1.4 Introducing Emile; The Structural Functional Founding Paradigm

 As we wait for students to join class, please read the following:

Sociology can be emotional (and today's lesson involves the topic of suicide)

Sociology as an academic discipline examines all parts of society - to be clear, 

Sociology is the study of how society/social groups influence the individuals within it.  

This makes the discipline a very relevant subject.   Students will find just about any topic that interests them has sociological research about it.  However, some topics of everyday life can be emotional.  Just watching the evening news reveals many topics in everyday life that might create a visceral response: murder, environmental pollution, racism, sexual assault and sexism are just to name a few.  All of these are an emotional part of everyday American society.  Sociology as a discipline examines all of these areas.  The researchers studying these topics do not want to be morbid or grotesquely critical of our society out of spite.  Instead, they want to shed light on aspects of society that we might not like to talk about;  with proper academic attention, we can understand these emotional events better and perhaps even improve our society.  I know that talking about suicide or racism or sexual assault all can be emotionally wrought experiences.  But in the end, sociology will help us all understand these and other social ills better and hopefully, help us to strengthen society against them so that we all may live in a more peaceful and content society and be true to ourselves.   

During our first few lessons, we have been learning how sociologists think about the world - especially thinking with a sociological imagination and with the social construction of reality.  

Review from last lesson:

Social Construction of Reality - people on the boat had a very specific experience because society has created a way of thinking based on each person's statuses: such as physicist v. author. 

Sociological Imagination - the results of the simulation might be very different depending on where or when the simulation is conducted.  In the 1920s, 1860s or in Japan or India or elsewhere the results might be very different.

Macrosociology - studying the large groups that influenced the group.  For example, everyone on the boat was from LUC, lives in America, is a young adult.  These large groups shape how you view the world.

Microsociology  - studying how the group was influenced by their face-to-face interaction.  For example, the dynamics on the boat may have been influenced by who spoke up and when and how they talked and what they talked about.

 

 

Today: we shift the focus to where this way of thinking came from.  So, for your note-taking, here is what you should be focused on for today's lesson:

How did Emile Durkheim influence the creation of sociology? 

What does his Structural-Functional paradigm focus on? 

How can you apply this to your own life?

Three scholars were very influential in the studying of industrial society during the 1800s.  Each scholar created a paradigm that became a foundation for the discipline of sociology.

Founding Paradigm 1:

Emile Durkheim's Structural-Functional 

The first paradigm we will consider is called Structural-functional.  This paradigm was created by Emile Durkheim.  Durkheim studied suicide and found that within industrial Europe, the rate of suicide varied from country to country but it also stayed stable within each country.   So, something that seemed like an individual choice, such as suicide, was really a product of the country a person lived in.  Someone living in Britain was much more likely to commit suicide than someone living in Italy.  In other words, something was happening in British society that was creating a problem for the individuals living there.  Suicide was not an individual problem, it was a social one.  Durkheim called these social problems dysfunctions.  

Durkheim said that societies have a structure made up of different systems that function to keep order in society.  Just like a body has different systems such as a respiratory, circulatory, digestive and nervous system, a society has different systems like family, education, economy, religion and government etc…  These systems serve a function of keeping order in society by creating a structure for stability and continuity.  Therefore, Durkheim's paradigm becomes known as structural-functional.  Durkheim says that when the structures help to make life healthy for individuals, the structures are functional, whereas structures that are not healthy for individuals are called dysfunctional.

In sum, The institutions/structures provide stability and continuity for individuals - like helping individuals survive and thrive. The structures help us understand what is expected of us and provide an identity and a purpose. This is functional.

Dysfunctions are when these institutions do not meet those needs and instead individuals are harmed by the institutions. 

Any questions so far about the beginnings of sociology and Durkheim and his structural-functional paradigm?

Reminder -

One of the best ways to learn something is to have to teach it to someone or explain it.  This is the philosophy behind small group discussion.  Please try to explain your example.  If you have trouble, call me over:

How might you use the Structural-Functional paradigm to analyze the Lifeboat activity that we did?


How might the paradigm apply to college?  In other words, how are the large institutions of society connected to college?

Applying Structural-functional to your life

Revisit the demographic survey that you filled out at the beginning . Look at the structures of society that you wrote about in part 1 (especially family, school, work)

3.  How do they provide stability or structure in your life?  

4.  What function do the structures provide - in other words, what purposes do they serve in your life?

5.  What are some ways that these structures interact or depend on each other?

6.  Realize that the individual way that you personally are influenced by these structures is not sociology - instead, the ways that these structures affect unrelated individuals similarly are sociological.  With that in mind, are these similar to the other students at your table?


Names as an example of Durkheim's structural-functional paradigm

As an example of the structural-functional paradigm,  names, like people, seem individual and unique.  For example, when someone calls your name, you probably look up automatically and assume they are talking about you.  And, indeed, for many of us, we are the only person who we know with our exact name.  I don’t know anyone named Christopher Joseph Salituro other than myself.  

However, names are not a unique trait unto ourselves.  Instead, names are our first connection to community.  Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop of South Africa once said, “A solitary individual is not possible.  We come into being because a community of people came together.”  That community of people gives you a name and sees to it that you survive.  We would not be alive if it wasn’t for their influence and nurture.  So, names are a great way to examine how sociologists look at the world.  Many aspects of our lives that seem like individual choices or individual traits are actually guided by social forces that are larger than us.  Our families, schools, religions, governments and other social institutions all influence who we are, including in ways that we don’t even realize.  The sociological perspective examines these influences from different perspectives.

List any ways that your name: 

• connects to family 
• connects to religion 
• represents morals or values 
• transmits cultural preferences and popular ideas

Do you see how your name reflects the influences that come from families, schools/peers, religions, popular culture?  

And do you understand that when people are given a name it can impart values or traditions that connect you to family, religion, or other social structures?  

Another way of applying this to your life is thinking about how you ended up at college. 

What are the ways that all of the social structures have influenced your decision to attend college?

Think in terms of all of these systems:  family, school (high school), peers, media, government, economics

The structural-functional paradigm is one perspective that sociologists use.  Can you explain it?  Can you use it to examine your own life?  

Continue to the next foundational paradigm.