Social Theories Of W. E. B. Du Bois

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In this paper I am going to be talking about three theorists who have both similar and very diverse outlooks on sociology about what counts, who is left out, and who is privileged. I will be elaborating on how they agree and disagree. I then will provide my opinion on which theorist, I think offers the better perspective on the current social problem of my choosing. First I am going to be talking about W.E.B. Du Bois and what he means in the exert from his book, “The Souls of Black Folk.” The quote that I have chosen by Du Bois is, “Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still seek, the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire. Work, culture, liberty, all these we need, not singly but together, not …show more content…

The quote that I have chose by Smith is, “This sociology has taken for granted not only an itemized inventory of issues or subject matters, but the fundamental social and political structures under which these become relevant and are ordered. There is thus a disjunction between how women experience the world and the concepts and theoretical schemes by which societies self-consciousness is inscribed” (Smith 418). What Smith is trying to say is that, sociology that exists today is built based off of the male universe. It constitutes some portion of the practice by which we are altogether represented. Existing humanism, a typified assemblage of learning that constitutes and communicates men's standpoints. She believes that men around the world have had, and still have authority, over things that women should have authority over. For example, households, children and neighborhoods. Smith speaks amongst feminist sociology. She believes that the problem with us as women is that we just take sociology for how it is, even if we don’t agree with frameworks and relevance’s of the discipline. Smith elaborates on bifurcation of consciousness, and the two components of it which are, dominant knowledge concepts and lived experiences. Dominant knowledge concepts refer too, the point of view at which you must adapt, and lived experiences refers to everyday interactions with people based on being a woman and what that entails. She believes that from a woman’s standpoint that the world we live in, is

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