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7/31/2019 What Sociology Has Promised Me
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/what-sociology-has-promised-me 1/7
WHAT SOCIOLOGY HAS
PROMISED ME?
Moving Beyond Books
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CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY
Marx talked about the State: his theory of economic determinism gave
primacy to economic structure over politics.
Durkheim talked about the society, collective consciousness and culture.
Auguste Comte talked about positivism: data derived from sensory
experience, and logical and mathematical treatments of such data, are together
the exclusive source of all authentic knowledge
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MODERN SOCIOLOGY
Modern sociological theory emerges from the historical foundations
of functionalist (Durkheim) and conflict-centered (Marx) accounts of social structure
Contemporary sociological theory retains traces of these approaches.
Weber is regarded as the father of modern sociology.
Weber talked about methodological individualism: social phenomenon
results from the intentional states of individual actors.
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THEORY OF
FUNCTIONALISM
It was theorised by Emile Durkheim and taken forward by
anthropoligists such as Malinowski, Mauss and Brown. It determines the social structure as a whole and in terms of the
necessary functions of its constituents parts.
According to Anthony Giddens, “functionalism strongly
emphasizes the pre-eminence of the social world over its individualparts (i.e. its constituent actors, human subjects).
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DECLINE OF
FUNCTIONALISM
The functionalist theory began to decline in the 1960s.
Modern sociologists began searching for middle-range theories: between
functionalism and conflict theory (emphasizing the inequality of a particular group).
Third 'generation' of social theory includes
a) Phenomenologically inspired approaches
b) Critical theory
c) Symbolic interactionism
d) Structuralism
e) Post-structuralismf) Theories written in the tradition of hermeneutics and ordinary languagephilosophy
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THE PROMISE BY MODERN
SOCIOLOGISTS
The modern sociologists, in an attempt to move towards the
middle-range theories, seem to move towards no where.
They do not seem to make any promise as such as the theories do
not build upon or are complementary to one another.
Anthony Giddens is considered the main proponents of
structuralism.Structure Agency
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THE PROMISE TO ME
As I grew up as a child, I was constrained upon doing certain things that I wanted to do. The
structure, as referred by Anthony Giddens, can act as a constraint upon action. The common
frames of meanings attached to the actions were family’s rules and the ethical code of conduct. When I entered the college, my self-identity seemed lost. It wasn’t because of the change in
my behaviour, but to carry forward, in Gidden’s terms, the narrative of being constrained.
The environment was dynamic: a lot of changes were taking place around me. However, is it
a post-modernist world that I am living in that I find myself constrained with a lot of things or,
in Gidden’s terms, a “radicalised modernity era, produced by extension of same social forces that
shaped the previous age.