SOC101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Talcott Parsons, Émile Durkheim, Symbolic Interactionism

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC101
• Professor: Barry Mc Clinchey

Document Summary

Sociology lecture 2: functionalism, symbolic interactionism, conflict, feminist theory. Institutions we have created as a society work because we have made them though consensus. Small community, people depending on others: organic solidarity describes later societies organized around interdependence and the increasing division of labour. Social action theory is a framework which attempts to separate behaviours from actions to explain why people do what they do. Four functional imperatives (agil: adaptation, goal attainment. Robert k. merton: developed functionalism , social structures may have many functions, shared many concepts with talcott parsons, manifest functions of societal institutions the functions for which they were designed. : institutions actually perform a number of functions not in their. Inability to account for social change: overemphasis on the extent to which harmony and stability actually exist in society (we don"t always agree) Karl marx (1818-1883: dynamic relationship between the material and social elements of society, base: material and economic foundation for society.