Topic: The Development of Action Sociology. Presentation Topic: The Development of Action Sociology. Presented To Mam Shazia Akbar Ghilzai Presented by Awais Ahmed. Aamir Hussain Ehsan Ullah .

OUTLINES Introduction to social action. Weber concept of social action. Conditions for social action . Types of social action. Social actions and society. The role of meaning and motives in creating culture. Contemporary forms of action sociology Strengths and weaknesses Conclusion

Two basic views on Culture & Identity Durkheim : culture binds individual to a group and instills a collective identity Marx Culture is a form of constraint use to justify inequality and to hide the true nature of exploitation society

Max Weber’s views Also called action or micro approach Humans are not passive victims of a social structure Society doesn’t exist as a thing but rather as a series of actions and interactions by individuals Social life make sense it is meaningful to those involved in its day to day creations Sociology or sociologists can only study the reality of society by looking at the micro level or smaller picture

Weber’s views Not interested in society as thing nor in human as a subject of culture Human make history and society through what they do Societal evolution is haphazard and accidental Its human actions and interactions that cause social change and societal evolution The outcome of this interaction can never be predicted in advance Cultural values and ideas are independent of economy and of how production is organized

Introduction What is social action? The action of individual which are somehow influence guided or determined by the actions of other individuals is called social action. Example: Teaching someone to increase literacy.

Continue……. Therefore an action that a person does not think about cannot be a social action. Example: An accidental collision of bicycles is not a social action , as they are not a conscious thought process.

Max Weber conditions for social actions existence of at least two people. Intention of action to influence other. Other party should influence. Without these an action will not be a social action.

Over to Awais

Types of social actions 1. Instrumentally rational action: Any social action for the sake of some material purpose is instrumentally rational action. Example: Greeting someone with intentions to get material purpose.

Continue….. 2. Value rational action: A social action for the sake of some idea. Example: Teaching someone to promote literacy. 3. Effectual Action: A social action under the influence of some feeling. Offering a flower to your friend for love.

Continue….. 4. Traditional Action: A social action under the influence of some tradition. Example: Vawing hands to friends.

The role of meaning and motives in creating culture. . Weber believed that human make history and society through what they do. Culture is created by human through the meaning and motives they hold which allow them to make sense of what they do.

Social actions and society Max Weber gives very different interpretation of the role of culture. Social action theorist see society as a product of human activity. He also said it was social actions that should be the focus of study in Sociology and Anthropology.

Over to Ehsan

Contemporary Forms of Action Sociology In action sociology or any of it’s other labels such as interactionism, micro sociology or interpretive sociology Three sub traditions of this approach highly influential in shaping of theory as whole Symbolic interactionism Phenomenology Ethnomethodology

Symbolic interactionism Branch of interpretive sociology Humans are active agents Manipulate symbols that have meaning Culture is ready made for us at birth Sense of self and identity is not ready made and is created by meaningful interactions Sees humanity as creating through meaningful interactions

Phenomenology How individuals go about the process of creating meaning, sharing meaning and classifying meaning through the use of symbols(language) Typification; we store in our minds that help us to categorize our day to day experiences Through typification we built up sets of typical examples into meaning context Not interested in how structures shapes social actors Culture is not a thing that control the individual

Ethnomethodology How members of a society create an ordered social reality through their everyday lives Used by people to understand social reality in an active fashion through common sense No structure in society Culture gives us our common sense taken for granted through we use this to understand who we are and how we should act our identity

Strengths Human are seen as active and thinking beings Individuals think about self identity and have some control over it Culture is seen as the outcome of shared meanings Humans are seen as social beings The concept of structure is how individual experience a ready made reality

Weaknesses It ignores the role that power and inequality play in shaping the outcome of interaction Human are seen as having total free will in some version of action sociology It is not clear whether in establishing our self identity We are passive victims of others or able to reject others

Conclusion Culture and identity are underpinned by the active and creating role that human play in society Culture and identity are the result of meaningful action Humans are not passive robots of either class forces or group solidarity Individuals have the power of creating their own identities and cultures

Thank you