Vusumuzi Dube
“In trying to understand and explain society, sociologists use ideas and theories”.
If sociology was football, I would say sociology is characterised by the players, perspectives and you are the coach, student who knows which player, perspective to use in different situations.
As the coach, you should know that without players there is no game. This means that without perspectives, there is no sociology.
Comte who developed sociology was a mathematician. So let me say perspectives are like a mathematical formula where you can not get to an answer without the application of the formula, perspective. More so, you can only apply a formula if you understand it.
In sociology, there is no way you can understand anything without an understanding of a perspective.
In order to understand society, we should apply the theories and the perspectives. According to Macionis (1997): A theory is a general statement about how some part of the world fit together and how they work.
On the other hand, a perspective is a particular way of viewing or looking a phenomenon. In simpler terms, a perspective is generally defined as a point of view that provides an explanation for human society.
Consensually, theories are a set of interconnected concepts and ideas that have been scientifically tested and combined to magnify, enlarge, clarify and expand our understanding of people, their behaviour and their society.
There are four dominant theories/ perspectives in sociology, namely: Functionalist perspective; Conflict/Marxist perspective; Feminism/conflict; Symbolic interaction.
These perspectives can be grouped into two, macro and micro. Macro means big so these are the theories that study society at a larger scale and we have functionalism, Marxism and feminism.
Micro, means small, so these theories study society in small-scale interaction. We have symbolic interactionism in such a category.
Functionalist perspective
The functionalist perspective has a long history in sociology. It’s prominent in the work of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), two of the founding fathers of the disciple. It was later developed by Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and refined by Talcot Parson (1902-1979). These sociological perspectives emerged in the 19th Century, it is also known as structural/macro functionalism.
During the 1940 and 1950s functionalism was the dominant social theory in American society.
Robert A Nisbet argued that structural functionalism was “without any doubt, the single most significant body of theory in social sciences in the present twentieth century” (cited in J Turner and Maryanski, 1979). This is a perspective that views society in a positive angle.
This means that if you want to talk about how good marriage is, you have to apply functionalism as a formula/ player / perspective, remember you are the coach, you actually know your players.
Functionalism views society as a system that is as a set of interconnected and interrelated parts which together form a whole, the basic unit of analysis is society and its various parts are understood and connected primarily in terms of their relationship to the whole.
The functionalist theory claims that society is in a state of balance and kept that way through the functions of society’s components parts; a common analogy popularised by Herbert Spencer, present society as a biological organism, each part is functional and contributing towards the survival of the whole, changes or problem in one part may affect the entire system.
Talcot Parson (1902-1979), a Harvard University sociologist, was a key figure in the development of functionalism. Parsons had been greatly influenced by the work of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber etc. For years, Parson dominated American sociology with his advocacy of functionalism. He saw society as a whole, the religion, educational system, medical, political, economic and even the family institution.
Functionalism claims that there is basic order in society, everything serves a purpose. It is also of the view that, our behaviour is a product of society, we are shaped by our teachers, parents and so forth. Functionalism has it that there’s value consensus in society, meaning everything is agreed upon, suggesting that there is no force or coercion in society.
Functionalism appreciates the positive functions of social institutions such as religion, education, family and so on, without these institutions, society can not exist. For example, family produces members of society and without family there is no society, education later educates members of society to promote self-esteemed and cultural inoculation.
Culture is important, without culture, there will be social disorder. Culture provides common behaviour patterns. However, functionalism has a number of limitations: Failed to recognise the degree of conflicts that prevail in society on the basis of age, gender, race and class. While it assumed that there is social order and consensus in society, it ignored the extent to which people are forced to do things they do not want to do.
It ignored that human behaviour is not totally shaped by society, at some point, people have free will, can still show strange behaviour. It only sees the positive functions of social institutions such as family, critics have said family is not a bed of roses as portrayed by functionalism, also family is not that romantic as portrayed but is a prison for both males and females.
Tatenda Chihota is a sociology facilitator and scholar who has authored six sociology textbooks
Online Reporter