Nyein Chan Thu

Sociology 1
Professor Kathryn Coleman
1) Functionalist Perspective/ Paradigm
Functionalism is the idea of various parts work together to achieve
the stable society. According to the Theoretical Perspective SoftChalk
Lesson the idea of functionalism was introduced by an English
Philosopher and biologist Hebert Spencer. He likened society as a human
body. As the body systems work together to maintain the constant internal
environment, the various part of society works together to keep the entire
society functioning and regulated. For instance, government and school
have its own role to maintain the society. Part of the obligations for school
is teaching the children to get the morality and boosting their knowledge
so that they can have the ability to judge what is right or wrong things to
do in their life. However, only teaching morality is not always perfect, and
it is not guarantee that those children will not be committing crimes or be
doing something bad things in their life. Government, therefore, needs to
regulate the rules and laws if someone commits crime. In this way, our
society takes the balance to maintain the safe environment.

2) Conflict Perspective / Paradigm

Individual, living in the society, needs to compete for limited
resources such as foods, shelters, jobs, money and so forth. Some
individuals have more chances and opportunities to access those
resources than others, and those inequalities lead to become social

change. For example, look back in history, there were gender

discrimination, and men were considered superior than women in many
countries. Even though in the US men and women treated differently.
Women did not have the right to vote until 1920. It was the long ways to
go through to get the social change, that women were treated as equally
as men. Moreover, we see the social inequality and conflict between poor
and rich. In the US, for instance, there are two major political parties:
Democratic and Republican. Democratic party is liberal and eager to work
for poor society by increasing minimum wages, providing social welfares
and creating more work opportunities for poor. In contrast, republic party
is conservative and favorable for rich people because its policy is based on
individual right and justice. Tax should be the same for every household
regardless of its income. Encourage the free market capitalism and less
willing to work for social welfares. Therefore, even though there have
conflict between those two political parties, in reality they are balance out
each other and lead to the US one of the most developed nations in the
world.

3) Interactionist Perspective / Paradigm

Interactionist perspective, also known as symbolic interactionism, is
the study of individual communication through language, symbols and
gestures to make sense of each other. This study is more focus on micro
level and closely looks on one to one interaction rather than the whole
society. For instance, when political protest happen, symbolic interactionist
will focus on how the individuals in the group interact each other to

convey their message by using symbols, poster and gestures. In addition,

they will study how the married couples, which maintain the good
relationship for a long time, interact each other to understand what make
them to keep the healthy relationship. On the other hand, they will also
pay attention for how people communicate in the work place and solve the
problems to look for the patterns for problem solving skills.