SOC 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Abstract And Concrete, Social Inequality

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1101
• Professor: Stephan Larose

Document Summary

Theory: a statement of how and why specific facts are related. Social theorizing: the task of weaving isolated observations or facts into an understanding of human society and behaviour. Theoretical perspectives that guide thinking and research. They provide their own unique approaches to how we should answer questions and what methods we should use: functionalist perspective. Centered around the premise that society operates as a system that is made up of many interrelated parts/ social institutions that serve social functions. Criticism: it is conservative and favors the status quo, unfair: conflict perspective: the exact opposite, it envisions society as a site of power struggles and an arena of inequality. Functionalist and conflict perspectives envision society in very broad and abstract terms: large scale social structures and social systems. Both the conflict and fp focus on broad social structures (macro levels they take in the big picture.