The Basic Perspectives 92

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The Basic Perspectives (9/2)

• Chicago Sociology
• Conflict theory Marx
• Functional theory Durkheim
• Conflict and functional theory as feedback systems

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Sociological Approaches  

• Human behavior is socially determined insofar as
  it is socially shaped.
• The Chicago School showed that different
  neighborhoods had very different rates of crime,
  addiction, juvenile delinquency, illegitimacy,
  academic failure, etc.
• This demonstrated that some kind of lawful
  process was operating which can be understood
  scientifically.
• You do not usually need to know which persons
  will engage in an act in order to understand and
  predict rates.
• Something about some neighborhoods led to higher
  rates of pathology there.

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Implications of different rates

• The different rates highlighted the basic insight
  of sociology, that human behavior is socially
  shaped.
• The high rates were not the result of biology,
  because even when all the people died or when the
  whole composition of the area changed, the rates
  remained the same.
• Chicago theorists argued that they resulted from
  the social structure

4
Explanations of different rates

• There were two main kinds of explanations of what
  was the social structural problem.  
• Functionalist sociologists mainly explained the
  rates in terms of the norms and values embedded
  in churches, families, schools or gangs.
• I.e. the people in different neighborhoods were
  being socialized into different subcultures
• Migration various groups experienced similar
  disruption of families and loss of traditions.
• Conflict theorists explained them in terms of
  class and the different life chances built into
  the class structure.
• I.e. different rents and housing costs sort
  people by class,
• and the different resources of different groups
  produce different life chances and subcultures.
• The third perspective, the Interactionist
  perspective, is a hybrid that mainly operates at
  the individual level.          

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Chicago theorists argued that the rates resulted
from the structure

• This demonstrated some kind of lawful process
  which can be understood scientifically.
• People may be "choosing" to engage in those
  actions, but it is a constrained choice.
• Something about some neighborhoods led to higher
  rates of pathology there.
• Chicago theorists also argued that socially
  produced problems could be socially changed by
  changing the conditions.

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The major sources of crime and delinquency in
Chicago

• Neighborhoods had high rates when
• 1) They were poor
• 2) ethnically or racially fractionalized
• 3) mobile with few stable families and
  institutions.
• But these could be understood either sub
  culturally (Functional) or as class and group
  conflict and competition (Conflict Theory).

7
Functional/Conflict Perspectives

• Functionalism and conflict theory are two
  different ways of explaining how the structure
  fits together.
• Functionalists see social institutions as
  connected like organs in a body.
• Def (p.23) An approach that focuses on how
  social parts contribute to society as a system.
• Image façade of the Alamo
• Examples Emile Durkheim (Parsons, Smelser)
• Conflict theorists see different groups as having
  different interests.
• Def. (p.26) focuses on conflict in society.
• Image the back of the façade
• Example Karl Marx (Joe Feagin, Massey, Reskin,
  M. Burawoy last 4 pres. of ASA)

8
Functional and Conflict models differ about what
is the main force producing social problems

• Functional The breakdown of families and morals
  produce crime, AIDs, etc.
• Conflict Poverty produces crime brutal
  conditions are brutalizing crime AIDs, etc.

Educational failure
Weakening of families and morals
Gangs, drugs, crime.
Poverty


Educational failure
Poverty
Weakening of families
Gangs, drugs, crime.
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The systemic reasons for stressing norms and/or
resources

• But the stress on families or on poverty results
  from different theories about which forces are
  most important, dynamically.
• There is a disagreement between different
  sociologists about what forces are most important
  in driving change in the long run.
• Functionalists stress norms and values as control
  systems.
• Conflict theorists stress resources and power as
  systems of accumulation.

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Thermostats as Control Systems

• A thermostat is a control system that is designed
  to maintain a relatively constant temperature.
• When the temperature goes up, the furnace is
  turned off, bringing the temperature back down.
• And when the temperature falls, the furnace goes
  on.
• Thus a low temperature causes a rise a high one,
  a fall.
• Systems theory and cybernetics explored many such
  control systems.
• An organism needs many such systems to maintain
  temperature, blood sugar, electrolyte balance,
  arousal, etc.

Furnace activity
Low temperature
-
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A system with negative feedbacks acts like a
marble in a bowl

• A thermostat will mean that any rise in the
  temperature will trigger a process that will
  cause the temperature to tend to fall.
• Therefore it resists change.
• A norm works that way
• So does a role, such as a job, that is designed
  to make sure some set of tasks get done.
• Functionalist sociology found many social
  structures that act this way.

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A Systemic model of Functions

• Society is a control system.
• Norms, socialized in families are the controls.
• E.g. Durkheims theory of crime and punishment.
• Norms are what keep social life livable.
• Punishment re-establishes norms when they weaken.
• Crime is functional in the sense that
  enforcement is one of the main ways the rules are
  defined.

CRIME
PUNISHMENT
-
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Functions, controls and norms

• The idea that social structure rests on a number
  of control systems has played a major role in
  20th c. sociology.
• Often, this is connected with the notion that the
  roles and connections to primary groups such as
  families and churches establish norms, which are
  then enforced by the law and other institutions.
• This is called the functionalist perspective.
• It usually explains situations such as those in
  187, as the breakdown or weakening of those
  control systems.

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A Systemic model of conflict the vicious cycle

• A very different set of systems is stressed by
  Conflict theorists, who see society as like a
  game of Monopoly
• Resources aid in getting access to more
  resources, and so the rich get richer.
• Many other resources accumulate, like properties
• E.g. education, health care, skills, contacts,
  family, drug-free, crime-free, gang-free
  environments, etc.
• Producing privileged and disprivileged groups.

RENTS
PROPERTIES

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The vicious cycle and a reverse thermostat

• Imagine what the temperature would be like if the
  thermostat was designed to turn the furnace on
  when the temperature went up and to turn it off
  when it went down.
• The temperature would fluctuate wildly the room
  would become unlivable effects of history would
  persist.
• The problem is that there are many processes that
  behave in this way.
• For example, the accumulation of property and
  privilege.
• Resources gives better access to further
  resources.

FURNACE ACTIVITY
TEMPERATURE

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A System with positive feedbacks behaves like a
marble on a hill

• A classic example of a conflict theory system is
  a game of Monopoly.
• Your property determines your income and your
  income determines your property.
• And so no matter how nice people are or how equal
  in ability or resources at the beginning, as some
  players gain a slight lead, they get to acquire
  and improve properties, getting more ahead.
• The rich get richer and the poor get poorer until
  the game destroys itself.

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Vicious Cycle Feedbacks and Native Americans

• There were about 30million Native Americans on
  North America when the Europeans arrived.
• There were about 300,000 in 1900
• By the 19th century, the only good Indian is a
  dead Indian and both formal policy and
  individual actions accomplished that.
• But Europeans did not get off the boats and start
  shooting.
• Loss of land, poverty, marginalization, broken
  families, alcoholism, smallpox, tribal wars,
  social breakdown all reinforced racism which
  reinforced these conditions.

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Functionalism in sociology e.g. E. Durkheim
(1858-1916)    

• Durkheim is discussed in most chapters of
  Sociology, Micro, Macro and Mega
• Functionalism appears in all chapters
• Functionalism believes that the society is an
  organic system
• The main forms of modern functionalism stress
  norms as the social thermostat.
• Fundamental concepts function, social
  integration norms normative integration.

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Conflict theory in sociology Karl Marx
(1818-83)

• Marx economic model of profit, interest and rent
  said that there is a tendency for the labor
  market, the capital market, etc. to operate like
  a game of Monopoly.
• And his theory of alienation says that the
  accumulation of power, status, education, skills,
  health services, etc. often acts the same way.
• Many people believe that unless social policy
  intervenes to assure a New Deal, and Fair
  Deal, etc. markets will behave like Monopoly.

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For next time

• Class time 1000-09 - 930
• 1000-13 1230
• Questions
• Social Dynamics.
• What are the long term effects of actions and
  changes?
• The effects of changes in a complex,
  interdependent system are not always obvious.
• The interconnection of social problems.
• Does your social problem appear in 187?
• How is it connected to the other problems
  pictured?
• Equal opportunity.
• Do students in E. L.A. and in 90210 have equal
  opportunity ?
• If not, what would it take to make opportunities
  equal?