“Sociology is often seen as divided into two distinct approaches: ones based on the concept of social structure or social system, and ones based on the concept of social action”. Assess the value of social action approaches to an understanding of society

Social action theories could be considered to be far more useful for explaining contemporary society as they offer an alternative to the out-dated structuralist ideas which dominated sociology since the 1800s. Social action theories help us to understand social interaction which obviously plays a vital part in contemporary society as every member does this on a daily basis. They see people as individuals who have the capacity to think and make rational choices, a concept ignored by structuralists. Structuralists seem to believe we are puppets that are predictable and can be studied and measured in the same way as the natural sciences. But how is a human being like a single atom that can be studied in a laboratory? However, the notion of free will could be the social action theories downfall, as its over reliance is an easy target by many critics as they point out we are clearly influenced by factors such as gender and class.

Social Action Theory is the first of the micro theories and is therefore useful as Weber was the first to acknowledge the existence of individuals and rational choice. He does however, understand that structures exist and do have some impact on our lives. This therefore makes him incredibly useful as he addresses both ideas in the structure/action debate. Weber also not only looked at meanings behind social action but the causal explanations, again showing his ability to straddle to two conflicting ideas. Weber argued that the modern world can be characterised by rationalisation where people’s actions were due to rational goal-orientation. This could be illustrated most clearly in his