Sociological Perspective On Culture

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SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Jennifer Upsher SO170 Brookline College Eryn Cloutier June 18, 2017 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Sociological perspectives on culture is important because sociologists regard culture as direct effect on behavior. This greatly depends on the particular theoretical perspectives and sociologists view culture through different lenses. The word culture has many different meanings. For some it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music, art, and food. For a biologist, it is likely to be a colony of bacteria or other microorganisms growing in a nutrient medium in a laboratory Petri dish. However, for anthropologists and other behavioral scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns. (O'niel, 2012) The functionalist …show more content…

Anomie increases the likelihood of deviance as well as people are deviant when they experience blocked opportunities to achieve culturally approved goals of economic success. (Benkraitis, 2015) According to functionalist theorists, societies where people share a common language and core values are more likely to have consensus and harmony, however, all societies have dysfunctions. With inequalities among societies like gender, class and race, there are a plethora of dysfunctions among society that occur as well as having multiple subcultures that can lead to a lack of consensus on core values. There are strengths and weaknesses about functionalist perspective on culture. The good thing is it focuses on the needs of society and the fact that stability is essential, however it overemphasizes harmony and cooperation. It also does not acknowledge all of the factors that contribute to conflict and strife. Problems are usually resolved with education about the value of cultural diversity and most schools and families are given the responsibility of teaching this value. (n.n,

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