Chapter One

Understanding Sociology

1.1. Definition of sociology

The term sociology was first coined by a French thinker Auguste Comte (1798-1857) in 1838, linking two
words, socius and logos. Socius is a Latin word to mean society, city, companion, togetherness or people
where as logos is a Greek word which means knowledge or wisdom. The literal meaning of sociology is,
therefore, the knowledge, study or the science of, or reason of society. Since then the term spread rapidly
and is now used in virtually all languages to denote any relative rigorous, reasoned (scientific) study of
society.

Therefore, sociology is a social science concerned with the systematic study of human social relationships
and the various ways these relationships are patterned in terms of social groups, organizations and
societies.

Sociology is a branch of the science of human behavior that seeks to discover the causes and effects that a
rise in social relations among persons and in the intercommunication and interaction among persons and
groups. Sociology is concerned with the basic nature of human societies, locally and universally, and with
the various processes that preserves continuity and produce change over time.

Its long run aim is to discover the basic structure of human society, to identify the main forces that hold
groups together or weaken them, and to learn the conditions that transform social life. Sociology also
studies the individuals’ place in a society, the influence of society on an individual, the influence of
individual on society, and the influence between members of society.

Sociology includes the study of the customs, structures, and institutions that emerge from interaction, of
the forces that held together and weaken them, and of the effects that participation in groups and
organizations have on the behavior and character of persons.

In general, sociology and sociologists deal with the social environments: religions behaviors; conduct in
the military; the behavior of workers and managers in the industry; the activities of voluntary
associations; the changing relationship between men and women or between aging individuals and their
elderly parents. Furthermore, sociology and sociologists study the behavior of groups in cities and
neighborhoods; the activities of gangs; criminals, and judges; differences in the behavior of entire classes-
the rich, the middles classes, the poor, the down-and- out; the way cities grow and change; the fate of
entire societies during and after revolutions; and a host of other subjects.

As stated by Soroka (1992:34), Sociology is a debunking science i.e. it looks for levels of reality other
than those presented in official interpretations of society and peoples’ common sense explanation of the
social world.

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Scope: The scope of sociological study is extremely wide, ranging from the analysis of passing
encounters between individuals on the street to the investigation of global social processes.

Sociology and common sense

While common sense is sometimes accurate, it is not always reliable, because it rests on commonly held
beliefs rather than on systematic analysis of facts. Sociologists do not accept something as a fact because
“everyone knows it”. Instead, each piece of information must be tested and recorded, then analyzed in
relation with other data.

How can sociology help us in our lives?

 Learning sociology provides us with the sociological imagination- a particular way of looking at
the word around us through sociological lenses.
 Helps us understand how social forces influence our goals, attitudes, behavior, and personality.
 Helps us to cast a side our own biased assumptions, stereotypes and ethno- centric thinking and
practices, to become more critical, broad –minded and respectful in our interpersonal and inter-
group relationships.
 We can be more humane and people centered; we give high value to human dignity.
 We play practical roles to tackle social pathologies (problems).
 Awareness of cultural differences (diversities).
o Learning sociology allows us to see the social world from other view points than our own.
 Self – enlightenment ( self knowledge).
- Sociology can provide us with increased self- understanding. It helps us to know our
selves.
 Assessing the effects of policies.
- Sociological research provides practical help in assessing the results of policy initiatives
and implementations.

The Sociological Imagination

Learning to think sociologically– looking at the broader view– means cultivating the imagination.
Studying sociology cannot be just a routine process of acquiring knowledge. A sociologist is someone
who is able to break free from the immediacy of personal circumstances and put things in a wider context.
Sociological work depends on what the American author C. Wright Mills, in a famous phrase, called the
sociological imagination. The sociological imagination requires us, above all, ‘to think ourselves away’
from the familiar routines of our daily lives in order to look at them anew.

Understanding the way in which our individual lives reflect the contexts of our social experience is basic
to the sociological outlook. The social contexts of our lives are socially structured, or patterned in distinct
ways. Social structure is not like physical structure, which exists independently of human actions.
Therefore, human societies are always in the process of structuration.

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The sociological imagination (perspective) is an unusual type of creative thinking that sociologists rely on
in attempting to understand social behavior. It is an awareness of the relationship between an individual
and the wider society. It can bring new understanding to daily life around us.

Sociological imagination is also the ability to see our private (individual) experiences and personal
difficulties as entwined with the structural arrangements of society and the historical time in which we
live.

The key element in sociological imagination is the ability to view one’s own society as an outsider would,
rather than only from the limited perspective of personal experiences and cultural biases. For example,
unemployment is not only a personal hardship but also a social problem shared by millions of people.
Divorce is a social problem since it is the outcomes of many marriages. By employing the sociological
imagination, it is appropriate to question the way that a society is organized or structured.

Most of us see the world in terms of the familiar features of our own lives. Sociology demonstrates the
need to take a much broader view of why we are as we are, and why we act as we do. It teaches us that
what we regard as natural, inevitable, good or true may not be such, and that the ‘givens’ of our life are
strongly influenced by historical and social facts. Understanding the subtle yet complex and profound
ways in which our individual lives reflect the contexts of our social experience is basic to the sociological
outlook.

In studying society, therefore, sociology employees its distinctive perspective which entails the following
three ways of looking:
1. Seeing the general in particular
2. Seeing the strange in the familiar
3. Seeing the individuality in social context

1. Seeing the general in particular

This way of looking entails thinking sociologically by identifying general patterns of social life by
looking at concrete specific examples of social life. It involves seeking out general patterns of a given
society in the behavior of its particular individual members. One way of thinking sociologically in this
way is to identify how society acts differently on various categories of people while acknowledging that
each individual is unique. General patterns of a given society such as age, sex, class, power, prestige, etc
can be observed by looking at the different behavioral acts of women versus men, poor versus rich, old
versus young, ruled versus ruler.

Such perspective helps us to understand the sociological fact that “although every individual is unique,
society shapes the lives of members”. Through adopting this perspective we will begin to think
sociologically by realizing how the society we live in as well as the general category into which we fall
within that society shapes our particular life experiences and guides our action, and life choices.

2. Seeing the strange in the familiar

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Peter Berger stated the first wisdom of sociology as “things are not what they seem”. Thinking
sociologically means giving up or challenging the familiar idea that we live our lives in terms of what we
decided. Considering instead the initially strong notion that society shapes our experiences. Hence,
sociology shows the patterns and processes by which society shapes what we do ranging from preliminary
social unit of the society to different social institutions of a particular society’s notion of social, political,
and economic events of the world both historically and in contemporary sense.

3. Seeing the individuality in social context

The sociological imagination often challenges common sense by which revealing ideas shapes that human
behavior is not an individualistic as we may usually think. Hence, the perspective expresses the power of
society to shape individual choices. For most of us, in common sense, daily living is very individual
which often carries a heavy load of personal responsibility so that we get ourselves on the back when we
enjoy success and kick ourselves when things go wrong. Proud of our individuality, even in painful times,
we resist the idea that we act in socially patterned ways.

However, different sociologists used the distinctive point of view of sociology to explain and analyze
most what is usually taken- for -granted as individual act. The sociological perspective leads to global
awareness: which is based on the perspective that our place in society profoundly affects our life
experiences and hence the position of our society. The larger world system affects everyone in our
society.

Advantages of the Sociological Imagination

As we learn to use the sociological perspective, we readily apply it to our daily lives. Doing so provides
four general benefits.

A. The sociological perspective becomes a way of thinking, a ‘form of consciousness’ that challenges
familiar understandings of ourselves and of others, so that we can critically assess the truth of common
assumptions.

B. The sociological perspective enables us to assess both opportunities and the constraints that
characterize lives. Sociological thinking leads us to see that, better or worse, our society operates in a
particular way. It helps us to see the pattern and order found in all societies. Moreover, in the game we
may decide how to play our card, but it is society that takes the upper hand. The more we understand the
game, then, the more effective players we will be. Sociology helps us to understand what we are likely
and unlikely to accomplish for ourselves and how we can pursue our goals most effectively.

C. The sociological perspective empowers us to be active participants in our society. Without an

awareness of how society operates, we are likely to accept the status quo. We might just think that this is
how all societies are, or how all people behave ‘naturally’. But the greater understanding of the operation
of a society, the more we can take an active part in shaping social life.
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D. The sociological perspective helps us to recognize human differences and human suffering and to
confront the challenges of living in a diverse world.

1.2. Sociology and Other Disciplines

Comparing sociology with other sciences help us better understand the place of sociology.

Sociology and Political Science: focuses on politics and government. Political scientists study how
people govern themselves: the various forms of government, and their structures. Political scientists are
especially interested in how people attain ruling positions in their society, how they maintain those
positions, and the consequences of their activities for those who are governed.

Sociology and Economics: Economics also concentrates on a single social institution, like political
science. It studies the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services by a society. They
want to know what goods are being produced at what rate and at what cost, and how those goods are
distributed. They are also interested in the choices that determine production and consumption for
example, the factors that lead a society to produce one certain item instead of another.

Sociology and Anthropology: Anthropology, in which the primary focus has been preliterate or tribal
people, is the sister discipline of sociology. The main focus of anthropologists is to understand culture- a
people’s total way of life. Culture includes (1) the group’s artifacts such as its tools, art, weapons; (2) the
group’s structure, that is, the hierarchy and other patterns that determine its members’ relationships to one
another; (3) the group’s ideas and values, especially how its belief system affects people’s lives; and (4)
the group’s forms of communication, especially language. The anthropologists’ traditional focus on tribal
people is now giving way to the study of groups in industrialized settings.

Furthermore, anthropology (physical anthropology) studies human biology. The main difference lays on
method of inquiry. Predominantly, anthropological inquiry is carried out through fieldwork (long time
qualitative research through the presence of the researcher in the society under study). However, it is
difficult to put clear cut boundary between the two disciplines.

Sociology and Psychology: The focus of psychology is on processes that occur within the individual.
Psychologists are primarily concerned with mental processes: intelligence, emotions, perception and
memory. Some concentrates on attitudes and values, others focus on personality, mental aberration
(psychopathology or mental illness), and how individuals cope with the problem they face.

Sociology: is the scientific study of human society and human behavior. It is one of the sciences that
modern civilization has developed. Sociology has many similarities to other social sciences. Like political
science, sociology studies how people govern one another and the impact of various forms of government
on human life. Sociologists, like economists, study the social consequences of production and distribution
of goods and services. Like psychologists, sociologists are also concerned with how people adjust to the
difficulties of life. Like Anthropologists, sociologists are also concerned with the study of culture.

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What distinguishes sociology from other social sciences? Political science and economics concentrates
on a single social institution. But sociologists do not concentrate on a single social institution. Unlike
anthropology, sociology focuses primarily on industrialized societies. And unlike psychologists,
sociologists stress factors external to the individual to determine what influences.

1.3. Historical Development of Sociology

Sociology is a relatively new science, emerging as a distinctive discipline in the 19 th century. By the end
of that century, the discipline was well established in most European and several U.S universities.
Although the early development of sociology occurred in Europe, Sociology’s maturation has taken place
largely in USA.

Many students are puzzled by the diversity of approaches they encounter. Because, studying about our
own lives and behavior is the most complex and difficult endeavor we can undertake.

The objective and systematic study of human behavior and society is a relatively recent development
whose beginnings date from the late 1700s. A key development was the use of science to understand the
world- the rise of scientific approach. Traditional and religious- based explanations were supplanted by
rational and critical attempts of knowledge.

Certain developments in Europe paved the way for the emergence of sociology. Generally, the most
important factors contributed for the development of sociology are called the nineteenth century social
currents or social issues. Among those factors the most important ones include:

1. Massive social change

The well-known cause for massive social change is revolution. These are the French Revolution (1789)
and The Industrial Revolution (late 18th century- Britain)

1.1. The French Revolution (1789)

The long series of political revolutions ushered in by the French Revolution in 1789 and carrying over
through the nineteenth century was the most immediate factor in the rise of sociological theorizing. The
impact of these revolutions on many societies was enormous, and many positive changes resulted.
However, what attracted the attention of many early theorists was not the positive consequences, but the
negative effects of such changes. These writers were particularly disturbed by the resulting chaos and
disorder, especially in France. They were united in the desire to restore order to society. Some of the more
extreme thinkers of this period literally wanted a return to the peaceful and relatively orderly days of the
Middle Ages. The more sophisticated thinkers recognized that social change had made such a return
impossible. Thus they sought instead to find new bases of order in societies that had been overturned by
the political revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This interest in the issue of social
order was one of the major concerns of classical sociological theorists, especially Comte and Durkheim.

The revolution marked the triumph of secular ideas and values such as liberty and equality, over the
traditional social order. The 1789 French Revolution was quite different from the rebellions of previous
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times. In the French Revolution, for the first time in history there took place the overall dissolution of
social order by a movement guided by secular ideas. The French revolution which was aimed to abolish
monarchical system was excessive in nature that caused instability and disorder in French society. Social
thinkers of the time like Auguste Comte worried how to restore the social order. They needed an
appropriate science that they could use to understand, explain and solve the social problems of French
society.

1.2. The Industrial Revolution (late 18th century- Britain)

The Industrial Revolution grew out of many economic and political developments as well as intellectual
ones. Increasingly, the European economy shifted from a strictly agricultural one to an economy based on
manufacturing and trading. Many scholars sometimes called it “The Industrial Revolution.”

Industrial Revolution as a process begun in England and spreaded out across Europe and the United
States. The transformation of Western European societies from being agriculturally based to being
industrially based, manual production system which involved human and animal power was replaced by
production system that involved inanimated energy sources like coal, steam, hydro electric powers and so
on. The industrial revolution brought massive social changes and social problems. The industrial
revolution has brought a number of changes such as;

- New technological innovations (steam power and machinery)

- Migration of peasants from the land (rural area) to factories and industrial work (urban areas).
- Rapid expansion of urban areas ushered in new forms of social life (relationships). E.g. Change in
family structure (from extended family to nuclear family) etc.

In general, along with and as a result of industrial revolution a number of social changes occurred in
European newly industrialized societies. Urbanization, for instance, was one of the social changes.
Following the establishment of factories and industries, urban centers developed around them.
Urbanization process was also accompanied by massive migration of people from rural to urban. There
were pulling and pushing factors for the massive migration. The pulling factor was the need of job as
daily laborer for wage in the factories in the urban centers. The pushing factor was the eviction of
peasants from their agricultural land of crop production in favor of sheep rearing which was demanded for
wool production for textile factories. Other massive social changes were the change of economic system
from feudalism to capitalism and the beginning of massive education.

Social problems:

The industrial revolution and its consequences, massive social changes, resulted in a number of social
problems. The people migrated to urban centers from partly pushing factor in rural areas ended up
unemployed; there was no housing service that could absorb the excessive migrants; migrants from
different corners of the urban center came from different cultural back grounds that caused cultural
confusion. The new way of life in general and the eviction of people from rural areas had broken the
social networks such as the family, kinship, social values and norms. Furthermore, people engaged in
different criminal activities which were partly contributed by poverty. Industrialism and urbanism are at
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the heart of the transformation that has irreversibly dissolved most traditional forms of society. Sociology
come into being as those caught up in the initial series of change brought about by the cumulative effects
of the factors discussed above.

2. The Enlightenment and advances in natural sciences

It is the view of many observers that the Enlightenment constitutes a critical development in terms of the
later evolution of sociology. The Enlightenment was a period of remarkable intellectual development and
change in philosophical thought. A number of long-standing ideas and beliefs – many of which related to
social life – were overthrown and replaced during the Enlightenment. The most prominent thinkers
associated with the Enlightenment were the French philosophers Charles Montesquieu (1689-1755) and
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The influence of the Enlightenment on sociological theory, however,
was more indirect and negative than it was direct and positive. As Irving Zeitlin puts it, “Early sociology
developed as a reaction to the Enlightenment.”

Enlightenment is the eighteenth century social philosophical and intellectual movement that emphasized
human progress and the poser of reason and based on Darwinian Theory of Evolution.

Overall, the characterized Enlightenment was by the belief that people could comprehend and control the
universe by means of reason and empirical research. The view was that because the physical world was
dominated by natural laws, it was likely that the social world was, too. Thus, it was up to the philosopher,
using reason and research, to discover these social laws. Once they understood how the social world
worked, the Enlightenment thinkers had a practical goal – the creation of a “better,” more rational world.

With an emphasis on reason, the Enlightenment philosophers were inclined to reject beliefs in traditional
authority. When these thinkers examined traditional values and institutions, they often found them to be
irrational – that is, contrary to human nature and inhibitive of human growth and development. The
mission of the practical and change-oriented philosophers of the Enlightenment was to overcome the
irrational systems. The theorist who was most directly and positively influenced by Enlightenment
thinking was Karl Marx, but he formed his early theoretical ideas in Germany.

The enlightenment thinkers started to ask question about society that sociologists eventually came to ask:
why do people do what they do? Why is there inequality? Wide spread poverty? Crime? Before the
eighteen-century, the answers to those questions had been religious.

The enlightenment altered a traditional explanation of human behavior. The central belief of
enlightenment is that society is created by people and people can determine what society becomes as well
as the belief that human individual action is strongly influenced by society’s patterns, led to the
development of sociology as a science in nineteenth century.

Enlightenment thinkers rejected the notion that we could understand the world by explaining events in
religious terms. Instead, they said we must turn to reason and science, for everything in society like
everything in nature, was lawful. In the human history for long period of time religion and religious

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leaders had been the only source of explanation regarding every aspect of human life. Whatever positive
thing happen to human individuals or society as whole, it was simply believed as blessing from
supernatural powers. If the opposite, something negative happened like famine, war, disease the only
assumption was as if the curse from God. For all things people had been thought created for the glory of
God and questioning about the nature of human being, government and natural environment was
considered to be sinful.

The enlightenment was an important beginning to the study of society because it pointed the way, and it
asked the important questions even beyond the religious explanation. By doing so it resulted in
secularization where by the religious aspect of human life was separated from the nonreligious one. The
dominance of religion as the only source of explanation ceased for the first time. Social thinkers started to
explain social phenomena using scientific evidences which made possible the development of sociology
and other social sciences.

Another important result of enlightenment was the development of natural or physical sciences that
contributed to development of sociology. Sometimes before the development of sociology, natural
sciences like Biology, Physics and Chemistry were developed. These sciences had developed their own
methods of study that they employed for studying physical features. Social thinkers, at then, had adopted
those methods and modified them to use in studying social phenomena. The enlightenment also inspired
the French Revolution, the other powerful influence on the development of sociology.

3. Secularization

Secularization is the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose social significance.
The influence of religion was minimal. Before secularization people were under sacred outlook or taking
everything for- grant (believing that everything is predetermined by God). Therefore, sociology is a
secular science.

4. Exposure to different culture

5. The demand for sociological enquires in planning social services and formulating policies.

Note: The Industrial Revolution, the French political revolution, and the Enlightenment and
advance in natural sciences and a technology were the major conditions that gave rise to the
emergence and development of sociology as an academic science.

The Founders or the Pioneering Sociologists

1. Auguste Comte (1798-1857), French Social Philosopher

The word “Sociology” was first coined in 1838 by Auguste Comte, French man, in his work Positive
Philosophy. His full name was Isidore-Auguste-Marie-Francois-Xavier-Comte and he termed sociology
replacing social physics which was termed in 1824. Comte is generally referred to as the father of
Sociology. He defined sociology as the scientific study of social dynamics and social static.

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While social dynamics refers to the changing, progressing and developmental dimensions of society and
the study of factors contributed to progress and social change, social static signify the social order and
those elements of society and social phenomena which tend to persist and relative permanent, defying
change. It studies the mechanism through which societies maintain themselves to the new generation and
how society is held together.

Originally Comte used the term “social physics”, but some of his intellectual rivals at the time were also
making use of the term. He wanted to distinguish his own views from theirs, and he coined the term
sociology to describe the subject he wished to establish.

He believed that the science of sociology should be based on systematic observation and classification
(positivism), the same principle that governed the study of the natural sciences. Positivism is the idea of
applying the scientific method to the social world. Comte said sociology would use empirical methods to
discover basic laws of society, which would benefit human kind by playing a major part in the
improvement of the human condition.

Comte argued that sociology can and should study society and social phenomena following the pattern
and procedures of the natural science. His vision for sociology was that of positive science. He believed
that sociology should apply the same rigorous scientific methods to the study of society that physics or
chemistry use to study the physical world. This approach is called positivism.

Positivism holds that science should be concerned only with observable entities that are known directly to
experience. A positivist approach to sociology believes in the production of knowledge about society
based on empirical evidence drawn from observation, comparison and experimentation. Comte considers
sociology as a “queen of science “at the top of other social sciences and its practitioners/ sociologists as
“scientist priests”.

Comet’s Law of the Three Stages

According to Comte, society tends to evolve through three stages of human intellectual progress or
development that states each mental age of human kind is accompanied by a specific type of social
organization and political dominance. Comte claims that human efforts to understand the world have
passed through the following three consecutive stages.

1st. Theological /Fictious Stage (Until 1300 AD)

2nd. Metaphysical Stage
3rd. Positive (Scientific) Stage

The Theological Stage (from medieval period to 1300 AD)

In this stage thoughts were guided by religious ideas and the belief that society was an expression of
God’s will. Supernatural force is the central idea and things were taken-for- granted. There was no critical
investigation, both philosophical speculation and scientific explanation were absent, but dominated by
religious interpretation of occurrences.

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According to Comte this stage refers to the period when everything in human living condition was
explained and understood through the supernatural powers. The period covered the earliest era of human
history extending through the medieval period to 1300. Whatever happens to or for society was believed
to be a curse or blessing from the super natural power. It was believed that some were created good and
other criminal. The lords were considered as elect of God. People regarded society as an expression of
external purpose and will on earth. The family was the prototypical social unit, the standard to which
others conform. Political dominance is held by priests and military personnel.

The Metaphysical / Abstract Stage (1300-1800 AD):

Explanation of human society developed by religion gradually changed in to metaphysical. Abstract

natural forces were believed to be the source of explanation and understanding. The explanation was
influenced by the philosophical idea of Thomas Hobbes that the state/society is not a reflection of God;
rather the reflection of the selfishness of individuals. The state replaced the family as the prototypical
social unit and the political dominance was held by the clergy and lawyers.

Positive / the Scientific Stage (Post 1800s):

All social phenomena are investigated in a scientific manner through observations, experiment and
comparison. The stage encouraged the application of scientific techniques to the social world. Both
physical and social world began to follow the scientific method to express the relationship between the
world and human being. Empirical evidence and rational reasoning became sources of explanation. Comte
said that through scientific methods people began to understand different things occur in the societies like
crime, poverty, conflict and other social conditions. These scientific methods led sociology to understand
the cause of occurrence of different situations in the society. Political dominance is held by individual
administrators and scientific moral guides, and the whole human race replaces the state as the operative
social unit. In keeping with this view, Comte regarded sociology as the last science to develop
following on from physics, chemistry and biology but as the most significant and complex of all
sciences.

Although Comte’s vision for the reconstruction of society was never realized, his contribution to
systematizing and unifying the society was important to the later professionalization of sociology as an
academic discipline.

2. Herbert Spencer ( 1820-1903)

He was an English sociologist and philosopher and is usually called the second founder of sociology.
Spencer believed that society operates according to fixed laws. He believed that there exists a gradual
evolution of society from the primitive (militant) to the industrial. As generation pass, he said, the most
capable and intelligent (the fittest) members of a society survive, while the less capable die out.
Therefore, overtime societies steadily improve. Spencer called this principle “the survival of the fittest”.
Although Spencer coined this phrase, it is usually attributed to his contemporary Charles Darwin, who
proposed that living organisms evolve over time as they survive the conditions of their environment.
Because of their similarities, Spencer’s view of the evolution of societies became known as “Social
Darwinism”.
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Drawing on Charles Darwin’s study on the origin of species, Spencer applied the concept of evolution of
the species to societies in order to explain how they change , or evolve, over time. Similarly, he
adapted Darwin’s evolutionary view of the “survival of the fittest” by arguing that it is “natural” that
some people are rich while others are poor. Spencer was famous for the organic analogy of human
society- Social Darwinism (the attempt to apply, by analogy, the evolutionary theories of plant and animal
development to the explanation of human society and social phenomena).

Unlike Comte, Spencer suggested that since societies are bound to change eventually, one need not be
highly critical of present social arrangements or work actively for social change . Spencer did not feel
compelled to correct or improve society; instead, he merely hoped to understand it better. Spencer didn’t
think sociology should guide social reform. In fact he was convinced that no one should intervene in the
evolution of society. The fittest members did not need any help. They would always survive on their own
and produce a more advanced society. Consequently, Spencer believed that ideas of charity and helping
the poor were wrong, whether carried out by individuals or by the government. He opposed not only the
law to aid the poor but also any state interference in public affairs.

The subject matter of sociology as Spencer defined contains the family, politics, religion, social control,
industry or work etc. He stressed the obligation of sociology is to deal with the interrelations between the
different elements of society, to give an account of how the parts influence the whole and are in turn
reacted upon.

3. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)- French

Durkheim, one of the most influential figures in the development of sociology in the 20 th C., was
conservative in his approach. Durkheim sees society as a real entity: society is order, a set of social force,
a moral agreement, what he called a “collective consciences”, fragile, very real, and important, for
determining much of what the individual does. One of the Durkheim’s classic works, suicide, is an
attempt to show that, in highly personal, individual “choice” like suicide, the individual is profoundly
influenced by social forces that he or she does not even recognize. Society, to Durkheim, is more than the
individuals who make it up. It is almost a living thing, apart from the individual, developed over time, and
influential in all action. Society has a reality of its own: it is sui-generis. To Durkheim, the ultimate
justification of sociology is the study of these social forces (or what he called “social facts”). Social
phenomena such as conventions, social rules and beliefs, and institutions like family, education and law,
were regarded by Durkheim as ‘social facts’. I.e. they are external to the individual, and exist
independently of that person, exercising constraint on his or her behavior.

Like Comte, Durkheim believed that we must study social life with the same objectivity as scientist study
the natural world. His famous first principle of sociology was ‘study social facts as things!’; by this he
meant that social life could be analyzed as rigorously as objects or events in nature. He said, for
example, “Law is the measuring road of any society”. Law reproduces the principal forms of social
solidarity (cohesion). For Durkheim, the main intellectual concern of sociology is the study of social facts.
Rather than applying sociological methods to the study of individuals, sociologists should instead

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examine social facts (aspects of social life that shape our actions as individuals), such as the state of
the economy or the influence of religion.

His writings have had a more lasting impact on modern sociology than those of Comte. He thought that
many of his predecessor’s ideas were too speculative and vague. And saw sociology as a new science that
could be used to elucidate traditional philosophical questions by examining them in an empirical manner.

Durkheim stressed the importance of abandoning prejudices and ideology. A scientific attitude (practice)
demands a mind with open to the evidence of the senses and free of preconceived ideas which come from
outside.

He was particularly inserted in social and moral solidarity what holds society together and keeps it from
descending in to chaos. Solidarity is maintained when individuals are successfully integrated in to social
groups and are regulated by a set of shared values and customs. In his first major work, “The Division
of Labour in Society” (1893), Durkheim presented an analysis of social change which argued that
the advent of the industrial era meant the emergence of a new type of solidarity. According to
Durkheim there are two types of solidarity, namely

1. Mechanical Solidarity and

2. Organic Solidarity

He related these solidarities to the division of labour (the growth of distinctions between different
occupations).

Mechanical Solidarity

This type of solidarity is characterized by traditional cultures with a low division of labour and most
members of the society are involved in similar occupations, they are bound together by common
experience and shared beliefs. The strength of these shared beliefs is repressive- the community swiftly
punishes anyone who challenges conventional ways of life. There is little room for individual dissent. In
general, mechanical solidarity is grounded in consensus and similarity of belief.

Industrialization and urbanization (which led to a growing division of labor), specialization of tasks
and increasing social differentiation, etc were forces that contributed to the breakdown of mechanical
solidarity.

Organic Solidarity

In organic solidarity societies held together by people’s economic interdependence and recognition of the
importance of other’s contributions. As the division of labour expands, people become more and more
dependent on one another, because each person needs goods and services that those in other
occupations supply. This indicates the fact that there is economic reciprocity and mutual dependence.

The rapid and intense processes of change give rise to major social difficulties. They can have disruptive
effects on traditional lifestyles, morals, religious beliefs and every day patterns without providing clear
new values. Durkheim linked these unsettling conditions to anomie (a feeling of aimlessness or despair
provided by modern social life).
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Durkheim was concerned about the tendency of modern society to produce what he called Anomie, and
there by suicide. By anomie, Durkheim referred to the breaking down of the controlling influence of
society, which leaves people without the moral guidance that societies usually offer. People become
detached from society. They lack social support, and they are no longer regulated by clear norms. Life
becomes meaningless.

Suicide

Suicide (taking one’s own life willfully) seems to be purely personal act; however, social facts exert a
fundamental influence on suicide behavior –anomie being one of these influences. Even though humans
see themselves as individuals exercising free will and choice, their behaviors are often socially patterned
and shaped.

One Durkheim’s major work, suicide, is still considered as an outstanding example of how sociologists
are able to test ideas scientifically. He compared the suicide rate of several European countries. He found
that each country’s suicide rate is different and that it remained stable year after year. He found that
different groups within a country had different suicide rate. Especially Durkheim found, Protestants, the
wealthy, men, and the unmarried killed themselves at a higher rate than did Catholics and Jews, the poor,
women, and married people. Durkheim explained these differences by reasoning that suicide varied
according to people’s social integration, the degree to which people are tied to their social groups. There
were also lower suicide rates during times of war than during times of economic change or instability.
Low suicide rates categories of people are who have strong ties to other. By contrast, high suicide rates
were found among types of people who are typically individualistic.

These findings led Durkheim to conclude that there are social forces external to the individual which
affects suicide rates. He related his explanation to the idea of social solidarity and to two types of bonds
with in society. These bonds are social integration and social regulation. People who were integrated
strongly into social groups, and those desires and aspirations were regulated by social norms, were less
likely to commit suicide. Durkheim identified four types of suicide, in accordance with the relative
presence or absence of integration and regulation. These include egoistic suicide, anomic suicide,
altruistic suicide, and fatalistic suicide.

I. Egoistic Suicide

Egoistic suicide is marked by low integration in society and occurs when an individual is isolated, or
when his or her ties to a group are weakened or broken. According to his study, this type of suicide is
common, for example, among protestants (because of the personal and moral freedom- meant that they
stand alone before God) and single people (since they remain more isolated within society as
compared to married one’s).

II. Anomic Suicide

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This type of suicide is caused by a lack of social regulation. It is common during rapid change or
instability in society and divorce. If there is no rule and regulation governing the process of divorce, and
individual is more likely to commit anomic suicide. The absence of governing rule and regulation will
also work for suicide committed during economic instability.

III. Altruistic Suicide

Altruistic suicide occurs when an individual is over – integrated (social bonds are too strong) and values
society more than himself or herself. Suicide becomes a sacrifice for the “greater good”. It is common in
“traditional” societies where values, norms, customs and expectation of the group have on extreme
influence on the group. Japanese kamikaze pilots of WWII, a military self- sacrifice and the Hindu Suttee
(self killing performed by a woman up on the death of her husband) are examples of altruistic suicide.

IV. Fatalistic suicide

Fatalistic suicide results when an individual is over- regulated by society. The oppression of the individual
causes a feeling of powerlessness before fate or society. Durkheim saw this as of little contemporary
relevance.

4. Karl Marx (1818—1883)

Karl Marx, a German Philosopher, had a different conception with Herbert Spencer about the nature of
society and social change. Spencer describes society as a set of interrelated parts that promoted its own
welfare. Marx described society as a set of conflicting groups who have different values and interests
whose selfish and often ruthless competition harmed society. Spencer saw progress coming from only
non-interference with natural, evolutionary process. Marx, too, believed in an unfolding, evolutionary
pattern of social change. He envisioned a linear progression of modes of production from ancient
civilization through slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and communism.
His ideas contrasts sharply with those of Comte and Durkheim, but like them, he sought to explain
the changes that were taking place in society during the time of the industrial revolution.

His interest in the European labour movement and socialist ideas were reflected in his writings. Marx
always concerned to connect economic problems to social institutions. Therefore, his writings were rich in
sociological insights.

According to the principle of economic determinism (an idea often associated with Marx), the nature of
society is based on the society’s economy. A society’s economic system determines the society’s legal
system, religion, art, literature and political structure. Marx himself did not use the term economic
determinism; the term was applied to his ideas by others, no doubt a consequence of his concentration on
the economic sphere in capitalist society. The mistake interpreters have made is to assume that because
Marx perceived the economic institution as having primacy in capitalist society, he believed that all
societies operated according to the same principles. Moreover, Marx recognized that even in capitalist

15
society economic institutions mutually affect each other. Marx even wrote that sometimes the economy
“conditions” rather than “determines” the historical process in capitalistic society.

Capitalism and Class Struggle:

Although recognizing the presence of several social classes in the 19 th century industrial society, farmers,
factory workers, craft-people, owner of small businesses, wealthy capitalist, Marx predicted that all
industrial societies ultimately would contain only two social classes. These are
1. The bourgeoisie – those who own the means for producing wealth in industrial society and

2. The proletariat – those who sell their labor for the bourgeoisie for subsistence wages

For Marx, the key to unfolding of history was class conflict between those controlling the means for
producing wealth and that laboring for them. Just as slave owners had been over thrown by the slaves and
landed aristocracy revolted against by the peasants, the capitalist would fall to the wageworkers. Out of
this conflict a classless society would emerge without exploitation of the powerless by the powerful.
Marx concentrated primarily on change in modern times. For him, the most important changes where
bound up with the development of capitalism. Capitalism is a system of production which involves the
production of goods and services sold to a wide range of customers. He identified two main elements
within capitalist enterprise. These are capital and wage- labor. Capital is any asset, including money,
machines, or factories, which can be used in order to make future assets. Wage- Labor refers to the pool
of workers who do not own the means of their livelihood but must find employment provided by the
owners of capital. For Marx, while the ruling classes are capitalists, the working classes are class of wage
workers.

The peasants helped to form an urban-based industrial working class, referred to as the proletariat.
According to Max, capitalism is inherently a class system in which class relations are characterized by
conflict. Although owners of capital and workers are each dependent on the other (the capitalist need
labor and the workers need wages) the dependency is highly unbalanced. Factory is a center of conflict
between proletariat and capitalist. The relationship between classes is an exploitative one since workers
have little or no control over their labor.

It is not ideas or values human beings hold that are the main sources of social change. Social change is
prompted primarily by economic influences. Conflicts between classes provide the motivation for
historical development- they are the motor of history. Therefore, all human history thus far is the history
of class struggles. Marx believed in the inevitability of a workers’ revolution which would overthrow the
capitalist system and usher in a new society in which there would be no classes. By this he didn’t mean
that all inequalities between individuals would disappear.

5. Max Weber

Like Marx, Max Weber (pronounced ‘Vaber’) (1864-1920) was a German sociologist whose interests and
concerns ranged across many areas. Born in Germany, where he spent most of his academic career,
Weber was an individual of wide learning. Much of his work was concerned with the development of
modern world of capitalism and the ways in which modern society was different from earlier forms of
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social organizations. Through a series of empirical studies, Weber set forth some of the basic modern
industrial capitalist societies. He devoted the greater part of his observation on sociology as a discipline to
expounding the special method he advocated. He stressed that one cannot understand human behavior
simply by looking at statistics. He claimed that statistics must be interpreted. To do so, he said that, we
should use VERSTEHEN, the German word for “understanding” or “insight,” in our intellectual work.
Social behavior cannot be analyzed by objective criteria we use to measure weight or temperature. To
fully comprehend behavior, we must learn the subjective meanings people attach to their actions.

Weber believed that the best interpreter of human action is someone who has been there, someone who
can understand the feelings and motivations of the people they are studying. In short, we must pay
attention to what are called subjective meanings, the way in which people interpret their own behavior.
We cannot understand what people do unless we look at how people view themselves and explain their
own behavior.

In common with other thinkers of his time, Weber sought to understand the nature and courses of social
change. Even though he was influenced by Marx, he was strongly critical of some of Marx’s major views.
He rejected the materialistic conception of history and saw class conflict as less significant than did Marx.
In Weber’s economic view, economic factors are important, but ideas and values have just as much
impact on social change as economy does.

In Weber’s view, economic factors are important, but ideas, values and belief have just as much impact on
social change. They had the power to bring about transformations, to shape society and our individual
action. Unlike other early sociological thinkers, Weber believed that sociology should focus on
social action, not structures. Individuals have the ability to act freely and to shape the future. He argued
that human motivation and ideas were the forces behind change: ideas, values and beliefs had the power
to bring about transformations. He did not believe, as Durkheim and Marx did, that structures existed
external to or independent of individuals. Rather, structures in society were formed by a complex
interplay of actions. It was the job of sociology to understand the meanings behind those actions. For
Weber sociology should be” Value free”. By this he meant that a sociologist's values, personal beliefs
about what is good or worthwhile in life and the way the world ought to be shouldn't affect his/her social
research. Weber wanted objectivity or total neutrality to be the whole mark of sociological research. If
values influence research, he said, sociological findings will be biased.
The idea of the “ideal type” was an important element in Weber’s sociological perspective. Ideal types
are key conceptual tools, or analytical models that can be used to understand the world. In the real
world, ideal types rarely, if ever, exist-often only some of their attributes will be present. Ideal type serves
for understanding situation in the real world by comparing to it and served as a fixed point of reference.
An ideal type is a construct, or made- up model, that serves as a measuring rod against which actual cases
can be evaluated.

Note: - By “ideal type” Weber did not mean that the conception was perfect or desirable goal. Instead, he
meant that it was a “pure” form of a certain phenomenon. For example bureaucracy is component of
formal organization that uses rules and hierarchal ranking to achieve efficiency.

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The following are the major characteristics of the ideal-typical bureaucracy:

1. It consists of a continuous organization of official functions (offices) bound by rules.

2. Each office has a specified sphere of competence. The office carries with it a set of obligations to
perform various functions, the authority to carry out these functions, and the means of compulsion
required to do the job.
3. The offices are organized into a hierarchical system.
4. The offices may carry with them technical qualifications that require that the participants obtain
suitable training.
5. The staff that fills these offices does not own the means of production associated with them; staff
members are provided with the use of those things that they need to do the job.
6. The incumbent is not allowed to appropriate the position; it always remains part of the
organization.
7. Administrative acts, decisions, and rules are formulated and recorded in writing.

Max Weber, Religion, and the Rise of Capitalism

Weber spent much of his life studying religion-this in spite of, or perhaps because of, his being areligious,
or, as he once described himself, "religiously unmusical" (Gerth and Mills, 1958:25). One of his
overriding concerns was the relationship among a variety of the world's religions and the development
only in the West of a capitalist economic system (Schlueter, 1996). It is clear that the vast bulk of this
work is done at the social-structural and cultural levels; the thoughts and actions of Calvinists, Buddhists,
Confucians, Jews, Muslims (B. Turner, 1974; Nafassi, 1998), and others are held to be affected by
changes in social structures and social institutions. Weber was interested primarily in the systems of ideas
of the world's religions, in the "spirit" of capitalism, and in rationalization as a modern system of norms
and values. He was also very interested in the structures of the world's religions, the various structural
components of the societies in which they exist that serve to facilitate or impede rationalization, and the
structural aspects of capitalism and the rest of the modern world.

Some of Weber’s most influential writings reflected this concern with social action in analyzing the
distinctiveness of Western societies compared with other major civilizations. He studied the religions of
China, India and the Near East, and in the course of these researches made major contribution to
sociology of religion. Comparing the leading religious systems in China and India with those of the West,
Weber concluded that certain aspects of Christian beliefs strongly influenced the rise of capitalism. This
outlook did not emerge, as Marx supposed, only from economic changes. In Weber’s view, cultural ideas
and values help to shape society and shape our individual action.

Weber (1904/1958) theorized that the Roman Catholic belief system encouraged followers to hold onto
traditional ways of life, while the Protestant belief system encouraged its members to embrace change.
Weber called the self-denying approach to life the Protestant ethic. He termed the readiness to invest
capital to make more money the spirit of capitalism. To test his theory, Weber compared the extent of
capitalism in Roman Catholic and Protestant countries. In line of his theory, he found that capitalism was

18
more likely to flourish in Protestant countries. Weber’s conclusion that was the key factor in the rise of
capitalism was controversial when he made it, and it continues to be debated today.

Max Weber, the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

In Max Weber's best-known work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-1905/1958), he
traced the impact of Calvinism on the rise of the spirit of capitalism. This work is a small part of a larger
body of scholarship that traces the relationship between religion and modern capitalism throughout much
of the world.

Weber did not directly link the idea system of the Protestant ethic to the structures of the capitalist system;
instead, he was content to link the Protestant ethic to another system of ideas, the "spirit of capitalism." In
other words, two systems of ideas are directly linked in this work. Although links of the capitalist
economic system to the material world are certainly implied and indicated, they were not Weber's primary
concern. Thus, The Protestant Ethic is not about the rise of modern capitalism but is about the origin of a
peculiar spirit that eventually made modern rational capitalism (some form of capitalism had existed since
early times) expand and come to dominate the economy.

Weber began by examining and rejecting alternative explanations of why capitalism arose in the West in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To those who contended that capitalism arose because the
material conditions were right at that time, Weber retorted that material conditions were also ripe at other
times and capitalism did not arise.

Evidence for Weber's views on the significance of Protestantism was found in an examination of countries
with mixed religious systems. In looking at these countries, he discovered that the leaders of the economic
system-business leaders, owners of capital, high-grade skilled labor, and more advanced technically and
commercially trained personnel-were all overwhelmingly Protestant. This suggested that Protestantism
was a significant cause in the choice of these occupations and, conversely, that other religions (for
example, Roman Catholicism) failed to produce idea systems that impelled individuals into these
vocations.

In Weber's view, the spirit of capitalism is not defined simply by economic greed; it is in many ways the
exact opposite. It is a moral and ethical system, an ethos, that among other things stresses economic
success. In fact, it was the turning of profit making into an ethos that was critical in the West. In other
societies, the pursuit of profit was seen as an individual act motivated at least in part by greed. Thus, it
was viewed by many as morally suspect. However, Protestantism succeeded in turning the pursuit of
profit into a moral crusade. It was the backing of the moral system that led to the unprecedented
expansion of profit seeking and, ultimately, to the capitalist system.

The spirit of capitalism can be seen as a normative system that involves a number of interrelated ideas.
For example, its goal is to instill an "attitude which seeks profit rationally and systematically" (Weber,
1904-1905/1958:64). In addition, it preaches an avoidance of life's pleasures. Also included in the spirit of
capitalism are ideas such as "time is money," "be industrious," "be frugal," "be punctual," "be fair," and

19
"earning money is a legitimate end in itself." Above all, there is the idea that it is people's duty to increase
their wealth ceaselessly. This takes the spirit of capitalism out of the realm of individual ambition and into
the category of an ethical imperative.

Weber was interested not simply in describing this ethical system but also in explaining its derivations.
He thought that Protestantism, particularly Calvinism, was crucial to the rise of the spirit of capitalism.
Calvinism is no longer necessary to the continuation of that economic system. In fact, in many senses
modern capitalism, given its secularity, stands in opposition to Calvinism and to religion in general.
Capitalism today has become a real entity that combines norms, values, market, money, and laws. It has
become, in Durkheim's terms, a social fact that is external to, and coercive of, the individual.

1.4. The Major Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology

What is Theory?

Theory is tentative idea or testable hypothesis and statement about the nature of reality that could be
accepted, rejected or modified after empirical study. It is systematic attempt to explain how two or more
phenomena are related. It is also a general statement about how some parts of the world fit together
and how they work (Macionis, 1997). Theory is a set of interconnected hypotheses that offer general
explanations for natural or social phenomena.

A theory is “a statement of how and why specific facts are interrelated” (Macionis and Gerber, 2002).
Recall that Emile Durkheim observed some categories of people (men, Protestants, the wealthy, and the
unmarried) has high suicide rates than others (women, Catholics and Jews, the poor, and the married). He
explained this observation by creating a theory: A high risk of suicide results from a low level of social
integration. Ferrante (2006) indicated that sociological theory is “a set of principles and definitions that
tell how societies operate and people in them relate to one another and respond to the environment.”
There are three major theoretical perspectives in sociology. These are the structural functionalist
perspective, the conflict perspective, and the symbolic- interactionist perspective.

1. The Structural- Functionalist Perspective

It is one of the dominant theories both in Anthropology and Sociology. It is sometimes called
functionalism. The theory tries to explain how the relationships among the parts of society are created
and how these parts are functional and dysfunctional. It focuses on consensus, social order, structure,
and function in society. Functionalists sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to
promote solidarity and stability. It states that our social lives are guided by social structure. It states that
“the existing social structure is essential for the proper functioning of the society as a system.”

The major terms and concepts developed in this theory include or the theory focuses on order, structure,
function (manifest or direct functions and latent or hidden, indirect functions) and equilibrium. It pays
considerable attention to the persistence of shared ideas in society. Social order is maintained through
agreement and consensus. The different parts of a social system are closely interrelated that what
happens in one affects the others, and is influenced by them in turn. It means the parts of a social
20
system are interdependent just as the human body is made up of interrelated parts, each of which plays a
role in maintaining the whole. For instance, Armies (for weapon) → Manufactures (for trained or
educated man power) → schools (for budget) → Government (for revenue or income, or protection) →
society or armies. This simple model shows the functional interdependence existing among the parts of
the social system.

Society like human body is composed of parts. The parts of society include family, politics, religion,
education, health, and so on. Each of society’s parts functions together to maintain a larger system.
Function is the contribution a part makes to order and stability within the system according to
functionalists. Functionalism views the parts of society as organized into an integrated whole
consequently, a change in one part of a society leads to change in other parts. A major change in the
economy, for example, may change the family. This is what happened as a result of the industrial
revolution. Before the industrial revolution, agriculture was the dominant economic system in European
countries. The industrial revolution changed this and the family structure, political system and so on. The
need for a large farm labor force (fulfilled by having many children) disappeared as industrialization
proceeded, and family size decreased.

Functionalists realize that societies are not perfectly integrated. A certain degree of integration is
necessary for the survival of a society, but the actual degree of integration varies. Another assumption of
functionalism is that societies tend to return to the state of stability or equilibrium after some upheaval has
occurred. A society may undergo change over time, but functionalists believe that it will return to a state
of stability by incorporation of these changes so that the society will again be similar to what it was before
any change occurred.

Because a society both changes and maintains most of its original structure over time, functionalists refer
to a dynamic equilibrium, a constantly changing balance among its parts. For example, the student unrest
on college and university campuses of USA during the 1960s, this created some changes. These changes,
however, have been absorbed into it, leaving it only some what different from the way it has been before
the student unrest.

The functional aspect in the theory stresses the role played by each component part in the social
system, where as the structural perspective suggests an image of society where in individuals are
constrained by the social forces, social backgrounds and by group membership.

It also visualizes or focuses on the macro aspects (study of society as a whole) of social life where all
the parts of the social system/ structure/ act together even though each part may be doing different
things /work/.

Functionalists argue that the overall goal of the various social structures is to maintain consensus,
stability, harmony and order (not conflict) in society. For a system to operate effectively each of the
individual sub- systems must perform its task and function. The major argument is “society shapes the
individuals.”

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Critique of functionalism:

- Focuses on macro- level (large scale) analysis of society neglecting micro- level (small
scale) societal realities.
- The perspective doesn’t provide us with the entire story of social life and social change.
- It tends to exaggerates consensus, integration and stability while disregarding conflict,
disensus and instability.
- Conservativeness in their approach: Critics argue that this perspective is by nature
conservative in that it defends existing arrangements. Functionalists justified the existence
of poverty as functional and legitimizing the status quo. Functionalists reject this criticism,
claiming that they are not justifying poverty’s existence, but rather simply illustrating why
such parts continue to exist despite efforts to change and eliminate them.
- The other critic is on the functionalists’ claim that parts exist because they serve function.
The critiques argued that a part may not serve any function when it is first introduced.
Often people have to work to make parts useful. The functionalists assumed that every part
functions in some way to support smooth operation of society; this theory has difficulty
accounting for the origin of social instability. This assumption also lead functionalists to
overlook the fact that stability and order are frequently achieved at a cost to some segment
of the society, such as poor and powerless individuals.
- The focus on stability and order means that divisions or inequalities in society- based
on factors such as class, race and gender- are minimized

The proponents of Functionalism, a sociologist Robert K. Merton (1967), added some concepts to
functionalism to address some of the critiques. A contemporary American sociologist, Robert K. Merton
identified two types of functions that contribute to the stability and order. These are Manifest and Latent
Functions. The manifest functions are those consequences which are intended, open obvious, conscious,
and recognized, and latent functions are those which are neither intended nor recognized. For example,
the manifest function of education is teaching writing skills, knowledge and so on. At the same time, the
schools are providing a free ‘babysitting’ service to parents and increasing the manpower available for
employment- these are some of the latent function of education.

Merton also identified that parts of a social system can have a dysfunction – undesirable effects on the
operation of society. For example, the dysfunction of the automobiles is for polluting the air.
Dysfunctions can also be either manifest or latent functions. Manifest dysfunctions are a part’s anticipated
disruptions to order and stability. On the other hand, latent dysfunctions are unintended, unanticipated
disruptions to order and stability.

2. The Conflict Perspective

Conflict theory is rooted in the writings of Karl Marx, class conflict, though not all conflict theorists
accept all of Marx’s arguments. The conflict perspective is a theoretical framework based on the
assumption that society is a complex system characterized by inequality and conflict that generate social
change. This approach complements the structural functional paradigm by high lighting not integration

22
but division based on social inequality. So rather than identifying how social structure promotes the
operation of society as a whole, this approach focus on how these patterns benefits to some people while
being harmful to others.

This theory stresses the importance of power and conflict in societal relationships, as well as the
problems brought about by social and economic inequality, and scarcity of resources. It emphasize
conflict, rather than consensus, and constant social change, rather than stability emanating due to the
existence of scarcity of resources for achieving goals.

Conflict theorists see society less as a cohesive system and more an arena of conflict and power struggles.
The major argument of this school of thought is that “instead of people working together to further the
goals of the social system, people are seen achieving their will at the expense of others”.

During conflict and instability, the member of society will partly win and partly will lose power/ resource.
Marx believed that the economic system of a society shapes all other aspects of social life and breeds
persistent social conflict. He said, the only way for workers to overcome their oppression is through social
action and revolution.

Instead of people working together to further the goals of the “social system,”

 People are seen achieving their will at the expense of others

 People compete against each other for scarce resources

The struggle between social classes was the major cause of change in society. Much change happens as
rich people and poor people compete over scarce resources. Not all conflict theorists are Marxist. Weber,
for instance, is also a conflict theorist but not Marxist. Whereas Marx focused on class conflict as the
“engine” of historic change, other see conflict among groups and individuals as a fact of life in any
society. Conflict can occur over many other aspects of society unrelated to class. For example, conflict
can occur when two people have a car accident, between men and women (husband and wife), etc.

Like the functionalists, conflict theorists recognize the existence of social structures, but instead of
structures existing for the good of the whole system, social structures (institutions) serve the interest
of the powerful.

Marx said that there are two classes- bourgeoisie and the proletariat-in capitalist system. According to
him, class membership is determined by the individual’s relationship with the means of production.
Means of production includes the land, machinery, buildings, tools, and other technologies needed to
produce and distribute goods and services. The bourgeoisie is the more powerful class that owns means of
production and able to purchase labor. The proletariats do not own anything of the production process
except their labor. On the other hand, workers’ interests are to gain more income and control over their
work. As the result of divergences of interest and value, the two classes are in struggle with each other.

The value and interest of the two classes are different. The bourgeoisie are interested to make profit. They
need constantly to expand markets for their products. They always search for ways that maximize their
profit and minimize their loss. This can be achieved by making production system more efficient, less

23
dependent on human labor, and by using cheap labor and raw materials. The bourgeoisie consider the
working class like machines or raw materials. In general, the owner class wants to make more profit by
lowering labor cost and getting workers to work hard.

Conflict exists between the two because the bourgeoisie, who owns the means of production, exploits the
workers. The bourgeoisie make profit without making any value but by paying small amount of profit the
working class make in the form of wage and forcing them to work hard to increase output.

Key concepts developed in this perspective include conflict, complementation, struggle, power,
inequality, and exploitation. The conflict perspective analyze large- scale society (wide patterns of
behavior). The powerful influence or coerce the rest of the population in to compliance and conformity.
Therefore, social order is maintained, not by popular agreement, but rather by the direct or indirect
exercise of power by the dominant group.

Critiques of the conflict perspective:

-Conflict theorists argue that conflict (than consensus) is essential functional for society; it
quickens group allegiances and loyalties and thus act as a social glue that binds people
together. It overstates the importance of conflict and disregard the stability and order that do
exist within societies.

-The theory over emphasize on inequality and division, neglecting the fact of how shared values
and interdependence generate unity among members of society.
-Criticized for its explicit political goals.
-It sees society in very broad terms, neglecting micro- level social realities.
-The theory ignores the contribution of industrialization in improving the wellbeing of humans.
-The theory is also criticized for over emphasizing changing society rather than understanding how
order and stability can be maintained.

3. The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Symbolic interactionists drawn much of their idea from American sociologists George Herbert Mead,
Charles Horton Cooley, and Herbert Blumer ( who coined the term symbolic interactionism). The theory
is concerned with how the self develops, the meaning people attach to their own and others action, how
people learn these meanings and how meanings evolve. They said that we learn meanings from others and
adjust ourselves according to those meanings. Meanings are subject to change.

The symbolic interaction paradigm is a theoretical frame work based on the assumption that society is the
product of the everyday interaction of individuals. This approach is primarily concerned with human
behavior on a personal level. Interactionists reminded us that the different social institutions are ultimately
created, maintained, and changed by people interacting with one another. George Herbert Mead devised a
symbolic interaction approach that focuses on signs, gestures, shared rules and written and spoken
languages.

24
Symbols play an important role in interaction according to the symbolic interactionist perspective. A
symbol is “any kind of physical phenomena-word, object, color, sound, feeling, odor, movement, or taste-
to which people attach a name, meaning or value” (White, 1949, cited in Ferrante, 2006). Symbols are
shared by people and used to communicate with one another.

Symbolic interactionism, also known as social action theory, is concerned with micro level analysis of
social life and problems- how individuals subjectively act and react to objective situations and realities.
Interactionists see symbols as an especially important part of human communications. Members of a
society share the social meanings of symbols. People manipulate symbols and create their social worlds
through interaction.

Symbolic interactionism is concerned with the meanings that people place on another behavior. Human
beings are unique because most of what they do with one another has meaning beyond the concrete act.
According to Mead, people do not act or react automatically but carefully consider what they are going to
do. They take into account the other people involved and the situation in which they found themselves.
The expectations and interactions of other people greatly affect each individual’s actions in addition;
people give things meanings and act or react on the bases of these meanings. Because most human
activity take place in social situations in the presence of other people, we must fit what we as individuals
do with other people in the same situation are doing. We go about our lives under the assumption that
most people share our definition of basic social situations.

According to interactionists, the same situation need not evoke (suggest) the same response in two people
or in the same person in different circumstances. They stated that interaction is generally face to- face and
addresses “every day” activities.

The interactionists perspective takes the position that it is people who exist and act. All the other
“structures” found in society are nothing but human creations. For them, society is always in a process of
being created, and this occurs through interaction, communication and negotiation. This perspective
views symbols as the basis of social life. Symbols are things to which we attach meanings and they stand
for something else other than themselves.

The theory stresses the analysis of how our behaviors depend on how we define others and ourselves. It
concentrates on process, rather than structure, and keeps the individual actor at the center. The essence of
social life and social reality is the active human being trying to make sense of social situations. In
general, this theory calls attentions to the detailed, person-oriented processes that take place within the
larger units of social life. It generalizes about every day forms of social interaction in order to explain
society as a whole. Social order is maintained through shared understanding of everyday behavior and the
social meanings of symbols.

Critiques of Symbolic Interactionism:

 The symbolic interactionist approach ignores what Emile Durkheim called “social facts”- ideas,
feelings, and ways of behaving” that possesses the remarkable property of existing outside the
consciousness of the individual. Symbolic interactionists cannot account for social structures and
processes that are larger than the individuals interacting within them.
25
  Symbolic interactionists acquire direct, firsthand, and extensive knowledge of a social world. The
direct approach has shortcomings; because symbolic interactionists’ presence as observers can
skew the data. That is, those being observed may act in ways they think the researcher wants them
to act.

1.5. Research Methods in Sociology

Application of the scientific method

The scientific method is a systematic, organized serious of steps that insures maximum objectivity and
consistency in researching a problem. The scientific method requires precise preparation in developing
useful research. It also requires that research results be both valid and reliable. Validity refers to the
degree to which a measure or scale truly reflects the phenomenon under study. Reliability refers to the
extent to which a measure produces consistent results.

The basic goal of sociological research is to understand the social world in its many forms. Sociologists
and other researchers follow the following five basic (common) steps in the scientific method:

1. Defining the problem

2. Reviewing the literature
3. Formulating the hypothesis
4. Selecting the research design and then collecting and analyzing data, and
5. Developing the conclusion

1. Defining the Problem

The first step in any research project is to state as clearly as possible what you hope to investigate that is,
define the problem. Early on, any social science researcher must develop an operational definition of each
concept being studied. An operational definition is an explanation of an abstract concept that is specific
enough to allow a researcher to assess the concept.

2. Reviewing the Literature

By conducting a review of the literature- relevant scholarly studies and information- researchers refine the
problem under study, clarify possible techniques to be used in collecting data, and eliminate or reduce
available mistakes.

3. Formulating the Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a speculative statement about the relationship between two or more factors know as
variables. For instance, income, religion, occupation, and gender can all serve as variables in a study. We
can define a variable as a measureable trait or characteristic that is subject to change under different
conditions.

The variable hypothesized to cause or affects another is called the independent variable. The second
variable is termed as the dependent variable because its action “depends” on the influence of the
independent variable.
26
For example, if our hypothesis is that the higher one’s educational degree, the more money one will earn,
and the independent variable that is to be measured is the level of education. The variable that is thought
to “depend” on it- income - must also be measured.

Identifying independent and dependent variables is a critical step in clarifying cause and effect
relationships.

Causal logic involves the relationship between a condition or variable and a particular consequence, with
one event leading to the other. For instance, being less integrated in to society may be directly related to,
or produce a greater likelihood of, suicide. Similarly, the time students spend reviewing material for a
quiz may be directly related to, or produce a greater likelihood of, getting a high score on the quiz.

A correlation exists when a change in one variable coincides with a change in the other. Correlations are
an indication that causality may be present; they do not necessary indicate causation.

4. Selecting the research design and then collecting and analyzing data

A research design is a detailed plan or method for obtaining data scientifically. Selection of research
design is often based on the theories and hypothesis the researcher starts with. The major research designs
that sociologists regularly use to generate data include surveys, observation, experiments, and existing
sources.

A sample is a selection from a larger population that is statistically repetitive of that population. It needs
careful selection. The most frequently used, by social scientists, sample is the random sample. In a
random sample, every member of an entire population being studied has the same chance of being
selected.

Surveys: A survey is a study, generally in the form of an interview or questionnaire that provides
researchers with information about how people think and act. There are two main forms of surveys: the
interview, in which a researcher obtains information through face-to - face or telephone questioning, and
the questionnaire, in which the researcher uses a printed or written form to obtain information from a
respondent. Each of these has its own advantages. An interviewer can obtain a higher response rate
because people find it more difficult to turn down a personal request for an interview than to throw away
a written questionnaire. In addition, a skillful interviewer can go beyond written questions and probe for
a subject’s underlying feelings and reasons. On the other hand, questionnaires have the advantage of
being cheaper, especially in large samples.

The survey is an example of quantitative research which collects and reports data primary in numerical
forms. While this type of research can make use of large samples, it can’t offer great depth and
detail on a topic. That is why researchers also make use of qualitative research, which relies on what is
seen in field and naturalistic settings, and often focuses on small groups and communities rather than
large groups or whole nations. The most common form of qualitative research is observation.

Observation: Investigators who collect information through direct participation and/or closely watching a
group or community are engaged in observation.

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An increasingly popular form of qualitative research in sociology today is ethnography. Ethnography
refers to efforts to describe an entire social setting through extended systematic observation.
Anthropologists rely heavily on ethnography.

Experiments: When sociologists want to study a possible cause- and –effect relationship, they may
conduct experiments. An experiment is an artificially created situation that allows the researcher to
manipulate variables.

In the classic method of conducting an experiment, two groups of people are selected and matched for
similar characteristics, such as age or education. The researcher, then assign the subjects to one of two
groups: the experimental or the control group. The experimental group is exposed to an independent
variable; the control group is not.

Sociological research don’t often rely on this classic form of experiment, because it generally involves
manipulating human behavior in an inappropriate manner, especially in a laboratory setting.

Use of Existing Sources:

Sociologists do not necessarily need to collect new data in order to conduct a research and test
hypotheses. The term secondary analysis refers to a variety of research techniques that make use of
previously collected and publicly accessible information and data.

Secondary analysis is considered to be non-reactive, since it does not influence people’s behavior. As an
example, Emile Durkheim’s statistical analysis of suicide neither increased nor decreased human self-
destruction.

5. Developing the Conclusion

Scientific studies, including those conducted by sociologists, do not answer all the questions that can be
raised about a particular subject. Therefore, the conclusion of a research study represents both an end and
a beginning. It terminates a specific phase of the investigation, but should also generate ideas for future
study.

Ethics of Research:
The professional society of the discipline, the American Sociological Association (ASA), first published
the code of ethics in 1971 and revised it most recently in 1997. It puts forth the following basic principles:
1. Maintain objectivity and integrity in research
2. Respect the subjects right to privacy and dignity
3. Protect subjects from personal harm
4. Preserve confidentiality
5. Seek informed consent (permission) when data are collected from research participants or
when behavior occurs in a private context.
6. Acknowledge research collaboration and assistance
7. Disclose all sources of financial support.

Chapter Two

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 Society, Culture, and Individual

2.1. The concept of society

A society is a system of interrelationships which connects individuals together. It also refers to the people
who share and engage in culture. Society is an autonomous grouping of people who inhabit a common
territory, have a common culture (shared set of values, beliefs, customs etc) and are linked to one another
through routinized social interactions and interdependent statuses and roles.

Basic features of society

- Society is usually a relatively large grouping of people in terms of size.

- Its members share common and distinct culture.
- has a definite limited space or territory
- The people who make up a society have the feeling of identity and belongingness, the feeling of
oneness.
- Members of a society are considered to have a common origin and common historical experience
- A society is autonomous and independent i.e. it has all the necessary social institutions and
organizational arrangements to sustain the system. However, a society is not an island rather
societies are interdependent. People interact socially, economically and politically.

It is important to note that the above features of a society are by no means exhaustive and they may not
apply to all societies. The level of society’s economic and technological development, the type of
economic or livelihood system a society is engaged in, etc may create some variations among societies in
terms of these basic features.

2.2. The Definition of Culture and Basic Cultural Concepts

Definition of culture

The word culture is defined in different ways. For some it is appreciation of literature, music, art and
food. For biologists, it may be colony of bacteria. But for sociologists and other social scientists, the term
has different meaning. It is a technical term that must not be confused with the more limited concept of
ordinary language and literature. Anthropologists define culture as an aspect of human environment, both
tangible and intangible, created by men. It is the distinctive way of life of human society designed for
living. Sociologists accept the anthropological definition of culture.

Different scholars defined culture differently. Perhaps the most famous and comprehensive is being that
of Edward Barnett Taylor’s, British Anthropologist (1832-1917), Paddington’s, and that of UNESCO’s
(2002)- United Nation Economic Social and Cultural Organization definition.

29
The term culture itself was first used by an English Anthropologist Edward B. Taylor. He defined the term
in his book, “Primitive culture” as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law,
morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. This
definition is from idealistic perspective. Hence, it includes those aspects of culture that take non-physical
form and hence are unobservable.

Paddington defined culture as the sum total of material and intellectual equipment where by people satisfy
their biological and social needs and adapt themselves to the environment. This definition includes
aspects of culture that have physical existence and hence are observable. And the definition is from
materialist perspective.

According to UNESCO culture should be regarded as “the fact of distinctive spiritual, material,
intellectual, and emotional features of society that encompasses art, literature, life styles, and ways of
living together, value systems, traditions, and beliefs”. In general, culture is the entire human social
heritage; values, norms, beliefs, language, religion, behaviors, skills, knowledge and even material objects
that are passed from one generation to the next. Culture is acquired/ learned but not inherited.

From the above definitions we can conclude that culture includes both the materials resources and non-
materials resources of group life.

Types of culture

There are two types of culture

1. Material (tangible), and

2. Non-material (intangible) culture

Tangible or material culture includes physical artifacts, symbolic objects like clay pots, dress, houses /
buildings / computers, car, household utensils, ornaments, coins, flags etc.

Intangible or non-material culture comprises the ideas, tattooing, hospitality, values, norms, beliefs,
customs and that society professes to hold (e.g. monogamy, democracy, language).

Attributes (characteristics) of culture

1. Culture is all inclusive

Culture includes all aspects of life of a society. It is a complete design of living encompassing what
societies have, do/make and think. For a society nothing is excluded from its culture.

2. Culture is essentially symbolic

Symbols are the central components of culture. The most frequent form of use of symbol is language.
Words are symbols because they stand for something else. More specifically, symbols are words, objects,
gestures, sounds or images that represent something else rather than themselves. Culture is found only in
human society. This is because human beings can develop and use highly complex systems of symbols.
Social life can exist without symbols as it does among other animals. But only humans have culture
because only they are able to create symbols.
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3. Culture is socially created and determined
It is the result of social interaction; hence, it is a social construction. Human beings learn culture through
interaction with others but other animals are led by their instinctive behavior. Society creates culture for
the gratification of human needs.

4. Culture is learned
This implies that culture is acquired. Culture is learned from each other through interaction in families,
schools, and all forms of human social organizations including religion, and group. Each individual is
born in to a group that already possesses values, beliefs, and standards of behavior. These are transmitted
through interaction with others i.e. socialization.

5. Culture is shared
Culture belongs to a society not to individuals as a single individual cannot develop his/her own culture
but only learns from the society. Cultural elements such as language, values and norms, beliefs, ideology,
and skills are commonly shared among members of a society. Culture is the public property of a social
group of people. It is a quality or attribute of a group rather than an individual. But not all shared things
are culture; beyond its shared nature it must be learned. For example, we share black hair naturally, so it
cannot be culture. But the hair style is a culture because learning is involved.

6. Culture is Universal and Relative

Culture is universal because all societies have culture. There is no society without culture: a society
cannot be identified without its culture. That is, culture and society are inseparable. Culture is also
relative; culture varies from society to society and from time to time even in a given society due to
cultural changes.

7. Culture is stable and yet dynamic (it changes)

Culture is a stable because people maintain valuable practices and behavior for generations. The present
generation hand over those values to the next. Therefore, culture is accumulative because societies reserve
old but still important cultural values.

However, culture is not fixed; rather it is dynamic or it changes. Cultural elements can change if the
society gets it important when it fails to meet the desire of the society or replaced by the other which the
society gets it more important. That is, culture is selective because societies avoid old and out dated
practices or behaviors. However, cultural change is not as simple as it seems. It cannot be changed
overnight; it takes longer time for the process is gradual. Culture cannot also be changed by individuals’
interest.

Generally, culture grows, expands, and develops continually. No culture is totally fixed and static.
Cultural growth is a cumulative process (collected together at different times) because societies add new
cultural elements, complexes, and patterns. Similarly, societies discard cultural traits, complexes, and
patterns that have outlived their purposes. So, cultural growth is a selective and cumulative process.

8. Culture is Organic and Supra-Organic

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Culture is organic means there is no culture without human beings. It is supra – organic because it is far
beyond an individual life time. i.e. individuals come and go, but culture remains and persists with some
changes /modification.

Basic cultural concepts

1. Social/cultural values
Social values are abstract ideas which define what is considered important, worthwhile and desirable
within a given culture. Social or cultural values are shared assumption by the member of society as to
what is right and wrong, good or bad, important or unimportant, desirable or undesirable. Hence, values
are widely held beliefs and ideas about what is important to the community’s identity or wellbeing.
Privacy, equality, freedom etc are examples of social values.

Value and norms work together to shape how members of a culture behave with in their surroundings.
Values and norms are deeply embedded, but can change over time. Values at the level of the society are
commonly known as social and /or cultural values. Values are relative and subjective to be heavily
influenced by the time and place. Although more or less similar sets of social values can be identified
across different societies, not all societies do have similar value system. Hence values are dynamic in that
they are liable or subject to changes in response to change in social conditions.

2. Social Norms
Social norms are the standards which should govern behavior in role. They are the society expectations of
what is normal. Social norms are derived from values. Norms obviously vary in strength according to the
intensity of feeling associated with them and the degree of conformity expected. Based on this assumption
W.G. Summer classified norms in to two groups, namely mores and folkways.

Mores: are serious social norms up on which society’s existence is believed to depend. They are those
norms which must be followed because they are believed essential to group welfare. For example, in
modern society all members may be required to wear clothing and to bury their dead. Such “must” are
often labeled mores. People who violate such norms are usually ostracized, institutionalized in prisons or
mental hospitals, physical punishment, or capital punishment. Mores are considered as unchangeable, the
only way and truth. The strong reaction made people to adhere to mores. Members of a society are also
taught to adhere to their cultural mores almost from the time they are born. As the result, people
incorporate the mores in to their cultural norms. This process is called internalization.

When the term mores is used to refer to the must behaviors of a society, it generally includes the must not
behaviors or taboos. Mores are very important, strictly enforced and punishable. Within each society
some norms become codified. We call these codified norms, laws.

The other kinds of mores are called conventions. Conventions are established rules governing behavior.
They are generally accepted ideals by the society. They can be regarded as written and signed agreements
between nations to govern the behaviors of individuals, groups, and nations.

32
Folkways: compared to mores, folkways are less serious social norms such as those governing daily
relationships. Feelings about folkways are less intense than feelings about mores and conformity with
folkways is largely up to the individual. Folkways are norms that are not strictly enforced. One group’s
folkways may be another group’s mores. Folkways govern the mundane aspects or details of daily life–
when and what to eat, how to greet to someone, how to walk, how to talk and so on. Folkways give us
discipline and support of routine and habit. Violation of folkways are tolerated and not taken very
seriously.

Folkways are the way of life developed by a group of people. They are detailed and minor instructions,
traditions or rules for day-to- day life that help us function effectively and smoothly as members of a
group. Violating such kinds of norms may not result in a serious punishment. Hence, they are less morally
binding. These includes, for example, table etiquette, dressing rules, walking and talking style etc.

The conformity to folkways is not enforced by law, but by informal social control. Folkways are
distinguished from laws and mores in that they are designed, maintained and enforced by public
sentiment, or custom, whereas laws are institutionalized, designed, maintained, and enforced by the
political authority of the society.

Generally, norms are the expectations, or rules of behavior, that develops out of values. All societies have
rules or norms specifying appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and individuals are rewarded or
punished as they conform to or deviate from rules. The norms are blueprints for behavior, setting limits
within which individuals may seek alternative ways to achieve their goals. Norms are based on cultural
values, which are justified by moral standards, reasoning, or aesthetic judgments. Thus, values are more
abstract than norms, they are the ideas that support or justify norms.

Each society has its own norms. Thus, what is considered right in one society may be violation of a
serious norm in another society. In addition, norms that are considered in one society as serious may be
considered as folkways in other societies.

3. Social Control
Social control refers to all the mechanism and process employed by a society to ensure conformity. It
involves the use of sanctions. It is control of the society over an individual. Failure to conform to and/ or
abide by the norms of a society is referred to as non- conformity. Non- conformity is divided in to two
groups. These are eccentricity and deviance.

A. Eccentricity: refers to non- conformity to folkways. It is usually overlooked by the members of

society.

B. Deviance: refers to non- conformity to mores.

Deviance is a non- conformity taken very seriously by members of the society because deviants hold
at system of values and norms which conflict with the values and norms of the society at large.

4. Cultural Universals

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Cultural Universals refers to those practices, beliefs, values, norms, material objects, etc, which are
observed across all societies in the world, or across different social groups within a society. They
condition behavioral similarity among individuals in a given society or across societies. They do not allow
differences in actions and behaviors, lifestyles, attitude, etc.

Examples of cultural universals include:

- Age grading - Joking - Athletics

- Kin groups - Kin terminology - Calendar

- Language - Marriage -Family

- Religious rituals - Food taboos - Sexual restrictions

- Funeral rituals - Medicine -Courtship

- Dancing - Mourning -Dream interpretation etc

5. Cultural Alternatives and Specialties

Cultural alternatives and specialties refer to the activities which the member of society may freely choose
to follow or not to follow. They are diverse ways of doing the same thing. They are those elements of
culture which are shared by the members of certain social groups but which are not shared by the total
population. They cause behavioral differences among people as opposed to cultural universals. Cultural
specialties particularly refer to the special skills or abilities and behavior associated with the cultural
alternative.

Modern societies offer far more cultural alternatives than had many societies of the past. For example, one
widely shared cultural universal by many societies is that people have to work and participate in some
labor activity in order to earn a living. But the choice of occupation and the skill and behavior associated
with is left to individuals.

6. Culture Shock
Culture shock is temporary psychological and social maladjustment individuals experience when they
come across the society different from their own culture i.e. first contact. It is a feeling of confusion and
anxiety caused by contacts with one another culture. It also refers to the feeling of surprise, disorientation,
and frustration of those who find themselves among people who do not share their basic values and
beliefs.
No person is protected from culture shock. Although individual variation is common, highly ethnocentric
people are exposed widely to culture shock. On the other hand cultural relativists may find it easy to adapt
to (overcome) culture shock.

7. Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is a tendency to feel that one’s own particular culture or way of life is superior, right, and
natural and that all other cultures are inferior and often wrong and unnatural. It is basically an inclination

34
to judge other‘s cultures in terms of the values and norms of one’s own culture. To address the costs of
ethnocentrism, one has to deal with cultural relativism and pluralism.

8. Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism refers to the notion that each culture should be evaluated from the stand point of
its own setting rather than from the stand point of a different culture.

9. Xenocentrism
It is a belief that every other nation or culture is somehow superior to one’s own. Xenocentrism also refers
to preference for products, styles, ideas, country, people, society, ethnic group, sex, religion of someone
else’s culture rather than that of one’s own.

10. Sub- Culture

Sub-culture is a pattern that is distinct in important ways but has much in common with the dominant
culture. It contains some of the dominant cultural values but also values or customs of its own. So, sub-
culture is a culture with in a culture.

Members of a sub- culture participate in the dominant culture while at the same time engaging in unique
and distinctive forms of behavior. Frequently, a subculture will develop an argot, or specialized language,
that distinguishes it from the wider society.

Argot allows insiders, the members of the subculture, to understand words with special meanings. It also
establishes patterns of communication that outsiders can’t understand. Language and symbols offer a
powerful way for a subculture to feel cohesive and maintain its identity. Examples of subculture include
street gangs, prostitutes, residents of a retired community, prison inmates, and university students’ sub-
culture. When a subculture conspicuously and deliberately opposed certain aspects of the larger culture, it
is known as a counter culture.

11. Acculturation
Acculturation refers to the adoption of new traits or patterns as a result of contact with another culture.
Ideally, acculturation is the way people learn from one another as a result of culture contact. It is the
transmission of culture from one generation to another with in the same culture through socialization.

12. Culture Lag

Culture lag is a condition by which non- material culture changes slowly, while material culture changes
fast. This occurs, for example, when the growth of technology (material culture) fails to match high with
the growth of know how or attitude (non- material culture) towards it.

13. Culture Lead

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 Culture lead refers to the phenomenon whereby in some less developed societies, the change of non-
material culture may outpace the material culture. For instance, due to the effect of globalization and
rapid assimilation process, people in the Third World are accustomed to the ideology and cultures of
the western world, though their material culture is not changing keeping pace with non- material
culture.

Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity (variability): refers to the differences within a specific culture that add to the
complexity of the culture and to the rich texture of social life. It also refers to differences within cultures
across societies and places.

It is believed that human beings everywhere have the same biological and mental makeup. But their
motivations, customs and beliefs differ enormously. We observe differences in technology, custom, diet,
art, religion, government, marriage practices etc.

Cultural diversity or variability can be both between societies and within societies. Cultural variability
between societies may result in divergent health and disease conditions. E.g.: The prevalence of tapeworm
among raw meat eating people may be a case in point.

The concept of subculture can be used to denote the variability of culture within a certain society.
Examples of subculture could be the distinctive culture of university students, street children, and
prostitutes etc.

The Causes for Cultural Variations

Geographic Factors

Climatic conditions, topography, vegetation etc are considered to be principal sources of cultural
variability. Societies adopt behavior in accordance with the natural environment.

Note: - While it is true that geographic factors influence culture in certain ways, it is important to note that
they do not necessarily play a determining role in shaping culture.

Span of Interest

The argument here is that different societies have developed different span of interest emphasizing on
different aspects of life. For instance societies may emphasize on acquisition of wealth, political and
economic power, practice of religion (life after death), individual achievement, etc such emphasis
difference is thus believed to have contributed to cultural variability.

Demographic Factors

Population size seems to be an important factor in this approach. One factor that influence cultural
development is invention. Hence it is assumed that invention is dependent up on inventors and the
number of inventors is directly related to the size of the population.

Historic Chance
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The argument here goes that cultural difference is due to mere historic chance or exposure to certain
historical circumstances and opportunities.

1.3. Socialization
Socialization is a process by which people learn the culture, attitudes, values and behavior of a given
social group. It is a process which begins immediately after birth and continues unceasingly until the
death of an individual. Socialization begins from the cradle and lasts to the grave (it is an ongoing, never
ending process).It is an interactive process between peoples to learn the ways of their culture and also a
process of making somebody social and fully human. Socialization can be looked at (viewed) from
societal and individual points of view.

Societal point of view

From societal point of view socialization is the process of fitting (including) new individuals in to an
organized way of life and teaching them the society’s cultural traditions. In this process, socialization
transforms the human animal in to a human being.

Individual point of view

From this point of view socialization is the process of developing a self through interaction with other, a
person gains an identity, develops values and aspirations.

Socialization may be formal or informal. Formal socialization is conducted by formally organized social
groups and institutions like schools, religious centers, mass media, universities work places, military
training centers etc.

Socialization is informal when it is carried out through the informal social interactions and relationships at
micro-levels, at interpersonal and small social group levels. The most important socialization is that we
get through informal agents like family, parents, neighborhood and peer group influences. It has a very
powerful influence. In general without some kind of socialization, formal or informal, society would
cease to exist.

Goals (roles) of socialization:

Socialization has the following specific roles/goals
- To promote conformity and avoid deviance
- To teach social norms and roles to the new generation
- To restrain individuals from immediate gratification
- To promote personality development and full humanness etc

1.3.1. Types of Socialization

There are six types or stages of socialization. These are primary or childhood socialization, Secondary or
adulthood socialization, De- socialization, Re-socialization, Anticipatory socialization, and Reverse
Socialization.

A. Primary or Childhood Socialization

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It is the most crucial phase of learning and called primary because it supplies the foundation for all other
learning and it must come first. Most often the child learns from the family through imitation,
conditioning and rewards for accomplishing the expected behavior. Socialization at this stage of life is a
land mark or the foundation for personality development. The human infant who is a biological being or
organism is changed in to a social being mainly at this early stage.

B. Secondary or Adulthood Socialization

Secondary or Adulthood socialization is the learning that builds on and modifies primary socialization and
is required all of us as we move in to new stage of life and face a changing environment. This
socialization necessitated when individual take up new roles, reorienting themselves according to their
changes in social statuses and roles, for example, as in starting marital life, fresh college graduates
entering the world of work, and immigrants.

C. De-socialization
De-socialization typically precedes re-socialization. It refers to stripping individuals of their former life
styles, beliefs, values and attitudes so that they may take up other partially or totally new way of life.
Persons joining the new setting have first to be de-socialized, before they are re-socialized.

Both re-socialization and de-socialization often take place in what is called total institutions, an
environment that is all encompassing and often isolated from the community. Total institutions include
religious denominations, prisons, mental hospitals, military units, and some political groups, etc.

D. Re- Socialization
It is a drastic shift that involves giving up one way of life for another that is not only different from it but
also incompatible with it. Re-socialization applies to situations that are more unusual and dramatic. It
requires some break with a past way of life. It also means the adoption by adults of radically different
norms and life ways that are more or less completely dissimilar to the previous norms and values. It
means an abandonment of one life way with a new one, which is completely different from and also
incompatible with the former.

Re socialization may also mean socializing individuals again in to their former values and norms. This
kind of socialization may also be regards as reintegration.

Examples for re-socialization can be brainwashing (rejecting old beliefs & ideas and accepting new
ideas), rehabilitation of criminals, religious conversion of sinners, and living in monastery.

5. Anticipatory Socialization

This type of socialization involves adopting the attitudes and behavior of group or category before one
joins. It refers to learning roles by practicing those we anticipate playing in the future. one way of learning
the roles we will play in our lives is to rehearse them. This socialization is a part of primary socialization
but is not restricted to it.
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6. Reverse Socialization

Refers to the process of socialization where by the dominant socializing persons, such as parents, happen
to be in need of being socialized themselves by those whom they socialize, such as children. This idea
seems to be associated with the fact that socialization is a two-way process.

1.3.2. Agents of Socialization

The Socialization process takes place in the following three components

- The socializee (the person being socialized)

- The socializer, and
- The social environment (the environment in which socialization takes place)

The most socializing agencies are the family, peer relationships (friends), schools, neighborhoods (the
community), and the mass media, etc.

1.4. Meaning and types of social groups

A social group is a collectivity or set of people who involve in more or less permanent or enduring social
interactions and relationships. They are characterized by the following features:

- They have regular and usually sustained interaction between members

- Members of a social group have Shared interest, a feeling of common identity or belongingness
- Have some patterns for organization of behavior on a regular basis.
- Members are functionally integrated through role and status relationship in the group structure.

From these characteristics “a group is a plurality of individuals who have contact with one another, who
take each other in to account in making decisions and who have some sense of common identity as well as
shared goals or interests.

1.4.1. Types of social groups

1. Primary groups

Primary groups are characterized by the following;

- They have close and intimate association and cooperation

- Usually, they are small in size and have face to face relationship
- They have relatively frequent contact
- Members have strong sense of identity and loyalty
- Deep and extensive communications
- High level of emotional & spiritual satisfaction and concern for friendly relations as an end in
themselves, not as a means to an end. The family, neighborhood, children’s play group (Peer groups)
are examples of primary groups.

It is primary in time, intimacy and belonging. Primary groups have two important functions of
socialization and individual support

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2. Secondary groups

These groups have the following characteristics:

- They are relatively larger in size

- Instrumental in nature i.e. they have specific goals to be attained, and the efforts of the group are
directed at obtaining these goals.
- Relations are partial i.e. relations do not involve the entire personality of the individual participant.
- Relationships are basically contractual in the sense that members are expected to give some thing,
perform some duty or play in some way for the privilege of membership.
- There is little or no emotional involvement.
- Members are more competitive than cooperative
- The group is mainly a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
- Membership is unlimited
- They are more formal

3. Aggregates: - they are quasi social groups having the following basic features

- Have mere physical proximity/ togetherness

- Lack of unifying (common) features
- Members are not functionally integrated

Examples for aggregates can be a group of people taking (waiting for) a tax or a bus, a group of people
walking in a busy city street, and a group of patients sitting or standing in a waiting room of a hospital
etc.

4. Category –characterized by the following basic features:

- They are physically dispersed (live apart) but share common traits and interests
- Have more or less similar lifestyles, physical and psychosocial characteristics.
- There may be little or no social interaction, social structure, social norms, etc but there is the feeling
of belongingness, even though the people may never know each other.
- Members belong to similar socio- economic back ground.

Examples for category can be all female engineers in Ethiopia, all women aged 70 and above, all HIV
patients in the world, and all rural people in Ethiopia etc.

5. Dyad – is a two person primary social group. The group of husband and wife without having
children (a two-person peer group) is a dyad.

1.4.2. Social Organization

An organization is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, which control its own
performance and which has a boundary separating it from its environment. The word itself is derived from
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the Greek word organon, meaning a tool. In sociology, organization is understood as planned and
coordinated and purposeful action of human beings to construct or compile a common tangible or
intangible product.

Social organization is a network of roles involving interaction between individuals and groups. It includes
the process by which influence, authority and power are exerted, the interdependence of individuals and
groups through segregation or integration and the broad patterns through which social order is maintained
and social solidarity promoted. While the term organization refers to technical arrangement of parts in a
whole, social indicates the fact that individual and group relations are the outcomes of social processes.

Status and roles are the two aspects of the patterns of social life which are necessary for human
interaction. They are basic unit of social structure.

Status: refers to any of the hundreds of socially defined positions/rank that members of a society may
occupy. It also signifies the numerous social spaces existing in a society. The spaces are independent of
the individuals who occupy them. There are two types of statuses; Ascribed status and Achieved status.

Ascribed Status

These statuses are assigned to us by society at the time of our birth. They are naturally given or acquired
by birth. Sex (being male or female/boy or girl), race, age, family, being black or white, son or daughter,
etc are examples of ascribed statuses.

Achieved Status

Achieved status is a status attained as a result of some activity or accomplishment. It is attained by

competitions, making efforts, commitments, choices, decisions and other mechanisms. Being a husband
or wife, a student or teacher, a physician, a nurse, a lawyer, etc are achieved statuses. However there are
some of the statutes which may be both ascribed and achieved. For example one can be an Ethiopian by
birth or through other mechanisms like because of his achievement. Achieved status may be regarded as
the characteristics of modern, industrial societies. In a traditional society most social statuses are naturally
acquired.

A person can have various statuses. But every person has at least two social statuses
simultaneously. Of the various statuses, one or two may be more dominant than others. The most
dominant of all is called a salient or master status. It is a status which defines a person’s position in most
cases at most occasions.

Social Roles

By virtue of occupying a particular status, we have social relationships with occupants of other status.
These relationships and the norms that govern them are called roles.

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Role can be regarded as bundle of expectations. It is the pattern of behavior associated with or expected of
a person or the individual who occupies a status. Social roles are duties, responsibilities, expectations, and
obligations, etc, which are associated with a given social status.

Roles can be divided in to two; Ideal role and Actual role.

Ideal role: this role prescribes the rights and duties belonging to a social position. It tells the individual
what is expected of him or his role to whom he has obligations and up on he has a rightful claim. They
dictate what people should do and should not do generally.

Actual role: is role behavior which is subject to the influence of a specific social setting as well as the
personality of the individual. A person accomplishes according to his or her level of understanding,
capacity and personality. Actual role refers to actual conduct or the role of performance of the individual
who has occupied a specific status. They are actual behaviors of the people in a given situations.

Role Set: indicates the complements (varieties) of roles associated with a particular status.

Role Conflict: is the clashing of one role with the other. It may be inter role conflict or intra-role conflict.

- Inter-role conflict: it is a conflict between two or more roles.

- Intra-role conflict: refers to a conflict that occurs when a person feels strains and
inadequacies in accomplishing a certain role. It may also be called role strain. In other
words, it is a clash between ideal role and actual role. It is a conflict within a role.

Status Set: refers to complement of a distinct statuses occupied by an individual each of these in turn
having its own role set. For example a person can be a teacher, a husband, father, lawyer and chairman. In
this case the person has five distinct statuses.

Multiple roles: refers to different, variety or complex of roles played by the individual as a result of
occupying different status.

Chapter Three
Deviance and Social Control
3.1. The Concept of Deviance

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In the broadest sense, deviance means not conforming to predominant norms. It is any behavior that
violates cultural norms. It also refers to behavior that violates the folkways, mores, and laws of a
particular group.

The sociological definition of deviance, therefore, refers to behavior that violates group’s norms, exceeds
its (group’s) tolerance limits and is viewed as harmful or negative by the group. Deviance encompasses a
wide range of behavior. Perhaps the most significant type of deviant behavior is crime behavior that
violates law.

From a sociological perspective, deviance is subject to social definition within a particular society and at
particular time. Hence, it is relative.

3.1.1. The Relativity of Deviance

The following four aspects influence whether an act is defined as deviant and how serious it is considered
to be.
- The relevance of audience
- The relevance of time
- The relevance of social status
- The relevance of situation

The Relevance of Audience

An audience includes anyone who witnessed the act or was aware of the act. Audiences may be strangers
on the street, a family, a jury (members of ordinary citizens who seat for trial), a group of neighbors or the
public in general. The judgment of what is good or bad depends on those who observe and evaluate the
act.

The Relevance of Time

Normative expectations change over time. Even in a short span of ten or twenty years, the standards and
expectations of conduct can vary substantially in a modern industrial society.

The Relevance of Social Status

People are perceived differently according to their social characteristics (position). Generally, higher
status individuals are less likely to be labeled as deviant or to receive harsh treatment than are lower status
individuals.

The Relevance of the Situation

The situational context is often as important as the act itself in determining whether an act will be defined
as deviant. For example, you might argue that killing another human being (murder) is the ultimate
deviant act. But there are many times when people are not labeled as deviants or murders just because
he/she has killed someone. We ask whether the person killed in self-defense, in war, whether the
individual is considered legally insane or incapable of knowing right from wrong, etc. In each case, the
act was the same – a person killed another person.

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3.2. Types of Deviants
Based on the following two dimensions (1) Objective rule breaking and (2) Perception of others/society)
we can divide deviants into three types.

3.2.1. Pure deviant

In this type of deviant there is objective rule breaking and perceptions of others. The person breaks the
rule as well as the society or others perceive him/her as a deviant. Criminals are examples for this type of
deviant.

3.2.2. Secret deviant

Here, there is objective rule breaking while there is no perception of others. White-collar crime,
embezzlement, corruption, homosexuality, adultery, etc are examples of secret deviant.

3.2.3. Falsely accused deviant

In this type of deviant there is no objective rule breaking, but there is perception of others /society. A
broad category of behaviors that are called residual rule-breaking fits in this category. These are behaviors
to which our society provides no explicit level and which therefore sometimes lead to the labeling of the
violators as mentally ill. Rules do not have explicit level. Laughing for long period of time, eating while
walking, etc can be examples of falsely accused deviant.

3.3. Theories of deviance

Sociological interest in deviance includes both interests in measuring formal deviance and a number of
theories that try to explain both the role of deviance in society and its origins.

3.3.1. Social-Strain Theory

Robert K. Merton expanded Durkheim’s concept of anomie into a general theory of deviant behavior.
According to Merton’s (1968) structural-strain theory, anomie results from inconsistencies between the
culturally approved means to achieve goals and those actual goals. There are goals in a society that most
people pursue (e.g., financial and material wealth, power, status). There are also socially acceptable
means to achieve these goals (e.g. hard work, honesty). Most people conform to the acceptable means to
achieve goals. While some people are able to buy a nice home, designer clothing, and expensive vehicles
through legally derived funds, others do not have legitimate means to obtain these things. Deviance
results from a “strain” between means and goals—for example, when there is a contrast between wants
and economic realities.

Merton proposed a typology of deviance based upon two criteria: (1) a person's motivations or his/her
adherence to cultural goals; (2) a person's belief in how to attain his/her goals. On the basis of these
criteria, Merton identified four deviant adaptations to strain namely innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and
rebellion.

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Innovation: The most common type of deviance is innovation. People accept culturally approved goals
but pursue them in ways that are not socially approved. A person who steals property or money to pay
rent or purchase a car is innovating, as is a drug dealer or embezzler. A member of the mafia values
wealth but employs alternative means of attaining wealth. The innovator accepts the goals of society but
pursues them with means that are regarded as improper . In other words, the goals being sought by
the individual are legitimate or acceptable to the group but he/she uses prohibited means to attain
them. For example, a teacher unfairly assisting his students to pass the examinations with high grade is
innovative. Passing examination with high grades is accepted by the school system, but he/she and his/her
students use unacceptable means to reach the acceptable goal.

Ritualism: It occurs when someone is unsuccessful at achieving the socially accepted goals, yet continues
to adhere to social expectations for their achievement. Merton identified lower-level bureaucrats who
blindly apply rules and regulations without remembering the larger goals of an organization as examples
of this circumstance. They may adhere so strictly to rules that they may even over conform by focusing
exclusively on following rules rather than other goals. Generally, ritualism involves conforming to the
group’s means but without striving to reach the group’s goals. The ritualist has abandoned the goal of
material success and become compulsively committed to the institutional means. Work becomes simply a
way of life rather than a means to the goal of success.

Retreatism: As described by Merton, the retreatist has basically withdrawn (or retreated) from both the
goals and the means of a society. This category involves non-commitment to the goals and means of a
social group. Generally, retreatism occurs when both culturally approved goals and means are rejected.
Retreatists are social “dropouts.” An example would be alcoholics, drug addicts, the homeless, and the
hopeless.

Rebellion: When both culturally approved goals and means are rejected and replaced by other goals and
means, the response is a rebellion to those goals and means. Rebels substitute unconventional goals and
means in their place. They feel alienated from the dominant means and goals and may seek a dramatically
different social order. They attempt to create a new social structure. They may even form a
counterculture. Hippies, some religious groups, and members of a revolutionary political organization
(communist revolution) would be characterized as fitting this category.

Summary of Merton’s social strain theory of deviance

Mode of individual Institutionalized means (e.g. Societal goal (e.g.

adaptation to strain hard work) acquisition of wealth)
- Innovation Reject Accept
- Ritualism Accept Reject
- Retreatism Reject Reject
- Rebellion Replace with new means Replace with new goals
3.3.2. Structural-Functionalism
The structural-functionalist approach to deviance argues that deviant behavior plays an important role in
society for several reasons. One of the more important contributions to society comes from actually
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drawing the lines between what is deviant and what is not. Denoting a behavior or action as deviant
clarifies the moral boundaries of a society. This is an important function as it affirms the cultural values
and norms of a society for the members of that society. In addition to clarify the moral boundaries of
society, deviant behavior can also promote social unity, but it does so at the expense of the deviant
individuals, who are obviously excluded from the sense of unity derived from differentiating the non-
deviant from the deviants. Deviance creates awareness towards the existing norms and values, challenge
unjust and outdated laws, there by bringing about needed social change, and punishment of deviants
teaches the majority of the people.

Finally, and quite out of character for the structural-functionalist approach, deviance is actually seen as
one means for society to change over time. Deviant behaviors can imbalance societal equilibrium; in
returning societal equilibrium, society is often forced to change. Thus, deviant behavior plays several
important roles in society according to the structural-functionalist approach.

3.3.3. Conflict Theory

Conflict theory is based upon the view that the fundamental causes of crime are the social and economic
forces operating within society. Conflict theorists see deviance as a result of conflict between individuals
and groups. The theoretical orientation contributes to labeling theory in that it explains that those with
power create norms and label deviants. Deviant behavior is actions that do not go along with the socially
prescribed worldview of the powerful, and is often a result of the present social structure preventing the
minority group access to scarce resources. According to the social-conflict approach, the determination of
what is deviant and what is not deviant is closely tied to the existing power structure of a society. For
instance, laws in capitalist countries tend to reflect the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Laws that
codify one's right to private property will tend to favor those with property and disfavor those without
property (who might be inclined to take property). In short, the social-conflict approach to understanding
deviance argues that deviance is a reflection of the power imbalance and inequality in society.

3.3.4. Labeling Theory

Frank Tannenbaum and Howard S. Becker (1963) created and developed labeling theory. Becker believed
that "social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance." This
theory holds that behaviors are deviant only when society labels them as deviant. Labeling implies giving
“bad-name” to individuals. It means that the labels people are given affect their own and others’
perceptions of them, thus channeling their behavior either into deviance or into conformity. Labeling
theory, as its name implies, puts the focus on the process of naming behaviors and the people that perform
them. Under this theory, certain behaviors are illegal because we choose to say they are: we label them as
crimes. Labeling theory argues that people become deviant as a result of people forcing that identity upon
them and then adopting the identity. Labels are understood to be the names associated with identities or
role-sets in society. Powerful individuals within society such as politicians, judges, police officers,
medical doctors, and so forth typically impose the most significant labels. Labeling theory is very useful
in encouraging us to take account of the fact that being defined as a criminal is a social process. If you
break the law and don't get found out, you won't be officially labeled as a criminal. If you go around

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telling all your friends that you broke the law, they may call you a criminal but until you have been found
guilty in a law court, officially you are not a criminal.

Generally, labeling theory refers to the idea that individuals become deviant when two things occur:
1. When a deviant label is applied to them.
2. When they adopt the label by exhibiting the behaviors, actions, and attitudes associated with the
label.

3.3.5. Differential Association Theory

Edwin Sutherland coined the phrase differential association (in 1939) to address the issue of how
people learn deviance. This theory starts up with a fundamental assumption stating that "all criminal
behavior is a learned behavior like any other behavior”. It is learned through the association or interaction
people have within their intimate personal groups. According to this theory, the social environment plays
a major role in deciding which norms people learn to violate. Specifically, people within a particular
reference group provide norms of conformity and deviance, and thus heavily influence the way other
people look at the world, including how they react. People also learn their norms from various socializing
agents such as parents, teachers, ministers, family, friends, co-workers, and the media. In short, people
learn criminal behavior, like other behaviors, from their interactions with others, especially in intimate
groups.

The differential-association theory applies to many types of deviant behavior. For example, juvenile
gangs provide an environment in which young people learn to become criminals. In his differential
association theory, Edwin Sutherland posited that criminals learn criminal and deviant behaviors and that
deviance is not inherently a part of a particular individual's nature. Also, he argues that criminal behavior
is learned in the same way that all other behaviors are learned, meaning that the acquisition of criminal
knowledge is not unique compared to the learning of other behaviors.

3.4. Crime
Crime refers to non-conformist conduct that breaks a law. It is a violation of criminal law for which some
governmental authority applies formal penalties. It represents a deviation from formal social norms
administered by the state. This definition of crime adhere the doctrine of “no crime without law.”

3.4.1. Types of crime

A. Crimes of violence (against a person)
These are crimes basically committed against persons. Examples of crimes of violence include rape,
murder, assault, etc. Crimes of violence have most public attention.

B. Crimes against property

Crimes committed against property include stealing, burglary, destruction of public property, etc. White-
collar crimes are also added to this category. But others put white-collar crime in the category of
victimless crimes and this indicates the variability of the definition of crime.

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 C. Crimes against the state
Burning the flag of a nation and treason are examples of crimes against the state. They can result in death
penalty.

3.5. Collective Behavior

The term collective behavior was first used by Robert E. Park, and employed definitively by Herbert
Blumer. Collective behavior refers to the action or behavior of people in groups or crowds where, due to
physical proximity and properties of the group, individual behavior deviates from normal, tending toward
unpredictable and potentially explosive behavior. Collective behavior does not reflect existing social
structure (e.g., laws, conventions, and institutions) but emerges in a spontaneous way. Collective behavior
might also be defined as action which is neither conforming (in which actors follow prevailing norms) nor
deviant (in which actors violate those norms). Collective behavior, a third form of action, takes place
when norms are absent or unclear, or when they contradict each other. The category excludes conforming
events such as religious rituals and conversation at the dinner table, and also deviant events, such as crime
or the exercise of bad manners. Examples of collective behavior episodes might include: religious revival
meetings, panics in burning theatres, a sudden widespread interest in a website or clothing item , a
collective social movement to improve the environment (e.g., Greenpeace), or the rapid spread of rumors
(e.g. Barack Obama is a Muslim or not a US citizen),outbreaks of Swastika painting on synagogues, the
Russian Revolution, and a sudden widespread interest in body piercing. These diverse actions fall within
the area sociologists call collective behavior.

Collective behavior differs from group behavior in three ways:

1. Collective behavior involves limited and short-lived social interaction while groups tend to remain
together longer.
2. Collective behavior has no clear social boundaries; anyone can be a member of the collective
while group membership is usually more discriminating.

3. Collective behavior generates weak and unconventional norms while groups tend to have stronger
and more conventional norms.

3.6. Social Control

Social control is a mechanism found, in and employed, by all society to ensure conformity to norms,
rules, and laws, etc. It is the control of the society over individuals. Social control also refers to the
various means used by a society to bring its members back into line with cultural norms. Social control
involves the use of sanctions. There are two types of social control mechanisms, namely informal social
control and formal social control.

Informal social control refers to elements of society that are designed to reinforce informal cultural norms.
Examples might include parental reminders to children not to well, pick their nose. This type of social
control is dominant in simple societies in which almost everyone knows everyone else.
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In contrast, formal social control is common in complex societies. In this type of society, laws are passed
and enforcement machinery is created, written contracts replace oral agreements, and people well in
advance are made aware of the consequences that they will have to face if they transgress or violate social
norms. Formal social control refers to components of society that are designed for the resocialization of
individuals who break formal rules. Examples would include prisons and mental health institutions. Some
researchers have outlined some of the motivations underlying the formal social control system. These
motivations include:
 Retribution - some argue that people should pay for the crime they committed.
 Deterrence - some argue that punishments, e.g. prison time, will prevent people from committing
future crimes.
 Rehabilitation - some argue that formal social controls should work to rehabilitate criminals,
eventually turning them into productive members of society.
 Societal protection - finally, some argue that the motivation for formal social controls is nothing
more than removing the deviant members of society from the non-deviant members.

Sanctions are actions through which we reward conformity to norms and punish non-conformity. There
are two types of sanctions. These are positive sanction (reward) and negative sanction (punishment).

Positive sanctions (reward): There are two types of positive sanctions

1. Formal positive sanction (e.g. bonuses, medals, promotions etc).
2. Informal positive sanction (e.g. exaggerated praise or admire, encouragement, signs of
approval, flattery etc).
Negative sanctions (punishment): two types
1. Formal negative sanctions (e.g. imprisonment, fines, dismissal from job).
2. Informal negative sanction (e.g. criticism, ridicule or laugh at, gossip, stigmatization,
reprimand, etc).

___________//___________

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