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Sociologists and Their Research Have a Profound Influence on Government Policy. to What Extent Does Sociological Evidence and Research Support This View? (33 Marks)

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Government policies are an amendment that is close to what could be described as a suggestive law, known as a social policy which will be used to improve, impact, or change aspects of society. Sociological research and government policies work together in that when sociologists collect results and data on subjects in which there is a problem within society, it allows the government to place policies to counteract the problems found in society by the sociological research. sociologists solely research social problems, such as poverty and divorce etc. and therefore some of the studies conducted have had massive influence on both government perceptions of underclass society as well as in the lives and well being of the public within the society being studied. As a result many of the key elements of research conducted are taken into consideration when new government policies are taken into consideration. However although some sociological research such as Murray's research on 'the underclass dependency culture, directly linked to the government policy / social policy that was then passed to help the older generations to live without depending on the younger members of the family.

Positivists and Functionalists believe that sociology is a science and therefore they believe they can discover solutions to many of the problems in society. A key idea that Functionalists believe is that they see society as a system (Parsons), they believe that there are different parts to it and together they form a whole, and therefore they believe that all of these systems have to be working to be effective; the link to government policies is that in order for society to be a stable place, there needs to be government policies in place to help keep the balance- and a lot of research done by the Functionalists has been done to attempt to influence policies etc. Parson's take on this idea

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