Chapter 3

Kelvin Paul B. Panuncio

Disciplines and Ideas in the Social
Sciences
 DOMINANT
APPROACH AND
IDEAS PART 1
• Structural-Functional
• Marxism
• Symbolic Interactionism
• Psychoanalysis
 Function
• The theory of function was developed by
Herbert Spenser lived in 19th and early 20th
century and Emile Durkheim in 19th century.
• The whole point of this theory is to liken society
to a living organism – complex body parts and
all – whose objectives are self-preservation and
self-perpetuation.
• Social cohesion and integration are a
matter of high importance in order to keep all
the parts functioning together as a single unit
toward a common goal or purposes.
 The notion of Function
• The ensuing paradigm became functionalism
a movement or school of thought pioneered by
British intellectual Bronislaw Malinowski
• he develop in the British School of Social
Anthropology. He also served as the first chair
in Anthropology at London School of
Economics.
• British social anthropologist also develop ideas
around the notion of function which is also
known as Structural Functionalism.
 Functionalism
• States that what keeps society together is the
function or role that all parts of a system
perform, assert and play in order to preserve,
maintain, and sustain society for prosperity.
• No society would want to destroy itself so that
each and every part, institution and sector,
must perform expected roles and functions.
• The indirect benefit for people would be the
promotion of a feeling of solidarity ad unity
among them, which lessen stress and thereby
make them happy and secure deeply inside.
 As we say in Filipino,
• Ang sakit ng kalingkinan, sakit ng buong
katawan.
• Truly, in an organic analogy of society as a
human body, the whole unit will only
function well if all of their parts perform
their expected tasks. If there are
maladaptive parts, eventually they will
contribute to the collapse of society unless
checked by other units or sectors in charge
of correcting or penalizing the erring units.
• Structural functionalism,
or simply functionalism, is
a framework for building
theory that sees society as
a complex system whose
parts work together to
promote solidarity and
stability
Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

Structuralism as a mode of social

inquiry, is an entirely different way of
looking at social and cultural
phenomena.
Originally developed in Western Europe
– France and Germany in the 1950s,
blossomed after 2nd WW with the
ideas of Ronald Barthes, Jacques
Lacan, and Louis Althusser
Dean Worcester
an Ayta

Examine the notion

of difference
between the two
subjects of the
photograph – an
American and an
Ayta
How two subject
different?
 Structuralism
Emile Durkheim
and Ferdinand de Saussure - SwissLinguist
who were contemporary thinkers of early 20 th century
• They were ones who investigated and elaborated on
the so-called hidden “structures” of human life.
• Durkheim basic classificatory structures – the binary
categories – life that human mind has created make
sense of the world: day/night, male/female,
white/black, life/death and sacred/profane.
• Saussure, on the other, saw the basic distinction
between langue and the parole.
• The Langue is the internal structure and
logic of a particular language. The langue
is the overall system of thought linguistic
capacities of humans: words, rules,
grammar, syntax, logic and much moré.
• One must able to understand langue in a
given point of time. The parole or
individual speech is simply dependent on
the ways of the language.
 Langue consist of a basic element,
which called the sign.
• It has two components the
signifier(symbol) and the signified(idea
or concept)
• Signifier - be it a sound or visual symbols
representational tool.
• Signified – is a pure concept shaped and
determined by the existing langue.
• A word or sound or symbol could not fully
stand for an idea because this idea is
independent of the symbols.
 The signifier has no intrinsic or
natural relationship with the signified.
• Homme
• Hombre
• Orang
• Man
• Tao
Those words are symbols of a concept
that is being referred to human
being, which purely a function of the
particular langue.
 Words may change but the idea
remains the same.
• Can you mention some more
examples where you can show that
the signifier has no natural
relationship with the signified but
intimately connected to each other,
EDSA.
 Historical Materialism and Karl
Marx
• 19th century German social thinker
approached the nature of Western
society form the perspective of
economics.
• He saw a modern society as not an
end in itself but a transitional phase
of what he beloved is a historically
shaped social order – socialism
• He drew from Hegelian concept of
Dialectics.
 Georg Wilhelm Hegel
• A German philosopher of the late 18 th to
early 19th century.
• According to this notion of dialectics,
across history, there had been opposing
forces in human society the so called
“thesis” and “antithesis” that clash
with one another, shape one another, as a
consequence, create a new form that are
the “synthesis” of two diametrically
opposed forces.
• How Marx viewed “modern” society
from the perspective of the economy
– the material condition of the people
- lies in the core of his social theory.
Imagine a simple production line in a
factory. Thus, the ensuing relations
are largely shaped by economic
situation characterized by
capitalism.
Marx called the owner of the factory as
the capitalist and the workers are
proletariat.
 Anyone going into capitalist systems
enters a definite social relation
determined by “relation of
production”. Anyone control the
capital means become the ruling
class.
Moreover, society consist of two parts:
the base which the economy
the superstructure which consist
ofsuperstructure
Social social structures such asthat
“Ideological” religion,
is subtly
representing the interest of
family, law cultures
the etc.
ruling class
Economic base Consist of means of
production(materials) and the
social relation of products(owner)
 Historical Materialism
• Going back to Hegelian dialectics,
using a theory of how society evolves
by Marx

• Story of conflict between classes –

the haves and have-nots, the ruling
class and dominated class and the
elites and the worker
Modes of Means of Characteristics History period
production production
Primitive Foraging in nature Tribal society, no Prehistory
communism ruling class,
egalitarian
Ancient mode of Slave labor Ancient society. Ancient times
production Ruling class exist
Feudalism Land Reciprocal Medieval Period
relations between
landlords and
peasants
Capitalism Machines, factory Ruling class Industrial,
exploiting the capitalist society
worker class
Socialism Publicly and Production Postcapitalism
collectively intended to
owned machines directly satisfy
etc. human needs
Communism Publicly and “perfect and Hypothetical
collectively ideal” system of future
owned machines, human affairs
factories, and
other productive
 Tatsulok
• Discuss among your classmates the
message behind the song. Reflect
particularly on the following lines:
..habang may tatsulok, at silang nasa
tuktok, di mamatapos itong gulo…

Can you sense a tinge of Maxist

framework in those lines and in the
content of the songs?
 Symbolic Interaction
• So every culture has its own
interpretation of an act
• For example ang yes sa atin ay
nodding ng head
• May ibang culture ang yes ay
swaying ng head
• The symbolic interaction perspective, also
called symbolic interactionism, is a major
framework of sociological theory. This
perspective relies on the symbolic meaning
that people develop and rely upon in the
process of social interaction. Although
symbolic interactionism traces its origins to 
Max Weber'sassertion that individuals act
according to their interpretation of the
meaning of their world, the American
philosopher George Herbert Mead
 introduced this perspective to American
sociology in the 1920s.
• Symbolic interaction theory analyzes society by
addressing the subjective meanings that people
impose on objects, events, and behaviors.
Subjective meanings are given primacy
because it is believed that people behave
based on what they believe and not just on
what is objectively true. Thus, society is
thought to be socially constructed through
human interpretation. People interpret one
another’s behavior and it is these
interpretations that form the social bond.
• These interpretations are called the 
“definition of the situation.”
• For example, why would young people smoke
cigarettes even when all objective medical
evidence points to the dangers of doing so? The
answer is in the definition of the situation that
people create. Studies find that teenagers are well
informed about the risks of tobacco, but they also
think that smoking is cool, that they themselves
will be safe from harm, and that smoking projects
a positive image to their peers. So, the symbolic
meaning of smoking overrides that actual facts
regarding smoking and risk.
Classical Psychoanalysis and
Sigmund Freud
• Sigmund Freud, the influential
German psychologist of the early 20th
century, provided not only a
revolutionary way of understanding
human personality but also how
society affects our psychology.
• The famous neurologist (1856-1939)
is also known as the Father of
Psychoanalysis.
 Based on Freud’s
formulation
• The individual mind is the source of
your subjectivity, created by social
and cultural forces that operate
beneath the level of the unconscious
self.
• Saying that even within our minds,
there are facet of ourselves, our
inner selves that we cannot control
but others want to control.
• In Freudian perspective,
Socialization, the lifelong process
of learning the way and behavior
appropriate to a particular society, is
not only an external or structural
process but also an internal, mental
process.
• is the product of interaction between
inner mind and the outside world.
Socialization reflects the ongoing
conflict.
ID The unconscious self
EGO The conscious and rational self
SUPEREGO The conscience
To further understand this ongoing conflict, Freud
explained that the self consist of three parts;

ID in its natural state, the human being has

uncontrollable instinctual desires, say, things that
pertain to violence and sexual drives.

Ego, the conscious and rational part of the self,

just like the government. It is the executive branch,
the one executing and performing action and
decision.

It mediates between the biological and social needs

of the person.
Superego, it is the internalization of
social values and belief. It plays a
moralizing role for the individual
because it serves as the person’s
conscience.
This leads to Freud’s prescription for
modern society. That for social order
to be achieved and for chaos to be
avoided, the superego must tame the
ID.
 Classical Psychoanalysis
• One of the methods by Freud is
psychoanalysis which makes use of a
dialogue between the patient and
psychoanalysis
• Bt the way of FREE ASSOCIATION, the
patient talk about his or her experiences as
freely as possible without interruption from
attending doctor.
• Slip of tongue(Freudian Slip) expression
of the repressed desires of the ID.
Do some ethnography – virtual
ethnography
• Make a group and investigate and explore
the world of social media
(youtube,facebook,instragram,etc.) and
how they document, relay, report, and
communicate the stories and experiences
of the people in times of disaster as part
of the psychosocial dimension of the
situation. Pay particular attention to how
stories told by the victims themselves
have created the dilemma.
DOMINANT APPROACHES AND
IDEAS PART 2

• Rational Choice
• Institutionalism
• Feminist Theory
• Hermeneutical
Phenomenology
• Human-Environment