- Define and explain Structure and Agency in your own words
- Use key terms such as Social structure accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Structure and Agency: debate how much society shapes us versus how much we shape ourselves.
Debate how much society shapes us versus how much we shape ourselves.
Key ideas
Society as a stage
Symbolic interactionists study face-to-face interaction: how people use language, gestures and symbols to negotiate meaning. Mead showed how the self develops through interaction with others, and Goffman showed how we perform different versions of ourselves for different audiences. The strength of this perspective is its insight into everyday life; its weakness is that it can neglect the big structures, like class and the economy, that constrain those performances.
Society as a living body
Functionalists, following Durkheim, compare society to a body: just as organs keep a body alive, institutions like the family, schools and religion each perform functions that keep society stable. Durkheim argued that even apparently private acts are shaped by social facts, forces outside the individual. The strength of functionalism is explaining social order; its weakness is that it can overlook conflict, inequality and social change.
Key term — Social structure: The organised patterns of relationships and institutions, such as social class, family and education, that shape how individuals behave.
Explain the structure versus agency debate in your own words.
The debate over whether people's behaviour is mainly determined by social structures such as class and institutions, or by individuals' own choices and actions.
Answer: The debate over whether people's behaviour is mainly determined by social structures such as class and institutions, or by individuals' own choices and actions.
- Mixing up structural and action perspectives Functionalism and conflict theory are structural, macro perspectives about big forces; symbolic interactionism is an action, micro perspective about individuals. Keep the levels straight.
- Calling Marx the founder of sociology The word sociology was coined by Auguste Comte in 1838; Marx, Durkheim and Weber are the classical founders of sociological theory, which is a different claim.
Practice
Functionalism: it shows that even suicide, seemingly the most individual act, is shaped by social facts such as integration, supporting the view of society as a constraining system.
The contribution an institution makes to keeping society stable and orderly, like the family socialising children.
Functionalism, Durkheim; conflict theory, Marx; symbolic interactionism, Mead and Goffman.
Strength: personal insight and empathy can improve understanding. Risk: her values could bias what she notices, so she must reflect on her position and use systematic methods to stay objective.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "Social structure"?
Apply conflict theory to the fact that private-school pupils are over-represented in top universities.
- Structure and Agency: debate how much society shapes us versus how much we shape ourselves.
- Society as a stage: Symbolic interactionists study face-to-face interaction: how people use language, gestures and symbols to negotiate meaning.
- Functionalism: The perspective, associated with Emile Durkheim, that sees society as a system whose institutions work together to keep it stable and orderly.
- Watch out for: mixing up structural and action perspectives