...contains the importance of three Sociological theories, Functionalism, Conflict and Interaction of the sociological institution of economics. It discusses five different elements; (1) how each theory that applies to the sociological institution, (2) what is the same and differences, (3) how each theory affects the views of the individual who is part of the institution, (4) the approach to social change within the institution, and lastly (5) how each theory affects the views of society. Along with how does each theory apply to the sociological institution or economics. The functionalism theory in regards to economics does certainly affect the world which we live in. This change is noted by Hegelian dialectics, functionalism and structuralism, (Karsten, 2005). There are economies becoming intertwined within the increasing internet of the global economy. Enterprises have developed a global idea by internationalizing their products and services, encouraging labor and capital to move quickly among industrialized countries, affecting social, fiscal, and monetary policies. Additional developments have increased awareness on a global scale, human rights, the environment, demographics, and natural resources. But without economic interactionism, functionalism would be difficult, to say the least, (Leigh, Gabel, 1992). Why, because symbolic interactionism shows society a company’s market practices and strategies of marketing, such as promotions, price,...
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...dictionary and encyclopedia of facts, information, and biographies Research categories Symbolic Interactionism Home Social Sciences and the Law Sociology and Social Reform Sociology: General Terms and Concepts International Encyclopedia... A Dictionary of Sociology International Encyclopedia... Further reading TOOLS Symbolic Interactionism International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family | 2003 COPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. Symbolic Interactionism Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective on self and society based on the ideas of George H. Mead (1934), Charles H. Cooley (1902), W. I. Thomas (1931), and other pragmatists associated, primarily, with the University of Chicago in the early twentieth century. The central theme of symbolic interactionism is that human life is lived in the symbolic domain. Symbols are culturally derived social objects having shared meanings that are created and maintained in social interaction. Through language and communication, symbols provide the means by which reality is constructed. Reality is primarily a social product, and all that is humanly consequential—self, mind, society, culture—emerges from and is dependent on symbolic interactions for its existence. Even the physical environment is relevant to human conduct mainly as it is interpreted through symbolic systems. Importance of Meanings The label symbolic interactionism was coined by Herbert Blumer (1969), one of Mead's students. Blumer, who did...
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...Research Paper Gay Parenting and Assisted Reproductive Techniques: A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective Introduction Gay rights have become a prevalent issue within the last decade. In the United States, gay marriage has been legalized in five states. With this has come a flurry of accompanying issues that must be addressed, this includes gay and lesbian fertility rights. Many gay and lesbian couples undergo assisted reproductive techniques (ARTs) in order to have children. In the United States, fertility clinics are privatized, this means, among other things, that doctors have the right to pick and choose whom they take on as patients. There is no guarantee for gay couples seeking fertility treatment; many couples trying to have a baby are turned away based on how a doctor feels about same sex families. As it stands, no physician or hospital receiving government funding can discriminate against a patient based on his or her race, color, religion or national origin (Appel, 2006). It goes against the human rights of the potential patient to discriminate against them based on their sexual orientation. How do anti gay legislation further conceptualize the idea the nuclear family? Using a Symbolic Interactionist perspective, this paper looks at how gay and lesbian families use family symbols and rituals as strategies to negotiate family identity in interactions with families of origin, social network members, and community institutions, as well as challenge hetero-normative...
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...perspective”. This definition of sociology of education is suitable because it speaks much of what goes on in education system. It clearly states that it is important to know sociology before knowing what sociology of education is. This is because sociology is related sociology of education. The statement “sociological perspective” stresses the social context in which people live such as society. Society is a group of people who share a certain culture and a territory. Perspective is a view of the world and it is referred to as a sociological preservative or sociological imagination. Durkheim’s statement helps us to understand that sociological perspective opens a window to another world or unfamiliar world. As we look at other world or our own, sociological imagination casts another form of light on us. This in return enables us to gain a new vision of social life. In other words it helps us to find out why people do what they do like eating, talking and many more. Sociological imagination also looks at social locations. A social location is where people are located in a particular society. Sociologists consider jobs, age, race, income, gender and they also look at types of jobs we are doing in order to understand our behavior. Behaviour is studied in order to discover the regularities and order in that behavior and...
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...Sociology includes four major theoretical perspectives which includes The Functionalist perspective, the Conflict perspective, the Symbolic Interactionist perspective and the Postmodernist perspective. Each one of these perspective Explains about the social world and human behavior. Sociological theories help us and also explains and predicts the social world in which we all live in. The functionalist perspective are based on the assumption that society is a stable, orderly system (Kendall21). Meaning that the majority of society have the same beliefs, values and expectations on life. For example, each social institutions contributes important functions for society. Family provides stability, reproducing and social interactions. Education teaches different skills, knowledge and culture to our youth. Politics helps with the members of governing our society. Economics provide for the production, distribution, and consumption of our goods and services. Religion provides moral guidance and ways to worship a higher power. This is where one functions needs the other to complete itself. The functionalist perspectives takes the approach on the study of Sociology by how society focuses on how each part influences and is influenced by other parts. The Conflict perspective views society as different groups and interest who are competing for power and resources. The conflict perspective explains many different aspect of our social world by looking at...
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...Vernon John’s Story: The Road to Freedom” is a film that portrays the inspirational story of Martin Luther King Jrs’ successor as he interminably campaigns for Civil Rights. While seemingly different themes, each film portrays two issues important in sociology. After all, sociology can be defined as the scientific study of human social behavior and its origins, development, and organizations. Sociologists use many ways to analyze subjects from a sociological perspective. These ways are known today as the symbolic interactionist perspective, the functionalist perspective, and the conflict perspective. Each perspective uniquely conceptualizes society, social forces, and human behavior. The purpose of this essay is not so much as to narrate each film but rather to illustrate a better understanding for three commonly misunderstood perspectives. Although a daily occurrence, the consumption of food can also be associated with important moments in our lives. In the context of society, our nation’s food system is at the core of numerous social movements, political issues, and economic debates. After watching “Food Inc.”, we see that any of these factors in particular may become a topic of a sociological study. A functionalist approach to the topic of food consumption might be interested in the role of the agriculture industry within the nations economy and how this has changed from the earlier days of manual farming to mechanized production. Sociologists might also be interested in...
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...Culture Soc 105 Culture: is everything, frames what we do every minute of day even the way we sleep at night, it is so common to our lives that it is. The set of ideas handed down from generation to generation in a particular group or society, is both product of peoples actions and constraint on their actions. Material Culture: physical objects a society produces from objects of nature, such as tools, streets, cars, sculptures and toys. These objects depend on nonmaterial culture for their meaning. Nonmaterial culture: Intangible elements of a culture, varying from the simple to complex. These elements include symbols, language, values, the norms, the beliefs, and the general knowledge shared by a society. One Part: Symbols: symbols are anything that represents something else to more than one person. Language: A set of symbols communicated through writing, signs and expressions, and speech. Is the core of culture: if you can’t speak the language can’t be a part of the culture, it has words and those words have meaning? Two Part: Norms: socially accepted behavior that falls into 3 categories: * Folkways: Customary, normal, habitual ways a group does things. * Mores: Fairly strong ideas of right or wrong that have a more nature. Can be laws. But not all laws are Mores. * Taboos: Violation generally deeply repugnant. This is what disgusts us: aka, murder, rape, anything that makes you sick you can hardly talk about. SANCTIONS: visible responses to norm violations...
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...Assess the usefulness of interactionist approaches to the study of society. (33marks) Interactionism is an action approach, which focuses on the individual, and tries to understand and interpret human behaviour. They focus on the study of individuals, and how society is constructed by members’ interactions and meanings. They also focus on how human action is meaningful and can be interpreted by an observer. Therefore they take an opposite approach to structural theories and believe individuals have the ability to create society through choice, meaning and action. Symbolic interactionism is concerned with explaining social actions in terms of the meanings that people give to them. Interactions are based on meanings we give to situations. We express these meanings through symbols, especially language. Meanings and symbols allow people to carry out human action and interactions. Language and communication deepens our capacity to become self-aware and aware of others. In addition to ‘talking to others’ we engage in talking to ourselves’, that is, engaging in internal conversations when we are making decisions. Mead (1863-1931) states that humans use symbols as a mean of interacting. Without these symbols there would be no human interaction and human society. Symbolic interaction is necessary since humans have no instincts to direct their behaviour. Mead recognized that people had the capacity to reflect on their own actions. This is because everyone has a self which...
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... In sociology social life is examined at three different levels, micro-level, macro-level, and global-level. The micro-level examines social dynamics of face-to-face interactions between people. The macro-level studies the larger scale dynamics of social interactions that occur within a society. At the global level, social life is examined through the structures and processes that occur beyond state borders or specific societies. It is common that more than one level may be effective when studying...
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...In Australian society today it is very common for people to meet over a cup of coffee in a cafe. This essay will firstly touch on the history of the growing of coffee and its consumption. The essay will then explore the rituals and relationships that occur through café culture and link this to Symbolic Interactionism as well as discuss coffee in relation to Globalisation Theory, and in particular to Ritzer’s McDonaldisation theory. It will conclude with the argument that the consumption of coffee is not only limited to people’s enjoyment of flavour or the feeling that caffeine provides, but is a social interaction in itself. Coffee is native to the mountains of Ethiopia, with the first historical records of it being roasted and brewed by the 1500’s. According to Mark Pendergrast, author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, the general consensus is that coffee beans were then transported from Ethiopia, across the Red Sea to Yemen. For a time no fertile beans were exported, but an Indian pilgrim took fertile seeds to India and began the growing of coffee plants. The consumption of coffee then spread to England and to Europe by 1650. It is said that by the year 1700 there were over 2000 coffee house in London alone (ABC Rear Vision, 2009). Coffee beans are now grown in the area between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, in countries which are (mostly) developing. According to the International Coffee Organisation, Brazil produced and...
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...1. Functionalist questions a. What are the functions of Wal-Mart for society? Wal-Mart is an American multinational retail corporation and one of the leading discount department retail stores (Wikipedia). It is the highest- grossing company in the United States (Fortune 2008a), and is by far one of the most successful companies worldwide. Wal-Mart offers a place to buy the majority of our goods under one roof like electronics, furniture, clothing, pharmacy, sports, food, books etc. Wal-Mart sells good at lower price than the others and this is even shown by its slogan “save money, live better”. It drives out smaller and sometimes even the expensive stores out of business due to its lower prices. Wal-Mart provides jobs for thousands of people in the society including the low-skilled people. It represents a trend of one stop shopping where we can get almost everything that we want. b. Are they the same or different from the functions of Wal-Mart in our individual lives? How do the two types of functions connect? One of Wal-Mart belief and function is the respect for the individual. They have given importance of respect for every individual and every member of the community. For individuals; Wal-Mart offers convenience, good pricing and multiple products under one roof. It reduced the overall cost to consumers as they don’t have to go from one place to another to buy different goods. c. Does Wal-Mart have both manifest and latent functions? Manifest functions are conscious...
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...A DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR STUDYING COMMUNICATION COMPETENCIES AMONG DIRECT SELLERS IN MALAYSIA FOR THE 12TH ABC ASIA-PACIFIC CONFERENCE AT DOSHISHA UNIVERSITY, KYOTO, JAPAN ON MARCH 13 – 15, 2013 FIRST AUTHOR NUREDAYU OMAR (PRESENTER) UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA nuredayu@uum.edu.my CO-AUTHOR PROFESSOR CHE SU MUSTAFFA UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA chesu402@uum.edu.my *THIS MANUSCRIPT IS ORIGINAL AND HAS NOT BEEN PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE A DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR STUDYING COMMUNICATION COMPETENCIES AMONG DIRECT SELLERS IN MALAYSIA Many studies have been conducted related to communication competencies since the last decade until now. However, the availability of the studies on communication competencies has not been explored in depth particularly in the direct selling context in Malaysia. To understand the direct sellers’ communication competencies, a conceptual framework will be built based on related literature studies. Literature reviews have shown a variety of studies on communication competencies from the behavioral and cognitive perspectives. Although numerous studies have provide understanding of communication competence in various context, there is a gap in viewing communication competencies in a more dynamic context, particularly in the process of communication of direct sellers with their potential customers. This paper attempts to discuss the importance of...
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...is a perspective on human behaviour and its connection to society as a whole. It invites us to look for the connections between the behaviour of individual people and the structures of the society in which they live. The structures are functionalism, Marxism, Feminist, Interactionism, Collectivism, Postmodernism and New right. Functionalism Functionalism is a perspective created by Emile Durkheim. He believed society was made up of inter-connected institutions for an example education, family and government which depended on each other to function. Functionalists see society as being similar to the human body. In the same way the body relies on the heart to pump blood round to other vital organs like the lungs and brain. Functionalists see society as being constructed of different inter-dependent components like the family and education system. So in the same way the human body would fail if the heart stopped, functionalists’ argue society would stop working properly if the family stopped functioning properly. Functionalists say this would happen because the family is an institution in which primary socialisation occurs. Primary socialisation is where younger members of a family are taught societies norms, values, roles and beliefs, By having the same values which we all share, a value consensus is establish. Therefore we can see the family has a function in the social system. This perspective of society differed from other sociologists of his era as Durkheim's theories...
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...Assess the usefulness of micro sociology to our understanding of society (33marks) Micro sociology focuses on the actions and interactions of individuals and is a bottom-up approach. Such micro approaches, see society as shaped by its members, who possess agency, in other words, the ability to act as free agents. Micro approaches, also known as action theories, include social action theory, symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and ethnomethodoly. However, macro sociologists take a deterministic approach, as they believe that our actions are determined by society. Macro theories include Functionalism and Marxism, who see individuals as puppets, under the control of social structures. One micro approach to sociology is Weber’s social action theory. According to Weber, in order to understand human behaviour, we must take into account both the level of structural cause, and the level of subjective meaning that individuals attach to their actions. Weber argues that there are an infinite number of subjective meanings that actors give to their actions; however he attempts to classify actions into four types. Instrumentally rational action refers to action that is driven by a given goal, in order to achieve through the most efficient means. Value rational action involves action towards a goal that the actor regards as desirable, for example worshipping god in order to get to heaven. Unlike instrumentally rational action, there is no way of calculating whether the means of achieving...
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...Before Ebola had a diagnosis, the interactions between the individuals amongst each other as well as from village to village and country to country stayed the same. It was not until the World Health Organization came into the villages and began to isolate those who were infected and those who were suspects that the interactions started to change. Once the Ebola hospitals were full people who had contracted the virus were out on the streets in the slums; this caused more people to become infected. The people became outraged and started to push back against the people there to help them with this disease. In one case the people overthrow the Ebola clinic from the school house that it was house. They removed dead bodies as well as clothes, sheets, and mattresses with their bare hands and walked through blood without shoes. Due to the lack of knowledge about the Ebola virus, the individuals did not know that were actually infecting...
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