Sociology 1.

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12 July 2024 08:39

Social control, conformity

and resistance:

The role of structure and agency in shaping the relationship between the individual and society, including
an awareness of the differences between structuralist and interactionist views:

Aspect Structuralism Interactionism

Focus Structures or systems that shape society Day-to-day interactions between
individuals
Key Idea Society is a complex system of interrelated Society is constructed and
parts; individuals are products of these maintained through ongoing
structures interactions
View of Stable, objective system Fluid, subjective, and continuously
Society constructed
Role of Shaped by social structures Active agents constructing social
Individuals reality
Example How the education system reinforces social How people negotiate identities in
inequality conversations
Key Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ferdinand de Saussure George Herbert Mead, Herbert
Theorists Blumer, Erving Goffman

Consensus Structuralism: Sociologists confirm that society is held together because people share
a number of key values and norms. They are very positive of this arrangement and have a general
agreement on how the society should develop. Functionalism is a consensus structuralist
approach Every social institution, from families to schools to workplaces, must develop ways to
ensure that individuals conform to the needs of both the institution and society as a whole.

Sociological Material: Parsons- 'Four problems of their existence'

Goal maintenance: institutions must provide
people with goals to achieve, such as academic
qualifications.
Adaptation: to achieve institutional goals, people need
a cooperative environment, such as a classroom and
teachers, within which people can work.
Integration: people must be motivated to achieve
(educational) goals, and one way to do this is to
encourage a 'sense of belonging’, to both the wider
society, where educational qualifications are used to
sort (differentiate) adults in the workplace, and to the
education system itself. A school, for example, makes
people feel they ‘belong’ to the institution and that
they have things in common with other students and
teachers.
Latency: conflicts within an institution must be
managed and rules created to encourage desirable
behaviour and punish rule-breaking (deviance). In
schools, these rules cover things such as attendance,
behaviour and dress

Conflict Structuralism: Here sociologist believe that some groups do better than others. This

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Conflict Structuralism: Here sociologist believe that some groups do better than others. This
means one party will always have power over the other giving rise to disagreement and conflict.
This theory divides the society into powerful and powerless groups. It has two types:
• Feminism: The feminist theory express conflict that men have more power in society than
them. It defines the fight for equal economic, political and social rights for women. It has
various types:
1. Liberal Feminism: A feminist approach which seeks to
bring about equal opportunities for men and women without
changing the system. Liberal feminism discredits the theory that women are less qual to
men in cerebral or physical competencies. Key form of control is sexual discrimination.
2. Socialist Feminism: It broadens its perspective to the private and public spheres of a
woman's life they believe liberation can only be achieved when oppression of women ends
in all forms and spheres of life.
3. Radical Feminism: A feminist approach which focuses on patriarchy as the cause of
women's oppression. Class inequality provides the context in which female
oppression, exploitation and discrimination occurs.
4. Marxist Feminism: A feminist approach which combines feminism with Marxism to argue
that women are both exploited by capitalism and patriarchy. Marxist feminism, class
inequality provides the context in which female oppression, exploitation and discrimination
occur
• Marxism: Work is the most important activity in any society because no other social
activity (politics, family or culture) can exist without people first having found a way to
survive. Thus, how work is socially organized (who does it, what they do and who benefits
from it) is the key to understanding how all other social relationships are organized.
Marxists refer to a relationship between ‘base and superstructure’. By this, they mean the
relationship between economic, political and ideological institutions, which they claim is
the basis for social order and control. It is concerned with the class conflict and Surplus
Value.
1. Class conflict: there exists are ruling and a working class which causes the real conflict.
The workplace is a key area of conflict because of its organizational structure. In capitalist
society, the ‘means of economic production’ – the tools, factories and machines that are
used to create wealth – are owned by one class (the bourgeoisie, or ruling class). The
majority owns little or nothing and so are forced to sell their ability to work. This ability is
known as their labour power. It is part of what Marxists call the forces of production.
2. Surplus Value: Workers are paid lesser than the amount of goods they produce. They are
being exploited by the upper class.
3. Social Conformity: People can be conformed in two ways:
a. Repressive state apparatus- Conformity by force:
The Repressive State Apparatus refers to the physical and coercive institutions of the state
that maintain social control through direct repression. These institutions include the police,
the military, the courts, and other law enforcement agencies. The concept was introduced
by French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser

b. Ideological State apparatus- Conformity by Ideas :

Ideological State Apparatus is a term developed by Marxist theorist Louis Althusser to
denote institutions such as education, the churches, family, media, trade unions, and law,
which were formally outside state control but which served to transmit the values of the
state, to interpellated those individuals affected by them, and to maintain order in a society,
above all to reproduce capitalist relations of production. These institutions do not use
physical force or coercion but rather serve to shape people’s beliefs and opinions

Interactionism: Micro sociological approach, also called the social action approach, claims that
order and control are created ‘from the bottom up’. Based on the idea that people create and re-
create ‘society’ on a daily basis through their daily routines. People constantly, if not always
knowingly, produce and reproduce social order through their individual and combined behaviour.
Although society does not exist physically, it does exist mentally. People act as though society is
a real force having an effect on them, limiting and controlling their behaviour. This creates order
and stability. Imposing order has two ways:
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and stability. Imposing order has two ways:
• To interact, people must develop shared definitions of a situation. In a school classroom, if
a teacher defines the situation as a period of time for teaching, but her students define it as a
time for messing around and having fun, this will almost certainly result in disorder.
• Where meanings are negotiated, they can easily change. For example, the identities
associated with masculinity and femininity have changed dramatically over the past 30
years in many countries.

Structuration: Giddens (1984) developed a perspective called structuration, which outlined the
importance of both structure and action in considering the relationship between society and the
individual. Structuration is the idea that as people develop relationships, the rules they use to
guide their behaviours are formalised into routine ways of behaving towards each other
(practices). Through the huge range of practices in our lives, a sense of structure develops in our
social world - and this involves rules. This idea is important because it indicates the way our
actions create behavioural rules and demonstrates how such rules become externalised (they
seem to take on a life of their own, separate from our individual behaviours). Thus, although we
may show rule-making behaviour, these rules ‘reflect back’ (reflexivity) on our behaviour in
ways that suggest or demand conformity. It explains:
• Why some rules are rejected/accepted
• Why some rules are negotiated
• Why some rules are imposed/ forced

FACTORS EXPLAINING WHY INDIVIDUALS CONFORM TO

SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS, INCLUDING SANCTIONS, SOCIAL
PRESSURE, SELF-INTEREST AND SOCIAL EXCHANGE:

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PRESSURE, SELF-INTEREST AND SOCIAL EXCHANGE:

State agencies can use coercion or force, as well as hard sanctions, to ensure conformity.
However, coercion can often lead to resentment and further non-conformity. The state prefers to
use ‘consensual’ control, which is achieved by persuading citizens that rules benefit them.

• Formal controls involve written rules, such as laws, that apply equally to everyone in a
society. They also include non-legal rules that apply to everyone playing a particular role in
an organization (such as a school or factory). Sanctions are enforced by agencies of social
control

• Informal controls reward or punish behaviour in everyday settings (such as the family).
These controls do not normally involve written rules and procedures. Rather, they operate
through informal enforcement mechanisms that might include ridicule, sarcasm,
disapproving looks or personal violence. Such controls mainly apply to the regulation of
primary relationships and groups.

The mechanisms through which order is

maintained, including power, ideology, force
and consensus:

• Ideology: They are set belief whose ultimate purpose is to teach something. They can be
used to explain the structure of society and accept the culture with justifying attitudes and
behaviour. A dominant ideology is widely imposed by a powerful group. Ideologies are
mental maps that tell us not only where we have been – our cultural history – but also
where a society wants to go in terms of economic, political and cultural development
• Power: Weber (1922) distinguishes between two types: 1) Force or coercive power, where
people are forced to obey under threat of punishment. 2) Consensual power (authority),
where people obey because they believe it right to do so.
1. Ability to make decisions
2. Prevent others from making decisions
3. Removing a decision
Sociological Material:

Foucault (1983) argued that power in modern societies is different from power in past
societies because it is opaque, or ‘difficult to see’. People are unaware of the power that
other individuals or groups such as governments have over them. In the past, social control
was mainly based on coercive power in a range of ways, from a king or queen exercising
supreme power to prison systems that maintained total control over the body. In modern
societies, Foucault claimed, power is exercised in increasingly subtle modes ways, such as
technological surveillance – both ‘from above’, such as closed circuit television (CCTV)
being used to film people, and ‘from below’ – for example, how someone’s use of a
smartphone can be used to gather information about them. Although reality is socially
constructed, the construction process itself involves a complex relationship between beliefs,
ideologies and power on one side and everyday ideas about roles, values and norms on the
other.
• Consensus:
The consensus is also reinforced by collective rituals, when the members of the
society join together to confirm their acceptance of the consensus; this may be
through religious ceremonies, or the use of symbols such as flags or singing a national
anthem.
The consensus can change over time. If opinion changes within a society, then rules
and laws will change to reflect this.
In this way, the society is able to remain stable despite change
• Force: Referred to as coercion - using intimidation and threats to persuade someone to do

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 • Force: Referred to as coercion - using intimidation and threats to persuade someone to do
something they do not want to do. If the working class becomes able to see their real
situation and protest, the ruling class can then call on what Althusser calls the repressive
state apparatus - the police, armed forces and so on - who can control the working class by
force. Ideologies are important in the social construction of

HOW SOCIOLOGISTS EXPLAIN DEVIANCE AND NON

CONFORMITY, INCLUDING REFERENCE TO SUBCULTURES,
UNDER SOCIALIZATION, MARGINALIZATION, CULTURAL
DEPRIVATION AND SOCIAL RESISTANCE:

• Subculture: Within complex societies, there will be more than one single value system.
There will be groups which have different values - subcultures. In Western societies, some
sociologists have argued that working-class subcultures are very different from the wider
culture. Some of the features of working-class subcultures have been seen as being (Miller
1962):
• trouble: willingness to accept that life involves conflict, and to get involved in fights
• toughness: demonstrating ‘maleness’ through physical strength, drinking, etc.
• smartness: status among peers involves dressing as well as possible
• excitement: as work is repetitive, fun and enjoyment are highly valued
• fate: believing there is little that can be done to influence their lives
• autonomy: dislike of authority - of anyone trying to tell them what to do.
• Under Socialisation: There will not always be complete agreement between the family’s
values and those of wider society; an individual may be socialized in a family where some
deviance is tolerated or approved (even criminals have families).
• Alternatively, the family may fail to socialize a child adequately, perhaps through lack of
care or inability to devote time.
• The child may not completely internalize moral values (learning the difference between
right and wrong), or may not develop the ability to judge what behaviour is appropriate in
different situations
• Marginalization: the pushing of an individual or group to the edge of a group or society,
denying them an active voice and identity. These areas lack resources and facilities; the
schools may not be good and there are few job opportunities. The concerns of young people
have not been taken seriously by the authorities; they have no politicians to speak on their
behalf. With high rates of unemployment, they can feel they have no future. This weakens
the hold of the dominant value system or ideology over them, because they do not feel that
society is doing anything for them. They may develop subcultures that express resistance,
or turn to forms of deviance such as drug taking or minor crimes.
• Cultural Deprivation: It suggests that the subculture of low-income groups is deprived of
factors that are necessary for high educational attainment. The so-called culturally deprived
child is pictured as lacking the language and reasoning skills needed for intellectual tasks,
and as deficient in important attitudes and values required for educational success. not
having the values and attitudes which are likely to bring success in society. Children from
working-class backgrounds are more likely to have been socialised into preferring
immediate gratification and are thus less likely to have such attitudes. They can be said to
be culturally deprived as this can lead to underachievement at school and limitation of their
prospects
• Social Resistance: individuals and groups challenge or resist the existing social order or
dominant way of life. Young people are relatively free to resist -they are less likely to have
long-term financial commitments, families to support or jobs they might lose. So they are a
relatively weak point where resistance to the dominant ideology can be expressed. Young
people face problems they can temporarily solve through rejecting the dominant values of
society which may seem to have rejected the young people through their choice of style,
appearance and behaviour.

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