1.

3 Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology

We have talked repeatedly about a sociological perspective, as if all sociologists share the
same beliefs on how society works. This implication is misleading. Although all sociologists would
probably accept the basic premise that social backgrounds affect peoples attitudes, behavior,
and life chances, their views as sociologists differ in many other ways.
Macro and Micro Approaches
Although this may be overly simplistic, sociologists views basically fall into two
camps: macrosociology and microsociology. Macrosociologists focus on the big picture, which
usually means such things as social structure, social institutions, and social, political, and
economic change. They look at the large-scale social forces that change the course of human
society and the lives of individuals. Microsociologists, on the other hand, study social interaction.
They look at how families, coworkers, and other small groups of people interact; why they
interact the way they do; and how they interpret the meanings of their own interactions and of
the social settings in which they find themselves. Often macro- and microsociologists look at the
same phenomena but do so in different ways. Their views taken together offer a fuller
understanding of the phenomena than either approach can offer alone.
The different but complementary nature of these two approaches can be seen in the case of
armed robbery. Macrosociologists would discuss such things as why robbery rates are higher in
poorer communities and whether these rates change with changes in the national economy.
Microsociologists would instead focus on such things as why individual robbers decide to commit
a robbery and how they select their targets. Both types of approaches give us a valuable
understanding of robbery, but together they offer an even richer understanding.
Within the broad macro camp, two perspectives dominate: functionalism and conflict theory.
Within the micro camp, two other perspectives exist: symbolic interactionism and utilitarianism
(also called rational choice theory or exchange theory) (Collins, 1994). [1] We now turn to these
four theoretical perspectives, which are summarized in Table 1.1 Theory Snapshot.
Table 1.1 Theory Snapshot
Theoretical
perspective

Major assumptions

Functionalism

Social stability is necessary to have a strong society, and adequate

socialization and social integration are necessary to achieve social
stability. Societys social institutions perform important functions to help
ensure social stability. Slow social change is desirable, but rapid social
change threatens social order. Functionalism is a macro theory.

Conflict theory

Society is characterized by pervasive inequality based on social class,

gender, and other factors. Far-reaching social change is needed to reduce
or eliminate social inequality and to create an egalitarian society. Conflict
theory is a macro theory.

Symbolic
interactionism

People construct their roles as they interact; they do not merely learn the
roles that society has set out for them. As this interaction occurs,
individuals negotiate their definitions of the situations in which they find
themselves and socially construct the reality of these situations. In so
doing, they rely heavily on symbols such as words and gestures to reach a
shared understanding of their interaction. Symbolic interactionism is a
micro theory.

Utilitarianism
(rational
choice
theory or exchange
theory)

People act to maximize their advantages in a given situation and to reduce

their disadvantages. If they decide that benefits outweigh disadvantages,
they will initiate the interaction or continue it if it is already under way. If
they instead decide that disadvantages outweigh benefits, they will
decline to begin interacting or stop the interaction if already begun. Social
order is possible because people realize it will be in their best interests to

Theoretical
perspective

Major assumptions
cooperate and to make compromises when necessary. Utilitarianism is a
micro theory.

Schools of Thought
Posted on February 17, 2011by Beth M
Within most scientific disciplines there are hundreds of thinkers writing hundreds of books on
hundreds of topics. Without a framework to classify these thinkers its difficult to link the theories
proposed or effectively evaluate them. It is also difficult then to contrast their teammates or
opponents in thought. One of the solutions to this plethora of ideas is to note the connections
between thinkers and lump them into Schools of Thought. For example, when studying
Psychology one of the most famous schools of thought is Psychoanalysis, originally developed by
Freud, but perpetuated by many thinkers after him. Also important to note, not all thinkers
within the schools hold all of the same beliefs, some even disagree with each other on some
principles, others elaborate on minor themes of the original founders. However, they do hold to
the basic theories of the school of thought.

As Ive set out to study Sociology Ive learned so far

there are four contemporary schools of thought, which I will briefly outline below, along with
some of their notable contributors.
Structural Functionalism. This school views the world as a structure made of a series of
interrelated parts. What are these structures? Well, these sociological thinkers (namelyTalcott
Parsons (1902-1979)) looked at social institutions likes schools and governments as the
structures, and what they provided as their functions. Another sociologist, Robert Merton ( 19102003), observed their functions and observed that they had some intended and some
unintended consequences from their actions. Both of these men built their work on the back
of Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), whos kind of a big deal in the world of social sciences for his
work on social facts, order, integration, and anomie. All three emphasize the how structures
contribute to orderliness and stability.
Conflict Theory This school is born out of the other two earliest contributors to the fieldMax
Weber (1864-1920) and Karl Marx (1818-1883), and continued on particularly in theChicago

School of thought, notably C.Wright Mills (1916-1962). These thinkers all held that there will
inevitably be struggles between the powerful and the powerless.

Society, they say, is

characterized by its struggles of inequality, which will give rise to conflict.

Symbolic Interactionism Symbolic Interactionists are all about the details. They study the
symbols (which include the mighty words that we use every day) that people use and the way
that they are given meaning. To them, socialization is extremely important to study. Some of
their great thinkers include GH Mead (1863 1931) and his work on communication and his
disciple Herbert Blumer (1900-1987).
Feminist Theory This theory aims to study the inequalities that women have historically faced,
and in this way is related to conflict theory. It studies the interaction also between the structures
and the gender of people and how gender can affect perceptions and treatment, in this way it is
very like the structural functionalist. Feminist theory hardly seeks to undermine the work that
the Dead White Males have done, but addresses their thoughts and then draws attention to their
oversights. Feminist theory does not focus solely on womens issues, but points out that our
symbolic interactions with the world are all inherently gendered. At this time, I dont know
enough to note here who might be classified as a woman sociologist, or a feminist sociologist.
However, the life ofJane Addams( 1860-1935) has always fascinated me, and I intend to read
some of the works of Margaret Mead (1901-1978) and Carol Gilligan (1936-) hoping that they will
fall into this category.

FILIPINO SOCIOLOGIST
Walden Bello
After earning his PhD in sociology in 1975 from Princeton, he then became part of the antiMarcos movement, began teaching at theUniversity of California, Berkeley and became a
member of the Communist Party of the Philippines.[1] In 1978 after being arrested multiple times
during protests, he was arrested after leading the takeover of the Philippine consulate in San
Francisco. Bello was later released following a hunger strike to bring attention to the situation the
Philippines was facing.[3] In the early-1980s, Bello also broke into the World Bank headquarters
and stole 3,000 pages of confidential documents that he said would show the connection of the
IMF and World Bank to Marcos.[3] He later wrote Development Debacle: the World Bank in the
Philippines in 1982 surrounding the documents stating that this publication contributed toward
the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, with Bello returning to his native state two
years later.
Ledivina Vidallon Cario
A Filipino sociologist and political scientist. She was University Professor (the highest
academic rank in the University of the Philippines), and later University Professor Emeritus,
at the National College of Public Administration and Governance of the University of the

Philippines Diliman (UP-NCPAG). She also once served as president of the Philippine Sociological
Society.
Cario also sat as dean of the College of Public Administration (UP-CPA), later the UP-NCPAG, for
two

terms

and

as

vice

president

for

public

affairs

under

then University

of

the

Philippines president Dr. Jose V. Abueva.

In 1980, she received the Gintong Aklat Award and was named Outstanding Alumnus of Union
High School of Manila in 1981. 'Leddy' to her friends and colleagues, Dr. Cario was also named
Outstanding Alumna by the Philippine Christian University in 1994.[1]
Since 1984, she has held the Philippine Commission on Audit (COA) Professional Chair in Public
Administration. In 1987, she received the Reflections of Development Award from the Rockefeller
Foundation. In 1993, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Social Sciences from the
National Research Council of the Philippines. [citation

needed]

In the same year, Cario was named

University Professor by the University of the Philippines, making her the youngest person to hold
the said rank in the Universitys history. As aUniversity Professor, she was entitled to teach in any
college, institute, center, or department within the University.
In 1995, the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) named her Academician.
Karina Constantino-David
David held leadership posts at the Caucus of Development NGO Networks (president, 1989
1998); Women's Action Network for Development (vice chairperson, 19901998); Partnership of
Philippine Support Service Agencies (chairperson, 19891995); Independent Commission on
Population and the Quality of Life (commissioner, 19921996); and People's Forum for Habitat II
(national convenor, 19951996). David also served as consultant to poverty and women's
program policy planning of the Asian and Pacific Development Centre. [1]
In 1989, she was a consultant for the women's mission of GTZ or Deutsche Gessellscahft Fur
Technische Zusammenarbeit and the Canadian International Development Agency(CIDA).[1]
From 1988 to 1989, David was the over-all consultant of the Philippine Development Plan for
Women at the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW). David rendered
consultancy services at the NCRFW from 1995 to 96 for the Philippine Plan for Gender
Responsive Development.
RANDY DAVID
He is currently a professor at the Department of Sociology of the University of the Philippines. He
has been part of the UP Faculty since 1967. He teaches courses on general sociology, political
sociology and development sociology. He was a member of the UP Board of Regents who
represented the faculty in 1999. His column, Public Lives, has appeared every Sunday in the

Philippine Daily Inquirer from 1995 up to the present. He holds a degree in sociology from the
University of the Philippines and is director of the Third World Studies Center (TWSC) and the
editor of KASARINLAN."
During the Martial Law era under Ferdinand Marcos, he chose to remain in the country rather
than pursue his doctoral studies at the University of Manchester.
Over eleven years he has made himself a household name, hosting the popular multi-awarded
public affairs program Public Forum on GMA7. It tackles issues about government and policy,
the economy, business, and non-governmental organizations. He promoted the use of Filipino as
a medium of serious political and social discourse, since his was the only public affairs show
in Filipino at the time. The Cultural Center of the Philippines even chose it as one of the ten
outstanding television programs. He was also a newscaster and hosted Public Life with Randy
David and Off the Record with Katrina Legarda.
David was named one of the UP Centennial Fellows for his valuable contributions to Philippine
sociology and social awareness. He was a visiting professor at the National Autonomous
University of Mexico in 1996, lecturing on Philippine development and democracy. In 1990, he
was also a Visiting Professor at the Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan where he lectured and
conducted research about Filipino migrant workers. He has also been appointed by the United
Nations University in Tokyo as the Southeast Asian Coordinator on its Asian Perspectives
Program, where he organized a network of young scholars from the ASEAN countries to
undertake joint research and to offer alternative views on the regions development experience.
He has authored several books including Reflections on Sociology and Philippine Society,
published in 2001, and Nation, Self, and Citizenship: An Invitation to Philippine Sociology,"
published in 2002, that won the National Book Award in 2002 and 2003 respectively. Most of his
writings featured a broad range of topics including the cabo system on the Manila waterfront, the
social roots of Philippine poverty, the role of transnational corporations in the banana industry,
language and consciousness, culture and development, Filipino workers in Japan, political parties
and the financing of electoral campaigns.
Czarina Saloma-Akpedonu
She earned her academic degrees from Bielefeld Universitaet (Dr. rer. soc., magna cum laude),
Peking University (MA), and University of the Philippines in Diliman (BA, cum laude). She is
President of the Philippine Sociological Society, Secretary of the Board of the International
Sociological Association (ISA) Research Committee on the Sociology of Science and Technology,
and Editor of the Philippine Sociological Review. In 2007, she was named Outstanding Young
Scientist by the the National Academy of Science and Technology.She is the co-author (with Erik
Akpedonu) of "Casa Boholana: Vintage Houses of Bohol" (Ateneo de Manila University Press,
2011), a sociohistorical introduction-cum-architectural guide to the provinces traditional houses.
She is also the author of "Possible Worlds in Impossible Spaces: Knowledge, Globality, Gender
and Information Technology in the Philipines (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2006), an
ethnographic study on the "doing" of IT in the Philippines.Among her engagements: Fellow of the
Asian Scholarship Foundation (ASF)/Ford Foundation where she studied technological actors in
the Malaysian automotive and information technology industries (2003/04); Gender and ICT
specialist for eHomemakers (Malaysia) and International Development Research Councils
research project on Homeworkers and ICTs in Southeast Asia (2005); Consultant (Sociologist and
gender specialist) in the development of a Metro Iloilo-Guimaras Tourism Strategic Plan (2007);

and Workshop director of the Sixth Asian Public Intellectuals Workshop and editor of book on
workshop papers (2007).
1: Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
The first professor of sociology in France, Emile Durkheim is known as one of the three fathers of
sociology, and he is credited with helping sociology be seen as actual sciencewhich we think
makes him pretty influential. He first made a splash with 1893s The Division of Labor in
Society, which refuted Karl Marxs critique of industrialization. [Karl Marx is also one of the three
founding fathers of sociology, but since he was born and died in the 19th century, he didnt make
this list.] Durkheims seminal work was introduced in his 1895 publication, Suicide, which
pioneered the separation of social science from psychology (hence the acceptance of sociology
as legitimate science). The work presented his research on the connection between social
integration and suicide rates; in short, he theorized that individuals with low social interaction
are more likely to commit suicide.

#2: Max Weber (1862-1920)

Along with Durkheim and Marx, Max Weber is cited as the third founding architect of sociology.
Webers primary battle cry was the role of religionnot economics, a theory endorsed by Marxas
the catalyst of social change. His understanding of peoples actions emphasized the meaning or
purpose behind them, and hes famous for his theory of Protestant Ethic, which states that the
cultural influences of the Protestant religion brought about the rise of capitalism. After the First
World War, he was one of the founders of the liberal German Democratic Party.

#3: Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962)

C. Wright Mills is perhaps most famous for coining the phrase power elite, a term he used to
describe the people who ran a government or organization because of their wealth and social
status. This theory is usually seen as opposed to the goals of democracy, which aim for the
government to be directed by the will of the massesthat is, of the entirety of the population, not
just those with the money and power to achieve the political ends that benefit themselves first
and foremost. Mills work focused on these alliances between the elites as well as the political
engagement of intellectuals in the post-World War II society.

#4: Daniel Bell (1919-2011)

Daniel Bell is the primary thought leader in the field of post-industrialism, a concept that defines
a society that has developed to a point where the service sector generates more wealth than the
manufacturing sector. In such a society, the economy refocuses on providing services (like legal,
science, IT, business, etc.) instead of goods; knowledge becomes a form of capital; the
production of new ideas becomes the primary way to grow the economy (instead of increasing
the amount of goods produced by increasing manual labor); and society becomes more capable
of supporting a thriving creative culture thanks to nuanced changes in education. Bell
popularized the concept in his 1973 book, The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society.

#5: Erving Goffman (1922-1982)

Named by fellow sociologists as one of the most influential of the 20th century, Erving Goffman
developed the theory of dramaturgy, which addresses the social construction of self. He believed

that we are all actors playing our respective roles in everyday life, as outlined in his seminal
1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman theorized that our concept of
self is dependent on time, place, and audiencein other words, we work to fit ourselves to
cultural norms and values in order to gain acceptance. His work on the concepts of stigma,
spoiled identity, and impression management are also cited often.

#6: Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Named by Times Higher Education as the most cited humanities author in 2007, Michel Foucault
is known for his work in philosophy and criticism as well as sociology. Foucault is sometimes
listed primarily as a philosopher, rather than a sociologist, but his contributions to the theory
around the relationship of power and knowledge place him squarely in the influential
sociologists category. He popularized the idea that institutions can use a combination of power
and knowledge as a form of social control; for example, in the 18th century, unsavory members
of societythe poor, sick, homeless, disagreeablewere described as mad and stigmatized. In
this way, the powerful succeeded in defining knowledge.
#7: Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929)
A prominent German figure and an internationally respected intellectual, Jurgen Habermas has
focused his work on the areas of critical theory and pragmatism. His theory of communicative
rationality states that successful communication inherently leads to human rationality. It follows
that if we come together in the public sphere and identify how people understand or
misunderstand each other, we can reduce social conflict.

#8: Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)

Building on the work of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and others, Pierre Bourdieu established what he
called the cultural deprivation theory, which states that people tend to think higher class
cultures are better than lower class cultures. As a result, members of the higher classes believe
that members of the lower classes are to blame for their childrens shortcomings in learning and
advancement. It follows that the higher classes assumptions of superiority are self-propelling
prophecies; to declare oneself better is an act of social positioning, not necessarily truth. The
ruling classes, Bourdieu said, have the power to impose meaning, to instate their own cultural
choices as correct, to declare their culture as worthy of being sought. But he cautioned that
people should not assume higher classes are necessarily better; Bourdieu blamed the education
system, not the values of the working class, for the gaps in the academic achievements of
children (a theory that has gained traction, even after Bourdieus death). His most famous work
is 1979s Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste.

#9: Anthony Giddens (b. 1938)

Anthony Giddens is a prominent thinker in the field of sociology, having published at least 34
books since 1971. His contributions to sociology as a discipline have been threefold: In the 70s,
he helped redefine the field itself through a reinterpretation of classic works on society. In the
80s, Giddens developed his theory of structurationone of his biggest contributions to date and
a pillar of modern sociological theory. The theory addresses a long-standing debate in social

science over whether structure (recurring patterns) or agency (free choice) is the primary shaper
of human behavior; Giddens theorizes that neither is prime, but that they work in conjunction
and must be studied as such. Third, in the 90s Giddens began publishing work on his theories of
modernity (the historical period marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism and
industrialization) and its relationship to globalization and politics; he suggests a Third Way that
reconciles the policies of the political left and the political right in order to form a system of
ethical socialisma balance of capitalism and socialism.

#10: Gary Alan Fine (b. 1950)

An admirer of Erving Goffman and a truly contemporary sociologist himself, Gary Alan Fine has
made a number of contributions to the discipline in the area of social culture. His ethnographies
have touched on topics of visual artists, high school debaters, restaurant establishment culture,
and fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragonsall expressive cultural outlets shaped by our social
system. Fines work focuses on how these groups give meaning to our shared experience. In
addition, his work on collective experience and memory has helped clarify how reputations,
rumors, and urban legends operate within our society. Hes published eight books in the past 20
years, including 2012s Tiny Publics: A Theory of Group Culture and Action.