Sociology and Culture

Sociology (from Latin: socius, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the
study of", from Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge" [1]) is the scientific or
systematic study of society, including patterns of social relations, social
stratification, social interaction, and culture[2].

 Areas studied in sociology range from the analysis of brief

contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the
study of global social interaction.
 Numerous fields within the discipline concentrate on how and
why people are organized in society, either as individuals or as
members of associations, groups, and institutions.

 Sociology is considered a branch of the social sciences.

 Sociological research provides educators, planners, lawmakers,

administrators, developers, business leaders, and people
interested in resolving social problems and formulating public
policy with rationales for the actions that they take.

History

 Sociology, including economic, political, and cultural systems,

has origins in the common stock of human knowledge and
philosophy.
 Social analysis has been carried out by scholars and philosophers
at least as early as the time of Plato.

 There are evidence of early Greek (e.g. Xenophanes[3],

Xenophon[4] , Polybios[5]) and Muslim sociological contributions,
especially by Ibn Khaldun,[6] whose Muqaddimah is viewed by
some as the earliest work dedicated to sociology as a social
science.[7][8] Several other forerunners of sociology, from
Giambattista Vico up to Karl Marx, are nowadays considered
classical sociologists.

 Sociology later emerged as a scientific discipline in the early

19th century as an academic response to the challenges of
modernity and modernization, such as industrialization and
urbanization.

 Sociologists hope not only to understand what holds social

groups together, but also to develop responses to social
disintegration and exploitation.

 The term "sociologie" was first used in 1780 by the French

essayist Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836) in an unpublished
manuscript.[9].

 The term was used again and popularized by the French thinker
Auguste Comte [10] in 1838.

 Comte had earlier used the term 'social physics', but that term
had been appropriated by others, notably Adolphe Quetelet.

 Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind - including

history, psychology and economics.

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  His own sociological scheme was typical of the 19th century; he
believed all human life had passed through the same distinct
historical stages (theology, metaphysics, positive science) and
that, if one could grasp this progress, one could prescribe the
remedies for social ills.

 Sociology was to be the 'queen of positive sciences'.[11] Thus,

Comte has come to be viewed as the "Father of Sociology".

Institutionalising sociology

 The discipline was taught by its own name for the first time at
the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 by Frank Blackmar,
under the course title Elements of Sociology.
 It remains the oldest continuing sociology course in the United
States. The Department of History and Sociology at the
University of Kansas was established in 1891 [12] [13], and the first
full-fledged independent university. The department of sociology
was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion W.
Small, who in 1895 founded the American Journal of Sociology.[14]

 The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895

at the University of Bordeaux by Émile Durkheim, founder of
L'Année Sociologique (1896).

 The first sociology department to be established in the United

Kingdom was at the London School of Economics and Political
Science (home of the British Journal of Sociology) [15] in 1904. In
1919 a sociology department was established in Germany at the
Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber, and in
1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki.

Scope and topics of sociology

 Sociologists study society and social action by examining the

groups and social institutions people form, as well as various
social, religious, political, and business organizations.
 They also study the social interactions of people and groups,
trace the origin and growth of social processes, and analyze the
influence of group activities on individual members and vice
versa.

 The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers,

administrators, and others interested in resolving social
problems, working for social justice and formulating public policy.

 Sociologists research macro-structures and processes that

organize or affect society, such as, but not limited to, race or
ethnicity, gender, globalization, and social class stratification.

 They study institutions such as the family and social processes

that represent deviation from, or the breakdown of, social
structures, including crime and divorce. And, they research
micro-processes such as interpersonal interactions and the
socialization of individuals.

 Sociologists are also concerned with the effect of social traits

such as sex, age, or race on a person’s daily life.

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  Most sociologists work in one or more specialties, such as, but
not limited to, social stratification, social organization, and social
mobility; ethnic and race relations; education; family; social
psychology; urban, rural, political, and comparative sociology;
sex roles and relationships; demography; gerontology;
criminology; and sociological practice. In short, sociologists study
the many dimensions of society.

 Although sociology was informed by Comte's conviction that

sociology would sit at the apex of all the sciences, sociology
today is identified as one of many social sciences (such as
anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, etc.). At
times, sociology does integrate the insights of various disciplines,
as do other social sciences. Initially, the discipline was concerned
particularly with the organization of complex industrial societies.
In the past, anthropology had methods that would have helped
to study cultural issues in a "more acute" way than sociologists.

Sociological Research

 The basic goal of sociological research is to understand the social

world in its many forms.
 Quantitative methods and qualitative methods are two main
types of sociological research methods.

 Sociologists often use quantitative methods -- such as social

statistics or network analysis - to investigate the structure of a
social process or describe patterns in social relationships.

 Sociologists also often use qualitative methods - such as focused

interviews, group discussions and ethnographic methods - to
investigate social processes.

 Sociologists also use applied research methods such as

evaluation research and assessment.

Methods of Sociological Inquiry

Sociologists use many types of social research methods, including:

 Archival Research - Facts or factual evidences from a variety of

records are compiled.
 Content Analysis - The contents of books and mass media are
analyzed to study how people communicate and the messages
people talk or write about.
 Historical Method - This involves a continuous and systematic
search for the information and knowledge about past events
related to the life of a person, a group, society, or the world.
 Experimental Research - The researcher isolates a single
social process or social phenomena and uses the data to either
confirm or construct social theory. The experiment is the best
method for testing theory due to its extremely high internal
validity. Participants, or subjects, are randomly assigned to
various conditions or 'treatments', and then analyses are made
between groups. Randomization allows the researcher to be sure
that the treatment is having the effect on group differences and
not some other extraneous factor.
 Survey Research - The researcher obtains data from interviews,
questionnaires, or similar feedback from a set of persons chosen
(including random selection) to represent a particular population
of interest. Survey items may be open-ended or closed-ended.

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  Life History - This is the study of the personal life trajectories.
Through a series of interviews, the researcher can probe into the
decisive moments in their life or the various influences on their
life.
 Longitudinal Study - This is an extensive examination of a
specific group over a long period of time.
 Observation - Using data from the senses, one records
information about social phenomenon or behavior. Qualitative
research relies heavily on observation, although it is in a highly
disciplined form.
 Participant Observation - As the name implies, the researcher
goes into the field (usually into a community), lives with the
people for some time, and participates in their activities in order
to know and feel their culture.

Sociologists use Three Basic Theoretical Approaches:

1. The structural-functional approach

2. The social-conflict approach, and

3. The symbolic-interaction approach.

Sociology and Other Social Sciences

 Sociology shares deep ties with a wide array of other disciplines

that also deal with the study of society.
 The fields of economics, psychology, and anthropology have
influenced and have been influenced by sociology and these
fields share a great amount of history and common research
interests.

 Today sociology and the other social sciences are better

contrasted according to methodology rather than by objects of
study. Additionally, unlike sociology, psychology and
anthropology have forensic components that deal with anatomy
and other types of laboratory research.

 Sociobiology is the study of how social behavior and organization

has been influenced by evolution and other biological processes.
The field blends sociology with a number other sciences, such as
anthropology, biology, zoology, and others. Although the field
once rapidly gained acceptance, it has remained highly
controversial within the sociological academy. Sociologists often
criticize the study for depending too greatly on the effects of
genes in defining behavior. Sociobiologists often respond by
citing a complex relationship between nature and nurture.

 Sociology is also widely used in management science, especially

in the field of organizational behavior.

Related theories, methods and fields of inquiry include:

 Anthropology
 Criminology
 Negotiated Order
 Political science
 Psychology
 Social psychology

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  Social sciences
 Socio-economics
 Sociological imagination
 Sociophysiology
 Statistical survey

List of Basic Sociology Topics

Sociology is the study of society and human social interaction.

Sociological research ranges from the analysis of short contacts
between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global
social processes. The field focuses on how and why people are
organized in society, either as individuals or as members of
associations, groups, and institutions. Someone working in the field of
sociology is called a sociologist. As an academic discipline, sociology
is considered a social science.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to

sociology:

Essence of Sociology

Basic aspects of sociology:

 Public sociology
 Social research
 Sociological theory and Social theory
 Sociological practice (or Applied sociology)

Some of the theoretical perspectives used in sociology are:

 Conflict theory
 Cultural theory
 Exchange theory
 Ethnomethodology
 Feminist theory
 Functionalism
 Marxism
 Phenomenology (the social phenomenology of Alfred Schütz
incluenced the development of the social constructionism of
Berger and Luckmann and influenced Ethnomethodology)
 Postmodernism
 Poststructuralism
 Queer Theory
 Structural functionalism
 Symbolic interactionism
 Systems theory

Basic Sociology Concepts

Alienation -- Bureaucracy -- Civil rights -- Crime -- Community -- Culture

-- Discrimination -- Division of labour -- Equality -- Exploitation --
Freedom -- Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft -- Globalization -- Group
(sociology) -- Identity (social science) -- Ideology -- Industrialization --
Institution -- Interpersonal relationship -- Justice -- Mass media --
Paradigm -- Political economy -- Popular culture -- Poverty -- Power
(sociology) -- Power-knowledge -- Racism -- Rationalization (sociology)
-- Sexism -- Social action -- Social capital -- Social change -- Social class
-- Social construction -- Social control -- Social justice -- Social
movement -- Social network -- Social order -- Social organisation --
Social solidarity -- Social status -- Social stratification -- Social structure

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-- Socialization -- Society -- Structure and agency -- Sustainable
development

Sociological scholars

These scholars greatly influenced the founding of sociology:

 Auguste Comte - Émile Durkheim - Karl Marx - George Herbert

Mead - Vilfredo Pareto - Robert E. Park - Georg Simmel -
Ferdinand Tönnies - Max Weber

Sociological paradigm

Sociological paradigms (or frameworks) are specific 'points of view'

used by social scientists in social research. Sociological paradigms are
particular paradigms that employ the sociological perspective and the
sociological imagination. A sociological paradigm usually refers to the
broad schools of thought in sociology that encompass multiple theories
from the same perspective. These include:

 conflict paradigm: focuses on the ability of some groups to

dominate others, or resistance to such domination, including
Marxism
o feminism: focuses on how male dominance of society has
shaped social life.
 functionalism: also known as a social systems paradigm,
examines what functions the various elements of a social system
perform in regard to the entire system.
 interactionism: believes that meaning is produced through the
interactions of individuals.
 darwinism paradigm: (also known as the evolutionary paradigm)
sees a progressive evolution in social life.
 positivism paradigm: Social Positivists believe that social
processes should be studied in terms of cause and effect using
the scientific method.

Social Theory

 Social theory is an essential tool used by scholars in the

analysis of society; through the use of theoretical frameworks
social structures and phenomena are analyzed and placed in
context within a particular school of thought.
 The field is interdisciplinary, drawing ideas from and contributing
to such disciplines as anthropology, economics, history, human
geography, literary theory, mass communications, philosophy,
sociology, and theology.

Paradigms

Social scientists usually follow one or more of the several specific

sociological paradigms (points of view):

 conflict paradigm focuses on the ability of some groups to

dominate others, or resistance to such domination.
 ethnomethodology paradigm examines how people make sense
out of social life in the process of living it, as if each was a
researcher engaged in enquiry.
 feminist paradigm focuses on how male dominance of society
has shaped social life.
 Darwinist paradigm sees a progressive evolution in social life.

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  positivist paradigm was an early 19th century approach, now
considered obsolete in its pure form. Positivists believed we can
scientifically discover all the rules governing social life.
 structural functionalist paradigm also known as a social systems
paradigm addresses what functions various elements of the
social system perform in regard to the entire system.
 symbolic interactionist paradigm examines how shared meanings
and social patterns are developed in the course of social
interactions.

Of these, the conflict paradigm of Karl Marx, the interactionism of Max

Weber and George Herbert Mead, and the structural functionalism of
Talcott Parsons are the most well known.

Conflict theory

 Conflict theory emphasizes the role of coercion and power, a

person's or group's ability to exercise influence and control over
others, in producing social order. It states that a society or
organization functions so that each individual participant and its
groups struggle to maximize their benefits, which inevitably
contributes to social change such as changes in politics and
revolutions.
 The theory is mostly applied to explain conflict between social
classes, proletarian versus bourgeoisie; and in ideologies such as
capitalism versus socialism.

 It is the theory that a continual struggle exists between all

different aspects of a particular society.

 The struggle that occurs does not always have to involve

physical violence. It can pertain to an underlying struggle for
each group or individual within a society to maximize its own
benefits.

 The theory was founded by Karl Marx, and later developed by

theorists including Max Weber. Variants of conflict theory may
depend on radical basic assumptions (society is eternally in
conflict, which might explain social change), or moderate ones
(custom and conflict are always mixed).

Conflict theorists

Conflict theory was elaborated in the United Kingdom by Max

Gluckman (1911-1975) and John Rex (1925-...), in the United States by
Lewis A. Coser (1913-2003) and Randall Collins (1941-...), and in
Germany by Ralf Dahrendorf (1929-...), all of them being influenced by
Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838-1909), Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), Georg
Simmel (1858-1918), and greatly influenced by Karl Marx (1818-1883).
The major foundation of the Conflict Theory was made in much
attribute to Karl Marx.

Basic Conflicts

 In conflict theory there are a few basic conflicts. One of the basic
conflicts in conflict theory is that of class.

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  There are low and high ranks in class, and that gives a certain
group more power over another group which causes conflicts.

 For the most part, when an individual is part of a high ranked

class they usually own a lot of property.

 That means that if you are of a lower class, then you don't own
as much property.

 This usually causes conflict on who owns the most property and
what property one does own.

 In Marx's original conception, ownership of property was the

most essential determinant of the class structure. On the other
hand Weber thought that property ownership was only one factor
determining class structure.

 Another basic conflict in conflict theory is that of race and

ethnicity.

 Much like in the class system, groups in this system are ranked
by their prestige and power.

 This means that if a certain race or ethnicity has more education,

prestige, and power then it is considered the better race or
ethnicity which creates conflict.

 Another kind of conflict is that of gender.

 This type of conflict can be noticable by the implication of a type

of culture that is for men and a type of culture that is for women.

 Regions are another kind of conflict. This type of conflict is

brought about by all of the different assumptions that people
from one region have about people that are from another region.
The regions could range from one country to another or one
state/province to another. Lastly, there is the conflict of
religion. The conflict of religion is itself quite stratified; even
though there is a group of people belonging to each religion they
are divided much like the social structure of classes. All of these
groups seek to gain power and use it to reshape society the way
they see it best. It seems that this is the determining factor in
the ruling class.

Assumptions

The following are four primary assumptions of modern conflict theory:

1. Competition. Competition over scarce resources (money, leisure,

sexual partners, and so on) is at the heart of all social
relationships. Competition rather than consensus is characteristic
of human relationships.
2. Structural inequality. Inequalities in power and reward are built
into all social structures. Individuals and groups that benefit from
any particular structure strive to see it maintained.
3. Revolution. Change occurs as a result of conflict between
competing social classes rather than through adaptation. Change
is often abrupt and revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
4. War. Even war is a unifier of the societies involved, as well as
possibly ending whole societies. In modern society, a source of
conflict is power[politicians are competing to enter into a

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 system;they act in their self interest, not for the welfare of
people.

Culture theory

 Culture theory is the branch of anthropology, semiotics, and

other related social science disciplines (e.g., sociology) that
seeks to define the heuristic concept of culture in operational
and/or scientific terms.
 In the 19th century, "culture" was used by some to refer to a
wide array of human activities, and by others as a synonym for
"civilization".

 In the 20th century, anthropologists began theorizing about

culture as an object of scientific analysis.

 Some used it to distinguish human adaptive strategies from the

largely instinctive adaptive strategies of animals, including the
adaptive strategies of other primates and non-human hominids,
whereas others used it to refer to symbolic representations and
expressions of human experience, with no direct adaptive value.

 According to many theories that have gained wide acceptance

among anthropologists, culture exhibits the way that humans
interpret their biology and their environment.

 According to this point of view, culture becomes such an integral

part of human existence that it is the human environment, and
most cultural change can be attributed to human adaptation to
historical events.

 Moreover, given that culture is seen as the primary adaptive

mechanism of humans and takes place much faster than human
biological evolution, most cultural change can be viewed as
culture adapting to itself.

Social exchange theory

 Social exchange theory is a social psychological and

sociological perspective and that explains social change and
stability as a process of negotiated exchanges between parties.
 Social exchange theory posits that all human relationships are
formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit analysis and the
comparison of alternatives. For example, when a person
perceives the costs of a relationship as outweighing the
perceived benefits, then the theory predicts that the person will
choose to leave the relationship. The theory has roots in
economics, psychology and sociology.

 Social exchange theory is tied to rational choice theory and on

the other hand to structuralism, and features many of their main
assumptions.

Applications

Currently, Social Exchange Theory materializes in many different

situations with the same idea of the exchange of resources. Humans
once summarized the theory by stating:

 Social behavior is an exchange of goods, material goods but also

non-material ones, such as the symbols of approval or prestige.

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  Persons that give much to others try to get much from them, and
persons that get much from others are under pressure to give
much to them.

 This process of influence tends to work out at equilibrium to a

balance in the exchanges. For a person in an exchange, what he
gives may be a cost to him, just as what he gets may be a
reward, and his behavior changes less as the difference of the
two, profit, tends to a maximum ("Theories Used in Research").

Ethnomethodology

 Ethnomethodology is a sociological discipline which examines

the ways in which people make sense of their world, display this
understanding to others, and produce the mutually shared social
order in which they live.
 The term was initially coined by Harold Garfinkel in the 1960s.

 Ethnomethodology is distinct from traditional sociology, and does

not seek to compete with it, or provide remedies for any of its
practices (Garfinkel:1967:viii).

Differences between traditional sociology and

ethnomethodology

Two central differences between traditional sociology and

ethnomethodology are:

1. While traditional sociology usually offers an analysis of society

which takes the facticity of the social order for granted,
ethnomethodology is concerned with the procedures (syn:
practices, methods) by which that social order is produced, and
shared.
2. While traditional sociology usually provides descriptions of social
settings which compete with the actual descriptions offered by
the individuals who are party to those settings,
ethnomethodology seeks to describe the procedures (syn:
practices, methods) these individuals use in their actual
descriptions of those settings.

Feminist theory

 Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or

philosophical, ground.
 It encompasses work done in a broad variety of disciplines,
prominently including the approaches to women's roles and lives
and feminist politics in anthropology and sociology,
psychoanalysis, economics, women's and gender studies,
feminist literary criticism, and philosophy especially Continental
philosophy.

 Feminist theory aims to understand the nature of inequality and

focuses on gender politics, power relations and sexuality. While
generally providing a critique of social relations, much of feminist
theory also focuses on analyzing gender inequality and the
promotion of women's rights, interests, and issues.

 Themes explored in feminism include art history and

contemporary art,[3][4] aesthetics, discrimination, stereotyping,
objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and
patriarchy.

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Disciplines

There are a number of distinct feminist disciplines, in which experts in

other areas apply feminist techniques and principles to their own
fields.

Psychoanalysis

 Psychoanalytic feminism is based on Freud and his

psychoanalytic theories. It maintains that gender is not biological
but is based on the psycho-sexual development of the individual.
 Psychoanalytical feminists believe that gender inequality comes
from early childhood experiences, which lead men to believe
themselves to be masculine, and women to believe themselves
feminine.

 It is further maintained that gender leads to a social system that

is dominated by males, which in turn influences the individual
psycho-sexual development. As a solution it was suggested to
avoid the gender-specific structuring of the society by male-
female coeducation.

 In the last 30 years, the contemporary French psychoanalytical

theories concerning the feminine, that refer to sexual difference
rather than to gender, with psychoanalysts like Julia Kristeva,[24]
[24]
Luce Irigaray[25][25] and Bracha L. Ettinger, has largely
influenced not only feminist theory but also the understanding of
the subject in philosophy and the general field of psychoanalysis
itself.

Functionalism (sociology)

 In the social sciences, specifically sociology and sociocultural

anthropology, functionalism (also called functional analysis)
is a sociological paradigm that originally attempted to explain
social institutions as collective means to fill individual biological
needs.
 Later, it came to focus on the ways in which social institutions fill
social needs, especially social stability.

 Functionalism is a major sociological tradition, alongside other

schools of thought, such as Conflict Theory and Interactionism.
The theory is associated with Émile Durkheim and more recently
with Talcott Parsons.

 It was developed by other sociologists in the 20th century and

was a popular idea until the 1970s when it came under criticism
from new ideas.

 Functionalism focuses on the structure and workings of society.

 Functionalists see society as made up of inter-dependent

sections which work together to fulfill the functions necessary for
the survival of society as a whole.

 People are socialized into roles and behaviors which fulfill the
needs of society. Functionalists believe that behavior in society is
structural.

 They believe that rules and regulations help organize

relationships between members of society.

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  Values provide general guidelines for behavior in terms of roles
and norms.

 These institutions of society such as the family, the economy, the

educational and political systems, are major aspects of the social
structure. Institutions are made up of interconnected roles or
inter-related norms. For example, inter-connected roles in the
institution of the family are of wife, mother, husband, father, son
and daughter.

The theory is based around a number of key concepts.

 First, society is viewed as a system – a collection of

interdependent parts, with a tendency toward equilibrium.
 Second, there are functional requirements that must be met in a
society for its survival (such as reproduction of the population).

 Third, phenomena are seen to exist because they serve a

function [Holmwood, 2005:87].

 Functionalists believe that one can compare society to a living

organism, in that both a society and an organism are made up of
interdependent working parts (organs) and systems that must
function together in order for the greater body to function.
 An example of this can be found in the theory of Emergence.
Functionalist sociologists say that the different parts of society
e.g. the family, education, religion, law and order, media etc.
have to be seen in terms of the contribution that they make to
the functioning of the whole of society.

 This ‘organic analogy’ sees the different parts of society working

together to form a social system in the same way that the
different parts of an organism form a cohesive functioning entity.

Prominent Theorists

Herbert Spencer

 A British sociologist and social philosopher, was in many ways

the first true sociological functionalist (Turner, 1985). In fact,
while Durkheim is widely considered the most important
functionalist of the positivist theorists, it is well-known that much
of his analysis was culled from reading Spencer's work, especially
his Principles of Sociology (1874-96).
 He recognized three functional needs or requisites that produced
selection pressures: regulatory, operative (production), and
distributive.

 He argued that all societies needed to solve problems of control

and coordination, production of goods, services, and ideas, and
finally, find ways to distribute these resources.

Talcott Parsons

 Heavily influenced by Durkheim and Max Weber, synthesising

much of their work into his theory.
 Parsons’ wanted to develop a grand theory of society, but he
began by examining the individual and their actions. He stated

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 that “the social system is made up of the actions of individuals”
[Parsons & Shills, 1976:190].

 His starting point was the interaction between two individuals

[Parsons, 1961:41].

 Those individuals were faced with a variety of choices about how

they might act. However, those choices are influenced and
constrained by a number of physical and social factors [Craib,
1992:40].

 Parsons determined that each individual has expectations of the

other’s action and reaction to their own behaviour, and that
these expectations are derived from the accepted norms and
values of the society which they inhabit [Parsons, 1961:41].

Robert Merton

 He was a functionalist and he fundamentally agreed with

Parsons’ theory, however he acknowledged that it was
problematic, believing that it was too generalised [Holmwood,
2005:100].
 Merton tended to emphasise middle-range theory rather than a
grand theory, meaning that he was able to deal specifically with
some of the limitations in Parsons’ theory.

 He identified 3 main limitations: functional unity, universal

functionalism and indispensability [Ritzer in Gingrich, 1999].

 He also developed the concept of deviance and made the

distinction between manifest and latent functions.

 Merton criticised functional unity, saying that not all parts of a

modern, complex society work for the functional unity of society.

Some institutions and structures may have other functions, and some
may even be generally dysfunctional, or be functional for some while
being dysfunctional for others.

Merton believes that there are 5 situations facing an actor.

 Conformity occurs when an individual has the means and desire

to achieve the cultural goals socialised into him.
 Innovation occurs when an individual strives to attain the
accepted cultural goals but chooses to do so in novel or
unaccepted method.
 Ritualism occurs when an individual continues to do things as
proscribed by society but forfeits the achievement of the goals.
 Retreatism is the rejection of both the means and the goals of
society.
 Rebellion is a combination of the rejection of societal goals and
means and a substitution of other goals and means.

Other theories

 Structural functionalism, a theoretical concept developed by

other anthropologists like Claude Lévi-Strauss and Edmund Leach
as well as Samuel P. Huntington, takes the view that society
consists of parts (e.g. police, hospitals, schools, and farms), each

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 of which have their own functions and work together to promote
social stability.
 Structural-functionalism was the dominant perspective of cultural
anthropologists and rural sociologists between World War II and
the Vietnam War.

Famous Functionalists

 Herbert Spencer
 Émile Durkheim
 Talcott Parsons
 Robert K. Merton
 Bronisław Malinowski
 Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
 Niklas Luhmann
 George Murdock

Marxism

 Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from

the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
 Any political practice or theory that is based on an interpretation
of the works of Marx and Engels may be called Marxism.

 Despite being commonly considered less important in the early

21st century than during most of the 20th, there is still a
presence of Marxist approaches in western academic fields of
research; these include anthropology, media studies, Theatre,
history, economics[1], literary criticism, aesthetics and
philosophy.

 The constitution of the Communist Parties and Communist states

was grounded in Marxism; the basic difference between
Communism in general and Marxism, is that Communism aims at
the realization of a "Communist society", while Marxism is a
theoretical-practical framework based on the analysis of "the
conflicts between the powerful and the subjugated".[3][4] As a
consequence of this, there are many scholars and thinkers who
use Marxism as a framework for analysis but do not advocate a
communist society.

Phenomenology (philosophy)

 Phenomenology is the study of phenomena (from Greek,

meaning "that which appears") and how they appear to us from a
first-person perspective. In modern times, it usually refers to the
philosophy developed by Edmund Husserl, which is primarily
concerned with consciousness and its structures (the ways in
which phenomena appear to us).
 Because consciousness is supposed to be that which everything
shows itself to, and phenomenology is the study of
consciousness, Husserl considered it to be a proper first
philosophy. Husserl also sought to develop a "philosophy as rigid
science".

Postmodernism

 Postmodernism literally means 'after the modern'. It is used in

critical theory to refer to a point of departure for works of
literature, drama, architecture, and design, as well as in

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 marketing and business and the interpretation of history, law and
culture in the late 20th century.

 Postmodernism was originally a reaction to modernism. Largely

influenced by the Western European disillusionment induced by
World War II, postmodernism tends to refer to a cultural,
intellectual, or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or
organizing principle and embodying extreme complexity,
contradiction, ambiguity, diversity, interconnectedness or
interreferentiality,[1] in a way that is often indistinguishable from
a parody of itself. It has given rise to charges of fraudulence.

Post-structuralism

 Post-structuralism encompasses the intellectual developments

of continental philosophers and critical theorists who wrote with
tendencies of twentieth-century French philosophy.
 The prefix "post" refers to the fact that many contributors, such
as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Julia
Kristeva, rejected structuralism and became quite critical of it. In
direct contrast to structuralism's claims of an independent
signifier, superior to the signified, post-structuralism views the
signifier and signified as inseparable but not united.

 The Post-structuralist movement is closely related to

postmodernism--but the two concepts are not synonymous.

 While post-structuralism is difficult to define or summarize, it can

be broadly understood as a body of distinct reactions to
structuralism. There are two main reasons for this difficulty.

 First, it rejects definitions that claim to have discovered absolute

"truths" or facts about the world.

 Second, very few thinkers have willingly accepted the label 'post-
structuralist'; rather, they have been labeled as such by others.
Consequently, no one has felt compelled to construct a
"manifesto" of post-structuralism. Indeed, it would be
inconsistent with post-structuralist concepts to codify itself in
such a way.

Queer theory

 Queer theory is a field of Gender Studies that emerged in the

early 1990s out of the fields of gay and lesbian studies and
feminist studies.
 Heavily influenced by the work of Michel Foucault, queer theory
builds both upon feminist challenges to the idea that gender is
part of the essential self and upon gay/lesbian studies' close
examination of the socially constructed nature of sexual acts and
identities.

 Whereas gay/lesbian studies focused its inquiries into "natural"

and "unnatural" behavior with respect to homosexual behavior,
queer theory expands its focus to encompass any kind of sexual
activity or identity that falls into normative and deviant
categories.

Structural functionalism

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  Structural functionalism also known as a social systems
paradigm is a sociological paradigm which addresses what
social functions various elements of the social system perform in
regard to the entire system. Social structures are stressed and
placed at the center of analysis, and social functions are deduced
from these structures. It was developed by Talcott Parsons.

Social change

Talcott Parsons viewed society as naturally being in a state of

equilibrium or balance. Therefore, according to his equilibrium model,
as change occurs in one part of society there must be adjustments in
other parts. If this does not take place, the society's equilibrium will be
threatened and strains in the social order will occur. Parsons posited
that society changes in four distinct and inevitable processes. These
are:

1. Differentiation - refers to the increase in complexity of social

organizations
2. Adaptive Upgrading - whereby social institutions become more
specialized in their processes
3. Inclusion - this occurs where groups previously excluded from
society because of such factors as race, gender, social class etc.
are now accepted
4. Value Generalization - this is the development of new values that
tolerate and legitimate a greater range of activities.

Symbolic interactionism

 Symbolic interactionism is a major sociological perspective

that is influential in many areas of the discipline. It is particularly
important in microsociology and social psychology.
 Symbolic interactionism is derived from American pragmatism
and particularly from the work of George Herbert Mead, who
argued that people's selves are social products, but that these
selves are also purposive and creative.

 Herbert Blumer, a student and interpreter of Mead, coined the

term "symbolic interactionism" and put forward an influential
summary of the perspective: people act toward things based on
the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings
are derived from social interaction and modified through
interpretation.

Culture

 Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning

"to cultivate")[1] generally refers to patterns of human activity
and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance
and importance.
 Cultures can be "understood as systems of symbols and
meanings that even their creators contest, that lack fixed
boundaries, that are constantly in flux, and that interact and
compete with one another"

 Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts,

beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down
from generation to generation.

 Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society."[3]
As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion,

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 rituals, norms of behavior such as law and morality, and systems
of belief as well as the art.

 Cultural anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture"

to refer to the universal human capacity and activities to classify,
codify and communicate their experiences materially and
symbolically.

Culture concept(s)

 Culture is manifested in human artifacts and activities such as

music, literature, lifestyle, food, painting and sculpture, theater
and film.
 Although some scholars identify culture in terms of consumption
and consumer goods (as in high culture, low culture, folk culture,
or popular culture),[6] anthropologists understand "culture" to
refer not only to consumption goods, but to the general
processes which produce such goods and give them meaning,
and to the social relationships and practices in which such
objects and processes become embedded. For them, culture thus
includes art, science, as well as moral systems.

Culture as civilization

 Many people have an idea of "culture" that developed in Europe

during the 18th and early 19th centuries.
 This notion of culture reflected inequalities within European
societies, and between European powers and their colonies
around the world.

 In practice, culture referred to élite activities such as museum-

caliber art and classical music, and the word cultured described
people who knew about, and took part in, these activities. These
are often called "high culture", namely the culture of the ruling
social group, to distinguish them from mass culture or popular
culture.

Cultures within a society

 Large societies often have subcultures, or groups of people with

distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from
a larger culture of which they are a part.
 The subculture may be distinctive because of the age of its
members, or by their race, ethnicity, class, or gender.

 The qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be

aesthetic, religious, occupational, political, sexual, or a
combination of these factors.

Cultures by region

 Regional cultures of the world occur both by nation and ethnic

group and more broadly, by larger regional variations.
 Similarities in culture often occur in geographically nearby
peoples.

 Many regional cultures have been influenced by contact with

others, such as by colonization, trade, migration, mass media,
and religion.

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  Culture is dynamic and changes over time. In doing so, cultures
absorb external influences and adjust to changing environments
and technologies. Thus, culture is dependent on communication.

 Local cultures change rapidly with new communications and

transportation technologies that allow for greater movement of
people and ideas between cultures.[16]

Belief systems

 Religion and other belief systems are often integral to a culture.

 Religion, from the Latin religare, meaning "to bind fast", is a
feature of cultures throughout human history. The Dictionary of
Philosophy and Religion defines religion in the following way:

... an institution with a recognized body of communicants who

gather together regularly for worship, and accept a set of
doctrines offering some means of relating the individual to what
is taken to be the ultimate nature of reality.[17]

 Religion often codifies behavior, such as with the Ten

Commandments of Christianity or the five precepts of Buddhism.
Sometimes it is involved with government, as in a theocracy. It
also influences arts.

Cultural studies

 Cultural studies developed in the late 20th century, in part

through the re-introduction of Marxist thought into sociology, and
in part through the articulation of sociology and other academic
disciplines such as literary criticism.
 This movement aimed to focus on the analysis of subcultures in
capitalist societies.

 Following the non-anthropological tradition, cultural studies

generally focus on the study of consumption goods (such as
fashion, art, and literature). Because the 18th- and 19th-century
distinction between "high" and "low" culture seems inappropriate
to apply to the mass-produced and mass-marketed consumption
goods which cultural studies analyses, these scholars refer
instead to "popular culture".

Cultural change

 Cultures are internally affected by both forces encouraging

change and forces resisting change. These forces are related to
both social structures and natural events, and are involved in the
perpetuation of cultural ideas and practices within current
structures, which themselves are subject to change.
 Social conflict and the development of technologies can produce
changes within a society by altering social dynamics and
promoting new cultural models, and spurring or enabling
generative action. These social shifts may accompany ideological
shifts and other types of cultural change.

 Cultures are externally affected via contact between societies,

which may also produce -- or inhibit -- social shifts and changes
in cultural practices. War or competition over resources may
impact technological development or social dynamics.

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  Additionally, cultural ideas may transfer from one society to
another, through diffusion or acculturation. In diffusion, the form
of something (though not necessarily its meaning) moves from
one culture to another. For example, hamburgers, mundane in
the United States, seemed exotic when introduced into China.
"Stimulus diffusion" (the sharing of ideas) refers to an element of
one culture leading to an invention or propagation in another.
"Direct Borrowing" on the other hand tends to refer to
technological or tangible diffusion from one culture to another.
Diffusion of innovations theory presents a research-based model
of why and when individuals and cultures adopt new ideas,
practices, and products.

 Acculturation has different meanings, but in this context refers to

replacement of the traits of one culture with those of another,
such has happened to certain Native American tribes and to
many indigenous peoples across the globe during the process of
colonization. Related processes on an individual level include
assimilation (adoption of a different culture by an individual) and
transculturation.

 Cultural invention has come to mean any innovation that is new

and found to be useful to a group of people and expressed in
their behavior but which does not exist as a physical object.
Humanity is in a global "accelerating culture change period",
driven by the expansion of international commerce, the mass
media, and above all, the human population explosion, among
other factors.

Counterculture

 The counterculture of the 1960s began in the United States as a

reaction against the social norms of the 1950s, segregation in
the Deep South, and the Vietnam War.
 In the United Kingdom the counterculture was mainly a reaction
against the post-war social norms of the 1940s and 1950s,
although "Ban the Bomb" protests centered around opposition to
nuclear weaponry.

Cultural bias

 Cultural bias is when someone is biased due to his or her

culture.
 The alleged problem of cultural bias is sometimes said to be
central to social and human sciences, such as economics,
psychology, anthropology and sociology.

 To counter perceived cultural bias, some practitioners of the

fields have attempted to develop methods and theories to
compensate for cultural bias. Some people claim cultural bias is
a significant force in the natural sciences. For example, Luce
Irigaray believes that physics has been shaped by patriarchal
culture.

 Cultural bias can also relate to a bias that a culture possesses.

For instance, a bias against women could be held by a culture
who degrades women.

Ethnocentrism

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  Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily
from the perspective of one's own culture.
 Ethnocentrism often entails the belief that one's own race or
ethnic group is the most important and/or that some or all
aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups.

 Within this ideology, individuals will judge other groups in

relation to their own particular ethnic group or culture, especially
with concern to language, behaviour, customs, and religion.
These ethnic distinctions and sub-divisions serve to define each
ethnicity's unique cultural identity.

Cultural universal

 A cultural universal is an element, pattern, trait, or institution

that is common to all human cultures on the planet.
 Examples of elements that may be considered cultural universals
are gender roles, the incest taboo, religious and healing ritual,
mythology, marriage, language, art, music, cooking, games, and
jokes.

 It should be noted that some anthropological and sociological

theorists of an extreme cultural relativism perspective may deny,
or minimize the importance of, the existence of cultural
universals.

The principal cultural universals are

1. Food
2. Water
3. Clothing
4. Shelter
5. Social organization
6. Family
7. Communication
8. Recreation
9. Arts
10. Environment
11. History
12. Trance
13. Spirituality

Cultural studies

 An academic discipline which combines political economy,

communication, sociology, social theory, literary theory, media
theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy,
museum studies and art history/criticism to study cultural
phenomena in various societies.
 Cultural studies researchers often concentrate on how a
particular phenomenon relates to matters of ideology,
nationality, ethnicity, social class, and/or gender.

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