Sociological Theories

I. Functionalism (e.g., grounded theory)

• Focus: Order and equilibrium
• Goals: Identify social system components (the maintenance/transmission of order and equilibrium)
  
• Assumptions: Social systems must carry out certain functions to survive; Equilibrium is normal; disorder & conflict are pathological
  
• Concepts: System, functions, goals, adaptation, integration, institution & structure, norms, values, cultural rules, social equilibrium, and order
• Levels of Analysis: Macrolevel (groups, collectivities and their relationships)
• Research topics: Categories/structures that organize/constitute social system; Interrelationship to maintain order
  
• Critique: Too static: trying to justify the status quo
  
• Contributors: T. Parsons, C. Levi-Strauss, A. R. Radcliffe-Browne, B. Malinowski, R. Merton, E. Shils, E. Durkheim
  

II. Conflict Theory (e.g., resistance theory)

• Focus: Conflict and change
• Goals: realistic portrayal of social reality including explanation of change, social disruption, conflict)
  
• Assumptions: contradictions are inherent in social organizations and caused by inequality of resource distribution; functionalism fails to explain the dynamism of social systems; conflict and change are normal; conflict is dialectical
  
• Concepts: Same as in functionalism, plus legitimacy, consciousness, domination, coercion, subjugation, contradiction, dialectic, correspondence, ideology, strain, deviance, change, and adaptation
  
• Levels of Analysis: Macrolevel (groups, collectivities and their relationships)
• Research topics: Causes and consequences of conflict; power exercised; sources of societal inequality; social transformation
  
• Critique: vague definition of conflict constituants; no answer to conflict-order/stability relationships
  
• Contributors: K. Marx, G. Simmel, R. Dahrendorf, L. Coser, M. Weber, P. Bourdieu
  

III. Interpretive Theory (e.g., the metaphor of lock and key in Country Boys; interactionism)

• Focus: The constructed nature of social meaning and reality
• Goals: understand how people construct and act upon meanings
  
• Assumptions: Meaning is constructed of social interaction, changes in interaction due to different perceptions; reality is based on interpretations, changes according to the actors and the context
  
• Concepts: Self, self-concept, mind, symbols, meaning, interaction, role, actor, role taking, role making, role expectations, construction of reality, discourse, scripts, texts, communication
  
• Levels of Analysis: Microlevel (individuals and small groups in interactions with each other)
• Research topics: meaning-human behavior relationship; symbols that structure human interactions
  
• Critique: Remains at microlevel; no connections to determinants in external social structural variables
  
• Contributors: H. Blumer, G. H. Mead, R. Park, C. Cooley, R. Turner, E. Goffman, M. Kuhn, H. Garfinkel, A. Cicourel, H. Becker, J. Dewey
  

IV. Critical Theory (e.g., viewers' choice of Appalachian 2 case studies; transform society through education...)

• Focus: Origins of social, political, and economic oppression
  
• Goals: Unmask sources of oppression, promote understanding of causes and consequences of oppression, encourage participation in liberation
  
• Assumptions: conventional social theory is a bankrupt construction of ruling elites for them to oppress the society with hidden/disguised power; social life operates at multiple levels of meaning
  
• Concepts: Resistance, human agency, oppression, hegemony,, domination, subordination, subjectivity, political economy, consciousness (false/true), stratification of power by race, social class and gender, ableness, sexual orientation, deconstruction)
  
• Levels of Analysis: Macro and microlevels (integration of individual interaction with macrolevel social analysis). Meaning as found in interactions and texts
  
• Research topics: Sources of inequality and oppression, individual experiences within social organizations, the format of oppression, construction of positive/negative meanings/identities
  
• Critique: Lack of objectivity and neutrality in favor of advocacy stance toward toward the oppressed
  
• Contributors:T. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, H. Marcuse, H. Gadamer, M. Foucault, J. Habermas, H. Giroux, M. Apple, P. Freire, M. Fine, L. Weis, P. Wexler, P. McLaren, J. Dewey, I. Illich