The document discusses key concepts related to changing social structures. It mentions social divisions like class, gender, and race which create substantial differences between people. It also discusses structural inequalities related to these social divisions. The document then provides information on sociological theorists like Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Comte who studied how social structures and inequalities develop and are maintained. It discusses how social structures have changed from modernity to post-modernity and the implications for concepts like bureaucracy, rationalization, and social order.

1. CHANGING SOCIAL
STRUCTURES – KEY CONCEPTS
• Social Divisions
„ Those substantial Social Stratification - CLASS
differences between
people that run throughout
our society. Social division
has at least two categories GENDER
each of which has
distinctive material and
cultural features … social
divisions are not natural‟ –
Social Divisions, Payne, G. RACE and ETHNICITY
2nd edition, 2006, page 4

2. STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES
• In threes - Can you think of structural
inequalities to do with:
Class
Gender
Race and Ethnicity
Age
Disability
Sexual orientation
…any others?

3. Making Sense of Society
• In order to help us understand society
and the impact of social structures, it is
necessary to work within a sociological
framework.
What do you understand by the term
Sociology?
Can you write a definition of sociology?

4. Aims for this week: Living with
modernity, the restructuring of
Britain
• What does Modernity
mean?
• How is the presence
of modernity reflected
in social structures.

5. Auguste Comte
• 1798 – 1857 French
• Recognised as having invented the term ‘Sociology’
• 'law of three phases‘: society has gone through three
phases:
Theological (Divine),
Metaphysical (human rights not divine, but bigger than and
beyond mankind), pre-French Revolution; and
Scientific (which he called Positivist – mankind can find
solutions – a new social understanding based on
science, post French Revolution)

6. Emile Durkheim
1858 - 1917 French
one of the first people to explain the existence and quality
of different parts of a society by reference to what function
they served in keeping the society healthy and balanced, a
position that would come to be known as structural
functionalism
Durkheim also stated that society was ‘more than the sum of
its parts’ – ‘social facts’ termed to describe phenomena
which have an existence of themselves and are not bound
to the actions of individuals – for example, a society’s
adaptation to a particular climate. Boundaries can break
down- the interim time before new boundaries are created
is called ‘anomie’- period of chaos, anarchy.
Wrote ‘The Division of Labour’, examining how social order
was maintained in different types of societies – coined the
distinction between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ societies.

7. Karl Marx
1818 – 1883 German
• All social inequalities can be explained in terms of class
• Studied Capitalism, the production of economic wealth
• He argued for a systemic understanding of socio-economic
change
• Viewed classes as being in conflict. Upper class exploits lower
classes- conflict theory
• Influenced by Hegel, Rousseau, Thomas Payne (consensus
forms around thesis, from this an antithesis occurs, eventually
a synthesis)- Just as capitalism had replaced feudalism, so
socialist would replace capitalism
• He envisaged a ‘stateless, classless, equal society’ which he
called Communism
• Social Conflict Paradigm continued by C. Wright Mills- Gap
between rich and Poor growing.

8. Max Weber
1864 – 1920 German
• Argued that all social action was meanful fror
individuals.
• Profound influence on our understanding of
society, organisations etc
• Three elements to class: Power, prestige, status
• Concerned with the rationalisation, and
‘disenchantment’ caused by Capitalism and the rise
of modernity – ‘Bureaucracy’
• Thought Marx was too focused on materialism,
• Wrote „The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism‟ – the impact of Capitalism on the human
spirit, religion etc.

9. Comes in a Sociological Theory
variety of shapes
and sizes…
High-Level Theories
Focus on trying to explain how
and why society is ordered
Functionalism…
Mid-Range Theories
Marxism… Focus on trying to explain
some general aspect of
Interactionism… social behaviour
Feminism… Low-Level Theories
Focus on trying to explain a
specific aspect of social
behaviour.
Why do girls
achieve higher
educational
qualifications Why do I always fall
than boys? asleep in Psychology
lessons?

10. • Functionalist explanation of why girls achieve-
Education is only salient means for them to
achieve mobility.
• Interactionist explanation of why working class
kids do not do as well- teachers labelling of
working class children produces low
expectations.
• Marxist explanation- curriculum reflects the
values of the ruling class, alienating children.
They lack the cultural capital to do well

11. Social Structures
• Can be understood as organised
mechanisms that exert control over
individuals.
• Can take the form of social institutions
and patterns of behaviour
• Address and often emphasise social
divisions

12. Key Social Structures Within
Modernity
Employment
Education
The State

13. Can you think of others

14. Modernity versus Post- Modernity
• Modernity:
• “A term coined to
encapsulate the
distinctiveness and
dynamism of the social
processes unleashed during
the 18th and 19th
centuries, which marked a
distinct break from traditional
ways of life.” – Introductory
Sociology, Bilton et al (2002)
Macmillan, p545 Post- Modernity:
“Characterised by a pastiche
of cultural styles and
elements but implies a deep
scepticism about order and
progress. Instead diversity
and fragmentation are
celebrated.” – Introductory
Sociology, Bilton et al (2002)
Macmillan, p.546
What does this mean for social structures?

15. Modernity
• Marx: modernity is capitalism and he felt that the ideal of
true democracy is one of the great lies of capitalism.
• Key words: Alienation, class conflict, false
consciousness.
• Weber: modernity as
rationalization, bureaucratization, and the "Iron Cage."
• Durkheim: saw modernity as moral order, anomie and
the decline of social solidarity..

16. PostModernity
• Modernity has failed to provide the solution to the problems of life.
• "Progress" is not an onward and upward march
• Science (positivism) does not have all the answers
• Social Institutions are changing at a rapid rate:
Family, Religion, Education, etc.
• Everyday life expressions of these themes:
• Hi-Tech lifestyles
• Preoccupied with consumer goods and media images
• The Mass
• International, "demise of the nation-state"
• Irrationality of rationality
• McDonaldization- Ritzer

17. Modernity/ Post modernity
What does this mean for social structures?

18. Necessity (natural and social laws) Contingency or chance
Universality (across time and space ) Locality and the particular (can only know own
experience)
Certainty and predictability Uncertainty and provisionality
Truth and reality Critique of tradition-bound analysis
Transparency or understandability Undecidability
Order of nature and structures Ambivalence of human design
Fordist modernity economies of scale flexible postmodernity economies of scope, diversity, social division of
hierarchy labour, decentering, desire, homelessness, entrepreneurialism,
Homogeneity, detail division of labour, public housing, monopoly indeterminacy, localism, individualism, neo-conservatism
capital Immateriality, reproduction, pastiche, eclecticism
Purpose, design, mastery, determinacy, production capital, white collar, commercialism, charismatic politics, rhetoric,
universalism, state power, trade unions, state welfarism, metropolis, decentralization, deconstruction, local contracts, small-batch
ethics, blue collar, centralization production, spectacle, flexible worker, symbolic capital, temporary
, narrative, mass production, class politics, technical-scientific contract, electronic reproduction, deregulation, urban revitalization,
rationality, utopia, concentration, specialized work place, laissez-faire, deindustrialization, geopolitics
cFunction, Representation, signified industry, protestant work ethic, Ephemerality
mechanical reproduction, becoming, epistemology, regulation, urban
renewal, relative space, state interventionism, industrialization,
internationalism, permanence, Time

19. Fordism

20. Social Structures in Post- War Britain
• The Beveridge report written in Disease Ignorance
1942 prompted the eventual
creation of what we now know
as the welfare state.
• Beveridge argued that there
was a need to rid society of
the ‘five giants’
Idleness Want
Squalor

21. Beveridge Report 1942
Each giant was
countered by:
The 1944 Butler
Act which reformed
schooling, the
commitment to full
employment in the
same year.
The Family The National Health
Allowance Act of Service (NHS) Act
instituted a universal
1945. state health service. The
The 1946 National Act provided free
Insurance Act diagnosis and treatment
The 1948 National of illnesses at home or in
Health Act, aimed hospital, including dental
at achieving that and ophthalmic
very objective, and treatment.
established for the
first time a national
minimum.

22. Opinions at the time
• 'It's the goods! All the yearnings, hopes, dreams and theories of socialists for the past half century have been
crystallised into a practical economic formula. Equity for the "lowest common denominator" I was staggered by its
comprehension'.
(Insurance clerk, male, 39, Newport)
• 'It gave me a feeling there was something to work for and fight for after all and that our efforts might be rewarded
by some real social improvement, giving means to the phrase "winning the peace".
(Royal Artillery, male, 29)
• 'I am aware of a new feeling of confidence in myself as a member of a democratic society when I see those social
reforms which I have considered necessary for such long time actually taking shape'.
(Accountant, male, 40, Prestwick)
• But there were negative comments too:
• 'My friends seem to think it's a clever piece of eyewash to retain the capitalist system by getting the people on its
side'.
(Student, male, 22, Enfield)
• "A lot of blah" is the most frequent remark from the women in the factory. "Don't believe a word of it; we're 'eard
these promises before".
(Stores Keeper, female, 57, Winchcombe)
• 'I think it is direct encouragement to the lower type of humanity to breed like rabbits' (Temporary civil servant,
female, 38)

23. Post-WW2 Development of
British Welfare State
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lurGssKn7PA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PBvCvIFrgI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaa_RIEuZ9s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OQVxwdxOe0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ErNLAupGE&feature=related

24. • Adopting the slogan 'Prevention is better
than cure', this Ministry of Health poster
attempts to persuade people to adopt a
healthier lifestyle. It was hoped that by
improving the general health of the
nation, the cost of running the NHS
would eventually be reduced.

25. Black Report

26. Registrar General’s Classification
of Social Class
Class Categories
I Higher managerial, administrative, professional.
Accountant, bank manager, dentist, doctor, solicitor.
II Lower managerial, administrative, professional.
Farmer, librarian, sales manager, teacher.
IIIa Non-manual: Clerical and minor supervisory.
Clerk, police officer, shop assistant
IIIb Skilled manual: Clerical and minor supervisory.
Electrician, mechanic, plumber.
IV Semi-skilled manual.
Assembly line worker, builder, lorry driver.
V Unskilled.
Cleaner, labourer.

27. The Black Report (1980)
Findings
Low
income
Sub standard
housing
Unemployment
Poor
education Poor
environment

28. The Black Report (1980)
Problem was:
They wanted to reduce
public expenditure
Took the Regarded
individualist the Report
approach – Government as old-fashioned,
people should disagreed socialist
eat, drink explanations
and smoke of ill-health
less
Argued that individual
behaviour within social
classes shaped health

29. The Acheson Report (1998)
• This was an independent study into
health inequality.
• It was commissioned by the new Labour
government in 1997, under the
chairmanship of a former Chief Medical
Officer for England and Wales, Sir
Donald Acheson.
• Remit – to investigate health inequalities
in the UK.

30. The Acheson Report (1998)
Findings
• Poor men are 68% more likely
Social class to die in middle age than
Coronary heart disease
I richer men.
Strokes • Poor women are 55% more
Risk increases
likely to die young.
Lung cancer • Health inequalities start before
birth
Accidents & suicides – A key factor in low weight
babies is the mother’s
birth weight and her pre-
Respiratory diseases
pregnant weight.
Social class V

31. The Acheson Report (1998)
Findings
• Children from poor families weighed on average
1.30gms less than those from wealthy families
• Infant mortality rates:
– 7/1000 – lower social classes
– 5/1000 – upper social classes
• Long term illness
– 17% of profession men aged 45-64
– 48% of lower class men aged 45-64
• Income levels
– 2.2 million children live on income levels 50%
below the national average
• Health campaigns
– Higher uptake of screening amongst upper social
classes – widened health gap

32. The McDonalization Thesis: Social Life as a Fast
food Restaurant
Although this perspective may appear to be rather unusual when
applied to society, the claims made by George Ritzer (2002)
certainly provide food for thought.
McDonaldization: “The process by which the
principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to
dominate more and more sectors of American
society as well as the rest of the world.” Ritzer, G.
(ed) McDonaldization, The Reader, Pine Forge
Press, 2002, p.7

33. Control through non-
human technology
Predictability Efficiency
Calculability

34. Can we find parallels between
Ritzer and the Welfare state today?

35. MEDICINE AND THE MEDICAL
PROFESSION
• Sociologists are interested in the impact and role of medicine and the medical profession in
society. The general health of the population has clearly improved (eg during the 20th century, life
expectancy almost doubled), but is this due to medicine and doctors?
• Studies show that medical care and medical discoveries have often had relatively little influence
on health compared with social factors.
•
• McKeown’s historical evidence suggests that medical care had relatively little effect on death rates
before the 20th century. Most deaths were from infectious diseases
(TB, cholera, measles, etc), and the biggest improvements in health were brought about by public
health measures such as improved sanitation, clean drinking water, and better housing, diet and a
higher standard of living.
•
• Illich goes further, arguing that modern high-tech curative medicine and the medical profession
are a danger to our physical, mental and spiritual health. He uses the term iatrongenic illness –
those caused by medical intervention – to describe this danger, such as the side effects of
drugs, errors by doctors, etc. There has been a ‘medicalisation of life’ and we have lost control
over own bodies, lives, suffering and death and become dependent on the medical profession, the
‘new priesthood’.

36. Functionalist account of health
inequalities
• Functionalists would look at social
inequalities in health care from
the perspective that regards the
health care systems feasibility to
cope with society and all of the
requirements society places upon
health care systems to prevent
illness, and generate well-being
• The functionalist is curious about
the relation between the health
care (HC) system itself and the
rest of society.

37. Symbolic interactionism
• is concerned with
examining the interaction
between the different role
players in the health and
illness drama. The focus
is on how illness and the
subjective experience of
being sick are
constructed through the
doctor–patient exchange.
The argument here is that
illness is a social
accomplishment among
actors rather than just a
matter of physiological
malfunction.

38. Marxist theory
• is concerned with the
relationship between
health and illness and
capitalist social
organisation. The main
focus is on how the
definition and treatment
of health and illness are
influenced by the nature
of economic activity in a
capitalist society.

39. Feminist theory
• explores the
gendered nature of
the definition of illness
and treatment of
patients. Its main
concern is the way in
which medical
treatment involves
male control over
women’s bodies and
identities.

40. Foucault
• Foucauldian theory concentrates on
the dominant medical discourse, which
has constructed definitions of
normality (health) and deviance
(sickness). This discourse provides
subjects in modern societies with the
vocabulary through which their medical
needs and remedies are defined. The
source and beneficiary of this
discourse is the medical profession.
Foucauldian theorists also argue that
medical discourse plays an important
role in the management of individual
bodies (what Foucault called
‘anatomopolitics’) and bodies en
masse (bio-politics), Medicine is not
just about medicine as it is
conventionally understood, but also
about wider structures of power and
control.

41. Parsonian Functionalism
• The model of the sick role
• The model of the sick role, which Talcott Parsons designed
in the 1950s, was the first theoretical concept that explicitly
concerned medical sociology.
• In contrast to the biomedical model, which pictures illness
as a mechanical malfunction or a microbiological
invasion, Parsons described the sick role as a
temporary, medically sanctioned form of deviant behaviour.
• The functionalist perspective was used by Parsons to
explain the social role of sickness by examining the use of
the sick role mechanism. In order to be excused their usual
duties and to be considered not to be responsible for their
condition, the sick person is expected to seek professional
advice and to adhere to treatments in order to get well.
Medical practitioners are empowered to sanction their
temporary absence from the workforce and family duties as
well as to absolve them of blame.

42. Functionalists
Parsons: being sick has potentially disruptive effects on society. Sickness
is a form of deviance that needs to be controlled. Otherwise, the behaviour
associated with it, such as dependency, apathy and incapacity, could
become widespread and threaten the smooth functioning of society.
• It is therefore important to restrict access to the sick role to those who are
genuinely sick. This is the function of the doctor, whose authority is
maintained by his or her objective scientific knowledge and high status.
• The sick role involves both rights and obligations: the right to be exempted
from normal role obligations (such as work) and to be looked after, and the
obligation to want to get better, to seek help and to obey doctor’s orders.
• Access to the sick role has to be legitimised by the medical profession.
His explanation fits short-term, curable illnesses better than long-term, chronic
illnesses

43. Feminist
• Feminists see society as
patriarchal and doctors as
perpetuating this. Medicine has a
social control function, ensuring
that women are kept in a
subordinate role, for example by
controlling women’s fertility (eg
through the medicalisation of
pregnancy and childbirth, and
control over access to abortion
and contraception). Doyal
describes how doctors often
stereotype women as
emotional, neurotic, less objective
and more excitable than
men. Even when there is clear
evidence that a woman’s problem
is physical, doctors often see it as
having a psychological cause.

44. Marxist
• For Marxists, medicine and the
medical profession perform
important functions for
capitalism, but not for society as a
whole. Doctors act as agents of
social control, ensuring that an
alienated workforce cannot
escape to the sick role but
remains at work to produce
profits. They reproduce the
workforce by ‘patching up’ sick
workers. Ideologically, they mask
the exploitation of capitalist
society, making it appear more
caring. Medicine and health care
also enormous sources of profit
for giant multinational drugs
companies.

45. Mental Illness - Positivist Approach
Accepts medical definitions- mental
illness is an objective ‘thing’ or
disease.
This approach examines the
distribution of mental illness among
different groups in society and
seeks to discover its causes.
Feminists argue that the higher rates of
mental illness among women are
E.g. Hollingshead and Redlich caused by their position in the social
structure, e.g. stress factors
show that members of class V were associated with their domestic
over six times more likely than roles. Similarly, racial discrimination
members of class 1 suffer from and disadvantage faced by ethnic
mental illness. This approach minorities create stress and may
result in higher rates of mental illness.
traces mental illness to the way
society is organised and the
position of the individual in the
social structure.

46. Mental Illness- Interactionists
Interactionists are interested in
how doctors and patients
negotiate a diagnosis (ie a
sickness label). Byrne and Long
found that there is a conflict
between doctors’ and patients’
views of the ideal consultation
(not surprisingly, doctors prefer
short, doctor-centred
• Interactionists are interested consultations).
in how individuals come to Doctors generally have more
acquire illness labels, and the power in these interactions
effects these labels have on
them and those around
them. They are interested in An example might be ‘illness’ and
how doctor-patient ‘disability’
interactions create such
labels.

47. The Third Way
• ‘New Deal’ gives opportunities to work
which people have a responsibility to take
up, and they will suffer penalties if they do
not. The main conditions are connected
with work obligations, but there are also
suggestions that tenancies in council
housing should be conditional on
behaviour

48. Next Week: Formative Assessment
• Can you work in two’s for next week and please think about whether or not you agree with the
idea of the Welfare state. You should consider its aims in relation to what is achieves.
• Think about the provision of welfare through health care from
functionalist, interactionist, feminist, marxist perspectives.
• One person in the pair will argue for the existence of the welfare state, one person will argue
against.
• Think about labelling
• The sick role
• Structural inequalities
• Disabling society
• Classes, gender, ethnic groups, ages
• The welfare state of Beveridge compared to today’s welfare state (Thatcherism to New Labour to
the Coalition).
• Consider the responsibility of the individual for their own health (should our taxes pay for those
who are reckless with their own health).
• Each person will speak for roughly 5 minutes

49. Food for thought
• The government can decide if people break their side of the contract, but
• the only option open to people who believe that the government has not kept its side of the deal is
to vote against it in the next general election.
• For example, Blackman and Palmer (1999: 119) point out the government’s limited responsibilities
in job creation and varying local unemployment rates mean that unemployed people have very
different chances of finding work.
• Despite government’s ‘vital role’ in addressing the big issues that affect our health like
housing, jobs and education, individuals’ responsibility for their own health appears to involve
carrying out the rather patronizing ‘ten tips for better health’ from the Chief Medical Officer
(DH, 1999). Finally, critics such as Will Hutton point out that most of the obligations are
shouldered by the bottom of society (in Lister, 1999: see also Marquand, 1998), but this ‘tough
approach’ seems not to apply to the powerful and assorted cronies and ‘fat cat’ executives.
• Geoff Mulgan, of the Blair’s Office was comfortable with the language of dependency and
parasitism, including ‘parasites’ who abuse their own health when health care is socialised, safe in
the knowledge that others will pick up the bill’ and ‘the form of parasitism in which people take
advantage of the community to do the work needed to pass on their own genes’ (in Levitas, 1998:
155).

50. Welfare Review
• The social settlement of the Beveridge welfare state was based on
particular assumptions regarding the ideological triangle of
nation, family and work. We saw that it was imposed during a period
where there was plenty of work.
• The Beveridgean citizen was the fully employed (and insured)
married, white, able-bodied, male worker, with other categories of
people— including women, ethnic minorities, disabled
people, children and elderly people—experiencing highly conditional
forms of welfare outside the ‘normal’ universalism.
• New Labour’s discourse of a ‘modern British people’ was found in
their Welfare Green Paper which introduced the idea of disability
and discrimination and hinted at the idea of a ‘disabling society’.
This was not resolved however.

51. Next session
• Key Institutions: The State
We will be looking at:
• what the state is
• How it operates as a social structure
• How it responds to social development
• The role of sociologists in shaping social
policy