Sociological Theory and Studying Sociology

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Sociological Theory and Studying Sociology
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Defining Health and Medicine

• WHOs definition of Health
• A state of complete physical, mental, and social
  well-being and not merely an absence of disease,
  or infirmity.
• Medicine The Greatest Benefit to Mankind
• Hippocrates- The art has three factors, the
  disease, the patient, the physician.

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The difference

• Medical Sociology is divided into two subfields
  with some differences
• Sociology of Medicine
• Sociology in Medicine

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Differentiation

• Sociology of Medicine
• Sociology in Medicine
• Social Epidemiology
• Sociology of Health and other subsequent fields

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Theoretical Perspectives

• Structural Functionalism, Conflict Theory,
  Feminist and Symbolic Interactionism
• Review of basic premises
• Functionalism the influence of the rest of
  society on individual health patterns and status.
  
• Durkheim and social processes
• Being constrained by laws and customs of society.
  
• Durkheims suicide- handout

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Durkheims suicide

• Egoistic people are detached from society and
  are suddenly on their own, overwhelmed by stress
• Anomic people suffer a sudden dislocation of
  normative systems where their norms and values
  are no longer relevant
• Altruistic people feel themselves so strongly
  integrated into a demanding society that their
  only escape seems to be suicide
• Fatalistic people kills themselves because their
  situation is hopeless-not developed by Durkheim
• Examples for each?

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Functionalism cont...

• Brenners study of heart disease, stoke and
  kidney failure
• Thesis there are few areas of our lives not
  intimately affected by the state of economy.
• Heart attacks and recession
• Stress causes exposure to risk factors associated
  with these particular health phenomenon.
• Rates of employment and mental hospital
  admissions
• The provocation hypothesis and the uncovering
  hypothesis as explanations for his findings.

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Conflict Theory

• Text the unequal social arrangements and
  racialization present in our society and others.
• Power differences present in society and the
  structures within society.
• The main focus is on stratification and power
  struggles for those who are considered
  proletariats.
• Access to medical care and medicine
• The term medicalization- definition

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Medicalization and Capitalism

• Medicalization the process that defines a
  condition or activity as a disease or an illness
  treatment of the conditions is then considered
  the responsibility of the medical professional.
• The notion of social control in Conflict theory
  and in the process of medicalization
• Article Medicalization and Social Control
• The definition of medicalization- too many
  variations and no concrete definition available.
• The social factors responsible for part of the
  medicalization process

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Factors contributing to Medicalization

• Secularization
• The Medical Profession
• Social Control-
• Durkheim, Parsons, and other theorists- an issue
  of power

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Consequences of Medicalization

• Assumption of medical moral neutrality
• Domination by experts
• Individualization of social problems
• Depoliticization of behaviour
• Dislocation of responsibility
• Using powerful technologies
• The exclusion of evil.

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Feminist Theories

• The oppression of women in the medical profession
  
• The oppression of women as objects of medical
  practice
• Midwifery a good example

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Symbolic Interactionism

• Cooley, Thomas and Goffman
• Micro level perspective and all focus on
  interactions and behaviours of individuals.
• The theory of the looking-glass self
• The basic components of the theory
• We see ourselves in our imagination as we think
  we appear to the other person
• We see in our imagination the other persons
  judgment of our appearance.
• As a result of what we see in our imagination
  about how we are viewed by the other person, we
  experience some sort of self-feeling, such as
  pride or humiliation.

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SI Theory Cont...

• Thomas and the definition of the situation
• The same crisis will not produce the same effect
  uniformly in all people.
• Crises lie in the interaction between a situation
  and a persons capacities to meet it.
• Goffmans dramaturgical analysis- life as a
  theatre
• We live in worlds of social encounter in which we
  act out a line of behaviour- our scripts.
• The maintenance of face is a condition of
  interaction.

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Critical Race Theories

• The relation to the body being different for
  those of different races and ethnicities.
• The role of differentiation and inequality in
  medicine for those of different
  races/ethnicities.
• The article Describing the White Ethnic Group.
• Stark differences in life expectancy and
  morbidity rates.
• Social group differences in terms of support and
  buffering of stress.

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Post-Modernist Thinking

• There is no truth to our claims and there is no
  way to get to truth
• All arguments are opinion based and follow rules
  of discourse to attain truth.
• Discourse of Medical profession and the The
  Birth of the Clinic
• The Body and medical professions labelling of
  disease

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Methodology in Sociology of Medicine

• Based on the theoretical orientation
• Functionalists and Conflict theorists can use
  either quantitative or qualitative methods.
• Same is said for most theoretical frameworks
• SI and Post Modernists focus on interactions and
  use mainly qualitative and content analyses for
  their methdologies.