as Marxism. Most sociologists agree that modern society emerged during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century in Western Europe. Before understanding whether our current society is modern or postmodern, it is important to define a modern society. Modern societies are nation states; they are a key political unit in a bounded territory ruled by a centralized state and the people usually share the same language and culture. Another aspect of modern societies is capitalism, based in private ownership of means of production, maintaining the conditions under which it operates. Lash and Urry describe this as `organized capitalism. Wealth distribution in modern societies is uneven and Fordist principles...
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...a weekend retreat, or somewhere where one might aspire to live. People have images of rolling landscapes or bleak moors, complete with smiling farmers leaning on farm gates. The country air is seen as recuperative, and the environment generally beneficial. McLaren in 1951 argued that city children should be encouraged to go hill walking; today young offenders are sometimes sent on hiking expeditions. Jones and Eyles (1977), in An Introduction to Social Geography, stated: "This book is largely about urban society ... this does not unduly distort the real situation because we live in a predominantly urban society and most of our problems lie in the city." Their view is reflected in the fact that recent interest in health inequalities has tended to be centred on the inner cities. Definitions of rurality in a health care context Definitions of rurality have been neglected in health research. Definitions of deprivation attract frequent papers, with debate over the 'best' definition (Campbell et al., 1991; Morris and Carstairs, 1991; Ben-Shlomo et al., 1992). Researchers into deprivation and health generally choose to use one of two or three main indices of deprivation, such as that described by Townsend et al. (1986), or Jarman (1983; 1984), and seldom omit to specify the definition of deprivation which has been chosen. In contrast, where research has been carried out into rural issues in health, the definition of rurality has attracted less attention. Definitions...
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...motivated. | Sick role is a term used in medical sociology regarding sickness and the rights and obligations of the affected. This is because, from a functionalist perspective, a sick individual is not a productive member of society. Therefore this deviance needs to be policed, which is the role of the medical profession. | The theory outlined two rights of a sick person and two obligations. The sick person's rights are twofold the first one is being spared from normal social roles; the second one is not being responsible for their condition. Equally, the sick person's obligations included trying to get well and cooperating with the medical professionals. | | * | | | Marxism | * Opposition to an economic system based on inequality. * The freedom of the workers must be the task of the workers themselves. * The recognition of the existence of social classes that divide men and women into distinct segments of the population. | Concerned with conflict rather than stability. Economic system shapes societies therefore the class system has produced two distinct classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat i.e. those who own the means of production and those that sell their labour. | Marxist studies of medical care emphasize political power and economic dominance in capitalist society. Although historically the Marxist paradigm went into eclipse during the early...
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...How Far Is Religion a Conservative Force? (33 marks). In the views of functionalism, neo-functionalism, feminism, and Marxism, religion is a conservative force that prevents social change from happening and maintains the current status quo. Yet neo-Marxism and Weber contrast this view by saying religion is used as a force for social change, while post-modernism argues we have the ability to ‘pick and mix’ our religion with the growth of new-age religions. This is all then contrasted by fundamentalism, which looks to bring about social change to take society back to biblical traditions and values. Before we try and figure out if religion is a conservative force or not, we should first define the difference between substantive and functional definitions in sociology: substantive definitions are more concerned with looking at what makes religion distinctive, while functional definitions look at how it is that religion contributes to society as a whole. Starting with functionalism, this is supported by Durkheim, Malinowski and Parsons, this views religion as a conservative force. Durkheim split all items into two different categories: the sacred and the profane. The sacred items were ‘special, unworldly and forbidden’, while all other ‘normal’ objects were just profane, such as a chair. Specifically, Durkheim focused his research on the Aborigines. He found that their Totems were sacred (a Totem was a carved animal), and they were often carved from bull roar wood, the most sacred...
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...Defining Religion Defining & measuring religion is very hard. Religion can be so personal that it's impossible to express and to quantifiably measure There tends to be 2 ways: Substance - trying to get what the essence of religion is Function - what religion does in society Inclusivist & exclusivist o Inclusivist definitions take a broad view of what constitutes 'religion'. They could include [political movements, social movements and organisation etc. as long as they seem to carry out the functions of religion. o This could be a tautological way to define religion - a religion is something that appears to carry out the function of a religion. But what are the functions of religion? Who decides and on what criteria? o Exclusivist definitions take a narrower view of what constitutes a religion. They try and narrow down to the specifically religious and would exclude political movements for eg. o The problem here is in defining what constitutes 'religious'. Getting to the core of 'the religious' is v difficult. Glock & Stark Measuring religion They suggest 5 dimensions of religion that could be applied in order to measure the degree of religiosity in a society o Belief - the essential beliefs of a religion - core theology o Practice - acts of public and private worship and ritual o Experience - subjunctive feelings of being associated with some higher power or being o Knowledge - depth of understanding...
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