In this essay I will be looking at a variety of sociological theories and how they attempt to explain society and evaluate and highlight the differences between them. To do this I must first look at structure and agency, two concepts that can be applied to all sociological theory.
Many experts argue that the concepts of structure and agency actually represent mutually exclusive explanatory frameworks. If you explain one social theory by either structure or agency you cannot then explain it by the other (Jones, Bradbury, Le Boutillier, 2011).
Structure is the control over society through regular social institutions, such as class and gender. Social intuitions may influence or limit the choices and opportunities available to a person, social structures are not physically present but to those who are properly socialised into their norms and values find them important. Basically structure is the concept that society creates the individual (George Ritzer, 2012).
Social structures do not see people as individuals but group the members of the population together by things such as; age, gender, class and ethnicity. These structures may limit a person’s life chances, for example social structures such as gender can limit a woman’s chance to get a job or promotion within the workplace, as women may get pregnant and leave to look after children therefore they are seen as less reliable compared to a male and lose out on opportunities.
Structure however can be seen as deterministic as just because someone may be part of a social grouping does not mean they cannot achieve what they want, for instance there are women that hold the top positions in companies.
Agency is the capacity to act knowingly and to make choices of own free will. It is used in sociological theory to emphasise the way people in society create the world around them such as interactionism (O’Byrne 2011). Agency is effected by what the person believes they can do and their own belief system. Agency is the view that the individual shapes society. For instance if a student from a working class area wants to attend university they can achieve it through their free will and belief. However agency can cause conflict in society e.g. working class parents arguing with children about the costs of university as.
Theories such as interactionism use agency to emphasise the way people actively create the world around them. However structural theorists would argue that this view is too simplistic and that social structures have a great impact on an individual’s life.
Structure and agency can conflict each other for instance someone may want to do something of their own free will but they cannot because of their position in society, such as a student from a low socio economic background who wants to attend an elite university like Oxford or Cambridge may be unable to afford to study there as these universities do not allow students to have part time jobs throughout their studies so this may not be feasible for some students even with loans and help from the government.
Functionalism is a structural macro theory and is one of the main theoretical perspectives in sociology developed by Emilie Durkheim. It states everything in society has a purpose and social institutions all depend on each other to work, for example we need police officers to control and monitor crime, when a police officer is injured we rely on doctors performing their function to treat the police officer so they can get back to their job (Parsons 1951). If all parts of society work together well; order, stability, and productivity are achieved. If they don’t work together properly, society then must adapt to recapture a new order, stability, and productivity to regain equilibrium, this happens after wars for instance.
Functionalisms main view is that consensus and order that exist in society, focusing on social stability and shared values. When one part of the system is not working or is dysfunctional, it affects all other parts and creates social problems, which leads to social change, this is then how society moves forward and improves e.g. the women’s vote.
Functionalism is that it provides its own way of describing a wide range of many social events and complex human interaction and why it occurs and how it helps society e.g. crime, as it provides jobs and shows people that if they deviate from social norms and values they get punished and sent to prison. Therefore the theory is relevant.
However, as functionalism is a consensus theory where everyone sees society as fair and just with everyone sharing the same norms and values, this means they fail to acknowledge inequalities that may occur e.g. characteristics such as gender, ethnicity and class may affect a person’s place in society (Giddens and Sutton, 2013). Marxists and feminists would argue that these are bigger factors of control in society. Additionally functionalism fails to acknowledge that not everything in society works together and is harmonious for example religions may cause conflict. Functionalism explains the effects before the cause for instance by claiming children need to be socialised so the family exists, which means that functionalists may not explain society properly. Moreover what a ‘healthy society’ is, is subjective O’Byrne says why should western society the template for the ideal society that other developing and third world countries should aspire to.
Similarly to consensus theory, conflict theories place importance on social structures e.g. education and religion. However they do not share the functionalist view of consensus, instead they place emphasis on the role of power in producing social order. This social order is created when those with the most power, greatest political influence, economic resources, and social resources dominate society.
According to conflict theory’s, inequality exists because those in control of an unequal share of society’s resources such as money actively defend their advantages. The general population are not attached to society by shared norms and values, but by the force of those in power. This perspective highlights social control, not consensus and conformity. Groups and individuals only care about their own interests, struggling over control of resources. Those with the most resources use power over others with inequality as the result. There is attention paid to class, race, and gender in conflict theory because they are seen as the reasons for the most important and long term struggles in society.
Marxism is a conflict theory that focuses on class conflicts based on the works if Karl Marx. Marxists believe that these class conflicts are rooted in the issue of money and capitalism. Marx states that capitalism can only work when the middle and upper classes that he calls the Bourgeoisie exploit the working class. The Bourgeoisie are the ones who benefit from this exploitation as they make the working class work for as many hours as they can for little money as they can pay them, so the upper classes get to keep all the economic power in society. Marxism believes that there was a real contradiction between human nature and the way that we must work in a capitalist society. Marxism states that economic conflict produces class (rich, middle and poor) and then class produces conflict. Marxists believe that a key part in the control of the working and under classes is by separating them in all aspects of society, including the leisure activities for example the middle classes have their own sports such as polo and the working classes have football.
O’ Byrne points out that when Marx was writing capitalism was a fairly new system and at the time unsophisticated so his writing may be too simplistic of modern society, and times have changed. An example of this simplistic view is that Marxism is based upon the idea that the ruling classes own the means of production. However, some critics point out that in some societies there has now been a separation of ownership and control. For example when the person who owns the company or business hires a manager, rather than running it themselves. Another example of how the ruling class might not own and control the means of production is that many large companies are owned by shareholders, many of them being working-class, so the working class now own some of the means of production, this contradicts the whole Marxist perspective. This questions whether the ruling class actually own and control the means of production. Marxism also fails to recognise any of the other forms of inequality other than the class divide so is therefore deterministic. For example, Marxism doesn’t talk about conflicts between genders or ethnicities. Interactionists would argue that Marxism is too deterministic in its views as people from the lower classes can move up the socio economic scale and those in the positions of power can lose it. Plus capitalism has provided opportunities for all and the consumer society we live in and take advantage of its freedoms society enjoys (O’Byrne) such as cheap goods.
Feminism is also a macro structural conflict theory like Marxism, but instead concentrates on gender inequalities, focusing on the male domination in society which they describe as the patriarchy. Marxists and feminists both agree that aspects of social position and social action determine what people know about their world (Fulcher and Scott, 2011).
A dictionary definition of feminism is the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. O’Byrne states that the feminist theory seeks to show that is society and social institutions such as; politics and social psychology exclude women and are dominated by males and focus on the male interest and they marginalise and subordinate the interests of women. This can be seen in current politics for example the tampon tax that women pay when buying sanitary products, something that doesn’t affect males.
Feminism is a diverse collection of approaches that unite under an umbrella. These include; liberal feminism – that states that the liberal ideal that allows citizens to have certain rights has excluded women, Marxist feminism- women’s unequal position in society is due to the class system in capitalist societies, Radical feminism- the subordination of women is directly related to the patriarchal structure of society and the only way to promote the interests of women is to overthrow the current system and postmodern feminism that focuses more on gender identity and Postmodern feminism that focuses more on gender identity.
Feminism states that women have been isolated to the private sphere of the household and left without a voice in the public sphere such as the workplace. Even after women enter the public sphere they are still expected to manage the home and take care of household duties and looking after children sometimes described as the dual burden. Liberal feminists point out that marriage is a site of gender inequality and that women do not benefit from being married unlike men for example married women have higher levels of stress than unmarried women and married men. According to liberal feminists, the gendered division of labour in both in public and in the home needs to be altered in order for women to achieve equality. The feminist theory has also criticized sociologists in the mast calling mainstream sociology ‘male stream’ and that male sociologists have ignored women in society.
The feminist theory mainly focuses on just gender and the domination of patriarchy in society and doesn’t look at other factors such as class or ethnicity that can effect a women’s position in society, for instance a white middle class woman will not be as oppressed as a black working class women, they will have two different experiences they will not hold the same position in society just because they are both women. Furthermore the feminist theory is based upon the fact that women in society are oppressed by the patriarchy, the whole feminist movement is women rebelling against social norms and values placed upon them by society so as they have the power and the free will to protest and rebel they are not oppressed.
Interactionism is a theory that is different to those that are mentioned previously as it focuses on the individuals in society rather than society as a whole, it approaches society bottom up from those who make it and give it meaning. The theory doesn’t see individuals in society as objects or as people whose actions can’t be defined (O’Byrne, 2011). The theory shows free will in society and that people have a choice and not controlled by social structures. Interactionism is based on the ideas of symbolic interaction in society and how we interpret the meanings of people put on objects or behaviours. The theory argues that people interpret behaviour around them and form social bonds.
Although interactionism may overlap with the functionalist theory in that they both discuss the terms role and socialisation, the two both approach these terms differently. Functionalists start at the ‘top’ with the whole society and work their way down, whereas interactionists start with the individual.
Overall this theory views society as being socially constructed by human interpretation (Anderson and Taylor, 2008). Unlike the structural theories, Functionalism, Marx’s and Feminism this theory considers an agency approach that sees individuals having own free will. O’Byrne also points out how interactionism also notices what describes as the ‘underdog’ those who are usually seen as deviant and ignored by mainstream sociology such as Functionalism and Marx, and explains how many people like this theory as it pays attention to the meanings we give to situations. It also takes into account the little things in society that are also ignored by the macro theories.
However interactionism places too much emphasis on free will and the idea that people can do whatever they want with no limits and may ignore that factors such as class and gender may impact on a person’s chances and opportunities to achieve what they want. In addition interactionism on its own cannot explain social change or large scale power structures.
In conclusion there is a wide verity of perspectives in sociology and some theories such as feminism branch off into different views. Sociological structural perspectives such as; Functionalism, Marx’s and Feminism are mainly deterministic and do not take into account a person’s free will and ability to act and that people can decide what they want their own beliefs and values are. They also focus upon one social structure for example Marxism only focuses on class when there may be other reasons for someone being controlled or dominated in society. Furthermore Marxist and functionalist theory can be viewed as outdated so therefore does not apply to present day society. Yet these theories have explained the structure of society in different ways. Agency theory interactionism, however treats people in society as individuals and states that people are not controlled by structures, but they may be too naive in this view. Overall the approaches outlined give a broad view of sociological theory and argue different aspects of complex society and explain society in a variety of ways.