Quick questions on Sociological Perspectives - TCE Sociology (Tasmania) - Level 3

Functionalism, founded on the work of Emile Durkheim, treats society like a living body or organism. Each institution (the family, education, religion, the economy) is an organ that performs a function to keep the whole system stable. Social order rests on a shared value consensus that people learn through socialisation. Durkheim argued that institutions exist because they meet society's needs, and that even crime has a function.

Conflict theory, derived from Karl Marx, argues that society is not based on consensus but on conflict between groups with unequal power. For Marx the central division was class: the bourgeoisie who own the means of production and the proletariat who sell their labour. The ruling class controls not only the economy but also ideas, producing a ruling ideology and false consciousness that keep workers from seeing their exploitation. Institutions, in this view, serve the interests of the powerful rather than society as a whole.

Feminism applies a conflict lens to gender, arguing that society is patriarchal, organised in ways that advantage men and disadvantage women. Liberal feminists seek equal rights and opportunities; Marxist feminists link women's oppression to capitalism; radical feminists locate it in patriarchy itself. Feminism has reshaped how sociologists study the family, work and the media, exposing the unpaid domestic labour women perform and the gendered division of labour.

Interactionism (symbolic interactionism) is a micro perspective influenced by Max Weber's emphasis on verstehen (understanding social action from the actor's point of view) and developed by George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer. It argues society is built from the bottom up through interaction: people attach meanings to symbols, interpret one another and act accordingly. Labelling, identity and the self are central concerns.