HLST 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Erving Goffman, Microsociology, Sick Role

• School: York University
• Department: Health Studies
• Course: HLST 1010
• Professor: Dennis Raphael

Document Summary

This chapter gives us a scope of the health care system from a sociological perspective. The chapter explores a number of different social frameworks such as structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, social construcitionism, materialism, feminism, anti-racism, post colonialism and modernism. All of these have been applied to help develop evolve and help give a stronger understanding of the sociological perspective in health and health care. Structural functionalism was a early criticism of the social system which primarily focuses on the social relations between individuals and groups in society and how it is built to function and maintain social role. Parsons introduces the sick role stressing the functions of modern medical practice and the complementary roles of physicians and patients. Symbolic interactionism concerns with the interactions between individuals and the meanings they create from that which was primarily focused by goffman. In social constructionism, medical facts are argued to be socially created products.