SOC 2390 Lecture Notes - Thomas Szasz, Class Stratification, Talcott Parsons

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2390
• Professor: Michael A Dixon

Document Summary

Socialized medicine: almost 43 million people (about 15% of the population) have no medical coverage. The united states is the only industrialized country without national health insurance. The functionalist perspective: functionalists argue that if society is to function well, its people need to be healthy enough to perform their normal roles. This means societies must set up ways to control sickness. One way they do this is to develop a system of medical care. Instead, there are only conditions that social groups have come to define as illness or disease. In some countries, being fat is a sign of health and wellness; in others, it is an indication of mental illness or lack of self-control. Similarly, cigarette smoking was once defined as glamorous in the u. s. The conflict perspective: according to conflict theorists, people struggle over scarce resources, including medical treatment.