A sociological theory is a hypothesis that aims to study, analyze, and/or explain social reality’s objects from a sociological perspective,[1]: 14 connecting disparate ideas to structure and support sociological knowledge. As a result, such information is built upon intricate theoretical foundations and methodologies.[2]
These theories cover a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from succinct yet comprehensive descriptions of a particular social process to broad, ambiguous paradigms for study and interpretation. While some sociological theories serve as broad frameworks that direct additional sociological analyses, others serve as explanations of specific social phenomena that allow for future event prediction.[4]
Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton, Randall Collins, James Samuel Coleman, Peter Blau, Niklas Luhmann, Marshal McLuhan, Immanuel Wallerstein, George Homans, Harrison White, Theda Skocpol, and Gerhard Lenski are a few notable sociological theorists
Sociological theory vs. social theory
The difference between sociological theory and social theory according to Kenneth Allan (2006) is that the former consists of abstract and testable social hypotheses and heavily relies on the scientific method, which seeks for objectivity and refrains from making value judgments.[6]
Allan contrasts this with social theory, which places more of an emphasis on observation and critique of contemporary society than on explanation. Because social theory is more likely to suggest normative judgments and is less concerned with objectivity and the development of testable hypotheses, it is often closer to continental philosophy.[5]
Robert K. Merton, a sociologist, asserted in 1949 that social mechanisms are fundamental to sociological theory because they serve as examples of the “middle ground” between social law and description.[7]: 43-4 These social mechanisms, in Merton’s opinion, are “social processes having designated area.
Classical theoretical traditions
By extension, the discipline of sociological theory is a young one, as is the field of sociology as a whole. Both originate from the 18th and 19th centuries, which were eras of profound social change.
During these centuries, societies began to experience things like the rise of industrialization, urbanization, democracy, and early capitalism, which led thinkers (particularly in the West) to start becoming much more aware of society. As a result, the science of sociology at first focused on extensive historical processes connected to these transformations.
Randall Collins (1994) retroactively categorizes numerous thinkers as belonging to four theoretical traditions[9] through a widely referenced study of sociological theory: functionalism, conflict, symbolic interactionism, and utilitarianism.[10]
Modern sociological theory draws heavily from conflict-focused (Marx and Weber) and functionalist (Durkheim) perspectives on social structure, but it also incorporates elements of pragmatism (Mead, Cooley), micro-level structure (Simmel), and symbolic interactionist theory.
Similarly, utilitarianism (sometimes known as “rational choice” or “social exchange”), although frequently linked to economics, has a long history in sociological thought.[11][12]
Last but not least, social Darwinism, which applies the principles of biological evolution to the social environment, is a tradition that is sometimes overlooked, according to Raewyn Connell’s argument in 2007.[13]
This school of thought frequently identifies with classical functionalism and is linked to a number of sociology’s founding figures, especially Herbert Spencer, Lester F. Ward, and William Graham Sumner. There are still remnants of each of these traditions in modern sociological thought.
Structural functionalism
Structural functionalism, a wide historical paradigm in sociology, examines social systems as a whole and in terms of the necessary functions each of its constituent parts possesses. The organic or biological analogy[14], made popular by Herbert Spencer, is a typical comparison made by functionalists.
It describes norms and institutions as “organs” that contribute to the proper operation of the overall “body” of society.[15] The approach was implicit in Auguste Comte’s original sociological positivism, but Durkheim fully conceptualized it in terms of observable structural principles.
The work of theorists like Marcel Mauss, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, the latter of whom explicitly used the term “structural” to prefix the concept of functionalism, also has an anthropological foundation.[16]
The tendency of classical functionalist theory to use biological analogies and ideas of social evolutionism unites it in most cases. According to Giddens, “Functionalist thought has looked primarily towards biology as the science providing the closest and most appropriate model for social science from Comte onwards.
Using methods of adaptation, biology has been used to analyze the structure and operation of social systems as well as evolutionary processes.Functionalism places a heavy emphasis on the social world’s dominance over its constituent actors, or human subjects.
Conflict theory
Conflict theory is a method that seeks to present scientifically sound causes for why conflicts exist in society. Therefore, conflict theorists consider how conflicts develop and are resolved in society as well as how each dispute is distinctive. These ideas contend that unequal distribution of power and resources is the root cause of conflict in society.
Although there is no single definition of what “resources” inevitably entails, the majority of theorists subscribe to Max Weber’s viewpoint. According to Weber, conflict results from the way that class, status, and power are used to categorize people in a given society.
In this view, standards are determined by power; as a result, people conform to social norms and expectations due to power imbalances.[18]
By the nineteenth century, a small group of people in the West had attained the status of capitalists: people who, in the name of profit, own and run factories and other large-scale production facilities.[20]
The majority of people, on the other hand, are thought to have been transformed by capitalism into industrial workers, or proletarians in Marx’s terminology: people who, as a result of the structure of capitalist economies, must sell their labor for wages. Conflict theories question historically prevalent ideas through this idea, highlighting power disparities like class, gender, and race.
Therefore, conflict theory is a macrosociological method in which society is seen as a place where inequality breeds conflict and social change.[1]: 15
Harriet Martineau, Jane Addams, and other significant sociologists are affiliated with the social conflict theory.
Symbolic interactionism
The sociological concept of symbolic interaction, which is frequently related to interactionism, phenomenological sociology, dramaturgy, and interpretivism, emphasizes subjective meanings and, typically through analysis, the empirical unfolding of social processes.[1]: 16 According to this theory, these processes depend on people and their decisions, which are ultimately important for society to advance.
George Herbert Mead first conceptualized this phenomena and described it as the result of cooperative joint action.
The strategy focuses on developing a theoretical framework that sees society as the result of people interacting with one another on a daily basis. In other words, society is nothing more than the common reality that people create through their interactions with one another. Thus, through symbolic interpretations of endless circumstances, people engage with one another.
numerous circumstances through symbolic interpretations of their existing reality, wherein society is a complicated, dynamic mosaic of personal meanings.[1]:19 Some detractors of this methodology contend that it ignores the influence of culture, ethnicity, or gender (i.e., social-historical structures) in favor of concentrating simply on the outward features of social circumstances.[1]
Important sociologists including George Herbert Mead, Erving Goffman, George Homans, and Peter Blau are frequently linked to this methodology. Meanwhile, Howard Becker, Gary Alan Fine, David Altheide, Robert Prus, Peter M. Hall, David R. Maines, and other authors have added new insights to the perspective.[21] The radical-empirical approach to ethnomethodology that came from Harold Garfinkel’s work is likewise rooted in this tradition.
Utilitarianism
In sociology, utilitarianism is frequently referred to as exchange theory or rational choice theory. Assuming that people always want to maximize their own self-interest within interactions, this tradition favors the agency of individual rational actors. According to Josh Whitford’s (2002) analysis, sensible actors have four characteristics in common:[22]
A decision rule is “a knowledge of alternatives,” “a knowledge of, or beliefs about, the consequences of the various alternatives,” “an ordering of preferences over outcomes,” and “a knowledge of alternatives.”
The contributions of George C. Homans, Peter Blau, and Richard Emerson are especially mentioned while discussing exchange theory.[23] An individual’s rationality is constrained by the context or environment, according to organizational sociologists James G. March and Herbert A. Simon.
Basic theory
The main theoretical questions and the major issues that arise from explaining these concerns in sociology are generally strongly agreed upon. Generally speaking, sociological theory seeks to address the following three issues: What constitutes activity, social order, and social change, respectively?
Three mostly theoretical (i.e., not empirical) concerns that are essentially inherited from classical theoretical traditions come to light in the plethora of attempts to address these questions. The following “big three” dichotomies can be linked, transcended, or dealt with, according to the consensus on the main theoretical issues:[24]
Knowledge is the subject of objectivity and subjectivity.
discusses agency in relation to structure.
Deals with time are synchrony and diachrony.
Objectivity and subjectivity
Concerns concerning (a) the broad possibilities of social action and (b) the specific issue of social scientific knowledge might be made out of the subjectivity and objectivity debate. Regarding the former, “the individual” and the individual’s intents and interpretations of the “objective” are frequently (though not always) equated with “the subjective.”
On the other hand, the objective is typically thought of as any external or public action or result, all the way up to society as a whole.
How information gets reproduced along the path of subjective-objective-subjective is a key concern for social theorists. How, then, does intersubjectivity come about? Quantitative survey approaches also aim to capture individual subjectivities, whereas historically qualitative methods have sought to extract out subjective interpretations.
According to Bourdieu, insofar as subjectivity and objectivity are concerned with (b) the particular issue of social scientific knowledge, such concern arises from the fact that a sociologist is a component of the very thing they aim to explain:[25]
How does a sociologist put into practice the radical doubting that is necessary to bracket all the assumptions that come with being a social being, socialized, and made to feel “like a fish in water” in the social world whose structures she has internalized? How can she stop these unconscious or activities that are ignorant of themselves—of which she is the apparent agent—from carrying out the building of the thing, in a sense, via her?
Structure and agency
In social theory, the question of whether social structures or human agency govern an individual’s behavior is an ongoing ontological argument between structure and agency (also known as voluntarism and determinism)[26]. In this context, agency refers to an individual’s potential to act independently and freely, whereas structure refers to elements that restrict or have an impact on an individual’s choices and behaviors (such as socioeconomic class, religion, gender, race, etc.).
The essence of sociological epistemology, i.e., “what is the social world made of?” “What is a cause in the social world?” and “What is an effect?” are discussed in relation to the supremacy of either structure or agency.[27] The concept of “social reproduction” is a recurring issue in this discussion: How are structures, particularly those that cause inequality, maintained through it.
Synchrony and diachrony
The phrases synchrony and diachrony (or statics and dynamics) in social theory allude to a distinction made by Levi-Strauss, who took it over from Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistics.[28] The former analyzes discrete time intervals, making it a static social reality analysis. On the other hand, diachrony makes an effort to examine dynamic sequences.
According to Saussure, synchrony would be used to describe social phenomena as a static idea, such as a language, while diachrony would be used to describe developing processes, such as actual speech. Anthony Giddens writes in the preface to Central Problems in Social Theory, “In order to show the interdependence of action and structure…we must grasp the time space relations inherent in the constitution of all social interaction.”