When I look back and try to analyze my personal sociological standpoint, I see myself as a functionalist with organic solidarity throughout of my personal background. However, I also support conflict theory related to my educational experience in United States.
I grew up in a very diverse city and was raised in a traditional family: mother, father, grandparents. I think my family is the major framework for me. I believe that it is essential nucleus helps me function and be successful in society. I learned that functionalism in sociology supports idea of maintaining cohesion among different parties in society. Although, we are all so unique in our own ways of living, we still create harmony for functioning with each other. My mother is one of the major mentors in my life. Her voice always plays very important part in my decision-makings. My family works like an “organism”. We all perform different roles on a daily basis, but still support overall stability in our relations. My parents taught me the ways how you function within your family relates to your functioning with other members around us. Strong family foundation gave me an opportunity to be an active participant of my large community nowadays.
As we learned in our sociology class, functionalist paradigm/theory according to E. Durkheim exists in two different forms: mechanical and organic solidarities. I can say my grandmother’s generation came from mechanical solidarity. She lived in a very small urban area, didn’t go to college back then, but was a hard worker and helped with different skills on a farm. There wasn’t absolute division between man’s and woman’s work. My grandmother did different types of labor each day, helping her parents to maintain farmer’s land. It was very well known agricultural area, but very narrow-specialized in harvesting. Job market was very limited. All people in my grandmother’s