Question

1. Conclude how society works according to functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism

Answer 1

We will discuss how society works according to functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism and the theoritical perspectives on social stratification. We will discuss them one by one.

Functionalism:

Society according to Functionalism thorws a perspective of how society's parts operate. In functionalism, different aspects of a society are needed as they serve a needed purpose. There is a need for a scientist, a military man, a plumber, a sweeper and so on. All these contribute to the society. The more sophisticated or difficult the nature of the job, the more the money he gets and the scarce the job. For example the work of a doctor or a heart surgeon is much more difficult and sophisticated than the work of a sweeper or manual scavenger. So, a doctor is much more paid and his job is much more scarce than that of a sweeper or manual scavenger. If money and opportunity is made equal for all professions then why will a scientist use so much of his brain and not become a sweeper or a manual worker. So payment and opportunity is given as per the difficulty and sophistication of the job.However all are needed in the society.

Conflict Theory:

Conflict theory is deeply critical of social stratification. Conflict theorists do not like discrimination in profession. For example, they debate that a Baseball, Soccer or Basketball player earns in millions where as a school teacher is not so much highly paid. So, they believe that social stratifcation causes inequality, it benefits some but is not fair to others. Early proponents of conflict theory believed that such stratification happened because of either factories or work places that had either owners or workers. The owners kept most of the profits to themselves and paid very poorly to the workers and that is how the differences in pay began among people and that is how social stratification began. It benefitted the rich but were unfair to the poor.

Symbolic Interactionism:

Symbolic Interactionism theory uses day to day interactions between individuals to describe the society .This theory analyzes social stratification from a very granular or micro level. Proponents to this theory state that people's social standing affects their daily interactions with others. According to this theory, people generally interact with others who were at the same social standing as theirs.People generally want to work, live and associate with others who were at the same income level or belong to the same education background or have same likes of food,vehicles, music, ethnicity or race etc. Symbolic Interactionism theory also states that peoples appearances and lifestyles like clothing, hairstyle, housing and even cars reflect their perceived social standing.