Theoretical Approaches World Cultures

3 Major Theoretical Approaches to Analysing Culture. Structural- Functional Approach Social- Conflict Approach Symbolic Interaction Approach

Structural Functional approach in Sociology Society is a complex system with many independent parts that work together to maintain itself and keep society stable. This approach sees culture almost as a “complex machine” where all the parts work together to function properly and remain stable. This even includes “bad things” This is a Macro-level orientation  this means it looks at culture broadly, focusing on big issues in society

Two key components to this approach: Social structure : repeated and routine-like patterns of social interaction or social behaviour. Ex. Sporting events, religion, school, Social function : mechanisms by which the structures of society are maintained …it’s the purpose for that social structure existing.

Example Social structure: Religion Social function: to keep the family together, or create community. In fact people may disagree with what the function of a social structure is because we all have different ideas of their function!

Your turn… Social structure: Education/School What are the Manifest and Latent functions of education or school?

Emile Durkheim ( ) He’s credited with coining the term Social facts, and these are things that may be material or nonmaterial. These are pieces of information about social life. They are NOT “things” that come from individual responses; rather they are collectively from society. He looked for correlations between social facts in order to reveal laws of social structure. Material: technology, housing arrangements, population distribution, etc. Nonmaterial: norms, values, roles (ways of acting, thinking and feeling), systems (language, currency, professional practices)

Social Conflict Approach This is a theory based on conflict and it sees that society is a place for conflict based on inequalities. This is typically about inequalities over resources and sees that social structures within society help some while limiting others. This approach is macro level. You’ll notice that the social conflict approach doesn’t say which conflict is the base for the inequalities. There are different subdivisions of the social conflict approach that view a different conflicts as the main one in society. So ultimately, this approach is a way of looking issues, rather then saying that one social conflict is the strongest.

Carl Marx ( ) He started the Social Conflict approach and is often credited with being the founder of communism He was an economist who argued that economy class is the major source of inequality in life. He saw the Economic class as the biggest conflict and it’s a conflict between the Bourgeoisies (owners) -who are the ones in power and who pay people to work – and those being paid to work, the proletariat (workers). Marx saw revolution NOT as a bad thing it was necessary to kept balance because by default the owners have more power

Max Weber ( ) He looked at the connection between Capitalism and the growth of Protestantism. He was interested in the fact that capitalism was flourishing in areas where Protestantism was around. He looked at the ideas that cultural influences can be embedded in religion and this can have economic systems

C. Wright Mills ( ) He saw the power elite being a danger to the rest of society. He saw the social conflict being between the power elite and the rest of the civilization. The Power Elite are a really small group of people and they are usually the ones on top, most powerful in society (Politians, generals, business owners, corporate people). He saw that there was a difference between the power elite’s goals and what was good for the rest of society. So he saw the power elite as a threat to freedom

Symbolic Interaction Approach This is very different fro the other two approaches to analyzing culture… It looks at society as the result of many individual and everyday interactions. This is a micro level (zoomed in) orientation, that focuses on individual actions and individual interactions.

If you look at the meaning of the words “Symbolic interactions” is all about the representation of one thing for another thing. There are many examples of this, but language is a great example of one. Words don’t mean anything on their own; we train ourselves to understand each other and these representations. Ex. Lamp

Example One thing to help understand this is the idea that people react to perceived reality not physical reality Example with the bear  we don’t respond to what’s physically happening, we respond to what we think is happening.

Interpretive Sociology Symbolic interaction approach is tied to Interpretive Sociology. To really understand behaviour we have to look at the meaning people attach to it in their social world. We also need to remember that people react to perceived reality not physical reality. So if they are reacting to what they think they see, rather then what they actually see, the meaning can be very different. That’s very important!

One of the benefits of Interpretive Sociology is that it avoids judgment of individuals out of context. So if we look at the actions of someone killing another person, the interpretive sociological approach would look at the context of what the person thought they were doing, so it not saying its right but it avoids some of the judgments and you can at least think about what they thought they were doing.

Your assignment: How might a structural functionalist perspective and a symbolic interactionist perspective differ in their analysis of the cow-jumping rite of passage among the Hamar people of Ethiopia? What are the strengths and weaknesses of both theoretical perspectives in helping you understand and explain this practice?