This slide is prepared on Sociological Perspectives that is going to be beneficial to the students of sociology in UG and PG and aspirants for competitive exams.

1. Jjjjj
EVOLUTIONARY,CONFLICT,
FUNCTIONALIST, SYMBOLIC
INTERACTIONISM
Dr Anil Bhatt,
Assistant Professor
Dept of Sociology

2. Meaning of sociological perspective
• Peter Berger (American Sociologist)1929-2017
Books-
1- The Social Construction of Reality (1966)
2-Invitation to Sociology: Humanistic Perspective (1963)
• He is known for his work in the sociology of knowledge
“Perspective is an Attitude or Point of View”
• The sociological perspective is one that observes society
through a lens without personal opinions
• The perspective of sociology involves seeing through the
outside appearances of people’s actions and organisations
• Sociological perspective is the ability to view the world from
two distinct perspectives—seeing the general in the particular
and seeing the strange in the familiar.
• There are three major perspectives that have gained
popularity.

3. THE FIRST WISDOM OF SOCIOLOGY IS THIS-
“THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM.”(Peter Berger)
 Sociological perspective enables us to see society as a temporary
social product, created by human beings and capable of being
changed by them as well.
• The sociological perspective invites us to look at our familiar
surroundings in a fresh way. It encourages us to take a new look
at the world we have always taken for granted, to examine our
social environment with the same curiosity that we might bring
to an exotic foreign culture.
• Without the sociological perspective (which has been called the
"sociological imagination"), people see the world through their
limited experience of a small orbit of family, friends, co-
workers. The sociological imagination allows us to stand apart
mentally from our limited experience and see the link between
private concerns and social issues. It permits us to trace the
connection between the patterns and events of our own and the
patterns and events of our society.

4. MAJOR SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Evolutionary
Conflict
Functionalist
Symbolic-
Interactionism

5. Evolutionary Perspective
• Supported by- August Comte, Herbert Spencer
• Study of Origin, Gradual Change, Growth and
Development.
• Unilinear ordered and progressive nature of social
change.
• Analogy with the evolution in Plant and Animal Life
• Sequential Progression of advancement
• Succeeding stage is an advanced form of its
preceding form.
• Progress for something better.

6. • L.H Morgan believed that there were three basic stages in the
process: savagery, barbarism and civilization.
• Auguste Comte's ideas relating to the three stages in the
development of human thought and also of society namely-
the theological, the metaphysical and the positive in a way
represent the three basic stages of social change. He viewed
evolution as a growth of functional specialization of
structures and better adaptation of parts.
• Herbert Spencer a British sociologist carried this analogy to
its extremity. He argued that society itself is an organism. He
even applied Darwin's principle of the survival of the fittest to
human societies. He said that society has been gradually
progressing towards a better state. He argued that it has
evolved from military society to the industrial society. He
claimed that western races, classes or societies had survived
and evolved because they were better adapted to face the
conditions of life.
• Emile Durkheim’s view on the progressive division of Labour

7. FUNCTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE
• Herbert Spencer-
• SOCIETY IS LIKE A LIVING ORGANISM-limbs, heart,
legs, blood, veins, in which all inter-related parts
have interdependent functions which contributes
for its survival.
• Parts of society are family, religion, state,
• Each component has a specific function
contributing to the efficient social system.
• Parts of society are structured to maintain the
stability of society
• Change in one part will bring change in another part

8. • Talcott Parsons Harvard University Sociologist
(1907-1979) – “Under the functionalist approach, if an aspect of
social life does not serve some identifiable useful function or promote
value-consensus among members of society- it won't be passed from
one generation to the other.”
• Society has a tendency to be in equilibrium.
• It is organized and well-integrated system
• Change in one part affects the other part.
• Social Consensus, Integration and order are key elements of
functionalism
• Parsons argued that any social system is based on four functional
prerequisites---
• Adaptation,
• Goal Attainment ,
• Integration,
• Pattern Maintenance

9. • ADAPATAION- refers to the relationship between the system and its environment.
In order to survive, social systems must have some degree of control over their
environment. e.g. Economy is the institution which provides Food and shelter
• GOAL ATTAINMENT- refers to the need for all societies to set goals towards
which social activity is directed. Procedures for establishing goals and deciding on
priorities between goals are institutionalized in the form of political systems.
Governments not only set goals but also allocate resources to achieve them
• INTEGRATION- refers primarily to the ‘adjustment of conflict’. It is concerned
with the coordination and mutual adjustment of the parts of the social system. Legal
norms define and standardize relations between individuals and between institutions,
and so reduce the potential for conflict.
• PATTERN MAINTENANCE- refers to the ‘maintenance of the basic pattern of
values, institutionalized in the society’. Institutions that perform this function
include the family, the educational system and religion. In Parsons view ‘the values
of society are rooted in religion.
TALCOTT PARSONS concludes that any social system can be
analyzed in terms of the functional prerequisites he identified.
Thus, all parts of society can be understood with reference to the
functions they perform.

10. Conflict Perspective
• Prominent Supporters- Karl Marx (1818-1883), Ralf Dahrendorf
(1929-2009)
• Individuals and society argue not for consensus but on the basis of
conflict
• Class conflict has always existed since time immemorial.
• There is unequal distribution of resources or competition for scarce
resources
• Marx believes that change and development is the result of Conflict
(Class struggle, Surplus Value, Alienation, Exploitation, Classless
Society)
• Marx – Society is in a state of perpetual conflict because of
competition for limited resources
• Ralf Dahrendorf assumes that society is loyal when it is subject to
processes of change and conflict. the order that can be created in
society is nothing but coercion on its members, which is carried out
by those who have power. This means that power in this social
system plays a role in efforts to maintain order in society.

11. KARL MARX’S CONFLICT THEORY

12. Primary Assumptions of Conflict Perspective
COMPETITION- Insufficient resources result in
Competition .Society operates on competition and
not Cooperation
STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY- Occurs when some
People are placed higher than the others in terms of
Power, Wealth and Influence
REVOLUTION- is the result of Conflict which is
eruptive and abrupt.
WAR- Prolonged conflicts between two groups lead to
war and violence. It cleanses the society for a new order
and change with some remnants of conflict still exists.

13. SYMBOLIC -INTERACTIONISM
• The first person to write about the principles underlying Symbolic Interactionism
was George Herbert Mead (1934).
• Mead, an American philosopher, argued that people develop their self-
image through interactions with other people.
• Blumer invented the term “Symbolic Interactionism” and created a theory and
methodology to test Mead's ideas.
• Blumer emphasizes how the self can emerge from the interactive process of joining
action (Denzin, 2008; Carter and Fuller, 2015). Humans constantly engage in
“mindful action” that construct and negotiate the meaning of situations.
• Charles Horton Cooley (1902) used the term looking-glass self to convey the idea
that a person's knowledge of their self-concept is largely determined by the reaction
of others around them. Other people thus act as a 'looking-glass' (mirror) so that we
can judge ourselves by looking 'in' it.
• Focuses on symbols &languages that help us give meaning to the experiences in
Life.
• Reality is socially constructed by ideas, thoughts, perception and conversations
• Social world is constructed by the meanings that individuals attach to events &
social interactions, and these symbols are transmitted across the generations through
language

14. Contributors of Symbolic Interactionism
• G H Mead- (American Sociologist)-1863-1961
• C H Cooley (American Sociologist) -1864-1929
• Herbert Blumer (American Sociologist)-1900-1987

16. • According to Herbert Blumer (1969), social
interaction thus has four main principles:
• Individuals act in reference to the subjective meaning
objects have for them. For example, an individual that
sees the “object” of family as being relatively
unimportant will make decisions that deemphasize the
role of family in their lives;
• Interactions happen in a social and cultural context
where objects, people, and situations must be defined
and characterized according to individuals’ subjective
meanings;
• For individuals, meanings originate from interactions
with other individuals and with society;
• These meanings that an individual has are created and
recreated through a process of interpretation that
happens whenever that individual interacts with others.

17. Thank You
Dr. Anil Bhatt
Department of Sociology
Dept of Higher Education
Uttarakhand