Compare And Contrast The Three Sociological Perspectives

The three sociological perspectives give different outlooks on the social world, with each perspective providing an original way to explain patterns of behavior and interactions that create our society. Although there are many different sociological theories, the three most common perspectives are the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interaction perspectives. Each one of these theories offers a unique outlook on the reasoning behind why our society exists as it does, helping sociologists understand what influences human behavior and predict how the social world will change in the future.

The oldest and most popular sociological perspective is the functionalist theory, which was established from the work of early French sociologist Emile Durkheim, along with the ideas of Herbert Spencer and Talcott Parsons. Functionalism perspective views each

Although the theory might focus more on the negative aspect, instead of viewing everything optimistically as functionalism does, it takes a sensible approach that concentrates on where the problems lie in society. The conflict theory uses the macrosociology analyzing aspect, focusing on the big picture of society as a whole, and issues that arise between structures such as economic classes, employers and workers, communities, and races. As stated above, the conflict theory was established by Karl Marx, a German theorist whose work in the mid-1800’s had a huge impact on sociology. Marx had a materialist outlook on society, believing that the economic organization dictated above all, influencing all the other organizations of society and how individuals lived. His ideas opposed the capitalist economy he felt would take over and eventually cause a socialism revolution. Even though Marx was incorrect in some of his predictions, he still gave a unique perspective that shows the importance of economic class on