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Functionalism. Functionalism is a system of thinking based on ideas of Emile Durkheim that look at society from large-scale perspective, and how each part helps keep society stable.  It says that society is heading towards equilibrium. Ex. local businesses must adapt to new ways to cater to new ways to customers Durkheim imagined a balance between institutions and social facts  Institutions are structures that meet the needs of society like education systems, financial institutions, marriage, laws, etc.  Social facts are ways of thinking and acting formed by society that existed before any one individual and will still exist after any individual is dead. • Unique objects that can’t be influenced and have a coercive effect over individual only noticed when we resist. (Ex. the law) • Others are moral regulations, religious fates, and social currents like suicide/birth rate (one person committing suicide has no effect of suicide on society) Society is dependent on structures that create it, like cell is dependent on parts that make it up.  Intended consequences of institutions are manifest functions, ex. businesses provide a service.  Unintended consequences, ex. schools expose students to new activities, and businesses connect people across society – latent functions, indirect effects of institutions.  Social dysfunction is process that has undesirable consequences and may reduce the stability of society. Durkheim questioned how do societies stay together.  Small societies are held together by similarities, but only works for small ones.  In large societies individuals become interdependent on each other as everyone is specialized in different roles. In functionalism, a change to production/distribution/coordination will force others to adapt to maintain stable state society. Social change threatens mutual dependence of people in that society. Institutions adapt only just enough to accommodate change to maintain mutual interdependence. Problems – functionalism focuses entirely on institutions without regard for individual (only acknowledged). Also largely unable to explain social change and conflict, so focused on equilibrium little change and conflict is modelled. Conflict Theory. Focuses on inequalities of different groups in society, based on ideas of Karl Marx that believed society evolved through several stages: feudalism -> capitalism -> socialism.  19th century Europe was capitalist – rich upper class called bourgeoisie and poor lower class was proletariat and majority. Upper class had more power. Lower class depended on upper class, but upper class also depended on lower class for their labour. Significant inequality, which Marx believed led to change. Lower class united to create class consciousness.  The thesis was that bourgeoisie ran factories and working class provided labour. Desire of working class to change was the antithesis. Thesis + antithesis can’t exist peacefully. One side is leave things, other side is looking for change.  Struggle would lead to a compromise - a synthesis of the two by creating a new state. Would eventually become new thesis. Ludwig Gumplowicz expanded on Marx by proposing that society is shaped by war/conquest, and cultural/ethnic conflicts lead to certain groups becoming dominant over others. Max Weber said he did not believe collapse of capitalism was inevitable, but argued that several factors moderate people’s reaction to inequality. The equal rights and women’s suffrage movements were all conflicts that resolved in a new thesis.  Conflict theory models drastic changes that occur in a society, but doesn’t explain the stability a society can experience, how society is held together (unity), and doesn’t like the status quo. Social Constructionism. Social constructionism argues that people actively shape their reality through social interactions – it’s something constructed, not inherent. Things are social products made of the values of the society that created it.  A social construct is concept/practice everyone in society agrees to treat a certain way regardless of its inherent value, ex. money. Social constructionism is theory that knowledge is not real, and only exists because we give them reality through social agreement – nations, books, etc. don’t exist in absence of human society.  The self is a social construct too – our identity is created by interactions with other people, and our reactions to the other people. 2 types: weak and strong.  Weak social constructionism proposes that social constructs are dependent on brute facts, which are the most basic and fundamental facts. Ex. brute facts are what explain quarks in atoms, not the atoms themselves. • Institutional facts are created by social conventions and do rely on other facts. Ex. money depends on the paper we have given value.  Strong social constructionism states that whole of reality is dependent on language and social habits; all knowledge is social construct and no brute facts. We created idea of quarks and everything we know to explain it. No facts that just exist. Main criticism to social constructionism is it doesn’t consider effects of natural phenomenon on society, and for strong social constructionism it has difficulties explaining those phenomena because they don’t depend on human speech or action. Strong SC only explains reality through thoughts of humans, not using fundamental brute facts.