Something we have discussed in our course over the past few class sessions, is a major debate between typically liberals and conservatives. How do we best explain and correct the major societal issues of today, such as inequality or education. On one side, we have many believing that these issues are caused by social structural factors that create an unequal playing field created by certain institutions and laws within our society. However, this is in direct contrast with what many conservatives see as the root cause of societal programs, and that is they see certain cultural norms within our society which they believe lead to said societal issues. While this is somewhat of a generalization of the explanations these different ideological views use towards understanding major social problems, it is what we typically see from both groups. However, as I have learned over the course of my time as sociology major, that social structure and cultural explanations are not mutually exclusively, but are more of circular spectrum that intersects heavily, and by understanding that spectrum, we can better understand how these social problems come about.
Over the course of the paper, I will first explain what exactly are social structural explanations and cultural explanations, and show some of the most popular examples of both. In addition, I discuss what I think is the core of the disagreement between the two, and what I think matters in comprehending life chances.
The idea of a “social structure” is probably one of the most popular and influential concepts in the world of sociology, with social theorists from Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Parsons, all base their work off the fundamental idea that there is a large societal structure which pl...
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... leads to the perpetration of major social issues.
Works Cited
Blau, Peter M. 1977. “A Macrosociological Theory of Social Structure” American Journal of Sociology 83(1): 26-54. Retrieved March 20, 2014 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2777762).
Kelling, George L. and James Q. Wilson 1982. “Broken Windows.” Washington, DC: The Atlantic. Retrieved March 20, 2014 (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/?single_page=true).
Schorow, Stephanie 2008. “Wilson perceives social structure and culture as key causes of poverty.” Cambridge, MA: Harvard Gazette. Retrieved March 20, 2014 (http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/10/wilson-perceives-social-structure-and-culture-as-key-causes-of-poverty/).
Wilson, William Julius. 2010. More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. New York. W. W. Norton & Company
Three thinkers form the foundations of modern-day sociological thinking. Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber. Each developed different theoretical approaches to help us understand the way societies function, and how we are determined by society. This essay will focus on the contrasts and similarities of Durkheim and Weber’s thought of how we are determined by society. It will then go on to argue that Weber provides us with the best account of modern life.
Dyson, Michael Eric. 1996. Race rules: navigating the color line. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
While whites lived comfortable lives in their extravagant mansions and driving their fancy cars blacks had to live in a disease infested neighborhood with no electricity or in door plumbing. Approximately one thousand people lived in shacks that were squeezed together in a one-mile zone. The alleys were filled with dirt, rats, human wasted and diseases. Blacks lived in houses made of “old whitewash, a leaking ceiling of rusted Inx propped up by a thin wall of crumbling adobe bricks, two tiny windows made of cardboard and pieces of glass, a creaky, termite-eaten door low for a person of average height to pass through...and a floor made of patches of cement earth”(31). Living in such a degrading environment kills self-esteem, lowers work ethic and leaves no hope for the future.
Wise, T. (2012). Dear white America: Letter to a new minority. San Francisco, CA: City
Sociology is the study of society and the interactions that occur within society itself. There are numerous methods of analyzing societies and the way the function, nonetheless, most methods fall in micro and macro level theories. Micro level theories allow sociologist to study smaller relationships such as individual or compact groups of people. On the other hand, macro level studies permit for larger scale investigations to take place. With both of these theories there are three theoretical perspectives used in sociology. Micro level theories include symbolic interactionism which focuses in interactions done with language and gestures and the means which allow such interactions to take place. Macro level theories include structural functionalism
Wu, F. H. (2002). Yellow: race in america beyond black and white. New York: Basic
Sociology is the scientific study of social structure, social structure influences through culture and principles, together it produces each individual to the way they act, live and think. Due to social influences, many of our morals and values are influenced through media, parents and school. Social structure is important in our society because it affects all dimensions of human experience, it is a pattern of social interaction and over all makes us who we are. The sociological term for social structure describes society as a whole and the action in which determines individuals. The three main structures that have shaped up my social structure and impacted my life are, my ethnicity, income and religion. Being a Hispanic American Latina forever would have a impact in my life because our culture diversity and the advantage and disadvantages it is to come from a family who had to establish each of their lives all over again by moving to the United States has driven my priorities to become successful very high and not become part of statistics of staying in the middle class or in poverty.
In this narrative essay, Brent Staples provides a personal account of his experiences as a black man in modern society. “Black Men and Public Space” acts as a journey for the readers to follow as Staples discovers the many societal biases against him, simply because of his skin color. The essay begins when Staples was twenty-two years old, walking the streets of Chicago late in the evening, and a woman responds to his presence with fear. Being a larger black man, he learned that he would be stereotyped by others around him as a “mugger, rapist, or worse” (135).
Rose, Arnold. “The Negro in America”. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, 1964. Print
society is structured. Belcher and Deforge stated that “the structural view focuses on the society’s structure
Human beings undergo different stages of development. During the development, people experience various constraints and detriments depending on their gender, race, social status, among other factors. The society plays an incredible role in human development. Everyone deals with eth society in different ways; through education, work, communication, or socializing. Therefore, social influence is inevitable. Scholars go as far as singling out social status being a lifelong limiting factor of human development (Bartholomae, & Petrosky, 2003).
The discipline of sociology provides a perspective that allows for individuals to expand and dig beyond “common knowledge” and inherit an approach to society that allows an advanced analysis of the root cause of activity in a certain society, opposed to assessing it on an assumption. A beneficial component to sociology is that it can be individually directed to different components of society that all contribute to its overall functioning. Under a sociological perspective we can use an engaged approach that once applied to social issues can improve the functioning of societies on both local and global scales that are considered complex, degrading, or facing considerable amounts of neglect. When we take into consideration the environment and
Mills(1959), also wrote about public issues of social structure, referring to matters that go beyond the individual and look at society as a whole. How society is organised and how society works. This goes far beyond ‘the troubles of milieu, as it doesn’t look at the person and there individual experiences in society but looks at the wider social structure e.g social institutions… education, religion, family, law and how they have developed and interact with each other examples of the differenc...
It is suggested that there is less homogeneity and consensus than is generally acknowledge. Structural functionalism is Talcott Parsons made the most battered of all twentieth century sociological theories popular. These two features are held essentially together. First there is a minimum set of common values that are necessary for social order to exist. His intellectual predecessor, Emily Durkheim proposed that society has tomust exist on the basis ofbased on some sort of collective conscience, which is generally shared to a greater or lesser degree. Parsons identifies these subsystems as: Gaul attainment which equates to the political system; the adaptive subsystem which corresponds to the economy; the latency and pattern maintenance subsystem which includes all agents at socialization including the family, school and church. The latter compromises all the rules, values, laws and general prescriptions and prohibitions of behavior. According to Smith, Caribbean societies are plural societies in that they are” units in a political sense. Each is a political unit because it has a single government. He also recognizes that his critics tended to ignore this fact that some uniformity of law and government is essential if the society is to remain a political unit to
...Henslin, James M. "Social Structure and Social Interaction." Essentials of Sociology: A down to Earth Approach. 10th Ed. 10th ed. Pearson, 2013. 112. Print.