society and the individual.

SECTION II:

Schools of Sociological Thought

In our last section, we established that sociological imagination invites us to see our personal experiences within the wider structures of society, recognising that our lives are shaped by collective patterns rather than existing in isolation. It helps counter social apathy by reconnecting individual struggles to shared social conditions. However, once we begin to look at society in this way, after zooming out of individual experience and into collective narratives, the new question becomes what exactly is the social reality we are observing and trying to understand, and how?

In sociology, we do not completely exclude common sensical knowledge, but we aim to know things, and we use systematic means to know them and how we know them, because it is inefficient and insufficient to use anecdotal or common sensical knowledge to explain the complexities that pattern the organisation of social life.  Sociology therefore begins with learning to view society through different analytical lenses that reveal how social life is structured, what we know and how we know what we know.

These analytical lenses are known primarily as schools of thought or paradigms, and there are primarily five of them, all of which we will discuss going forward.

The first one we will examine is called functionalism. Functionalism is a theory that view society as a system of interrelated parts that function together to maintain stability and order. A fitting analogy is the human body, the heart pumps blood, lungs provide oxygen, and the brain coordinates activity, they all support each other to ensure the body is in function, but do not do each other’s functions. In the same vein, society has institutions, family, education, religion, law, government, economy and others, which perform different roles, but work together to ensure the continuous operation of the society.

This approach was posited by Emile Durkheim, and his primary question is what makes society not collapse? He believed that for societies to remain cohesive and functional, participants had to share values, norms, beliefs, and collective moral values, and they worked together to help maintain social stability. He named this phenomenon “social solidarity”.

Another key figure in this theory is Robert K. Merton, whose refinements to the functionalist theory, in his “Social Theory and Social Structure (1957)”, suggested that every social institution performed both manifest and latent functions. Latent functions being unintended and hidden, and manifest functions would be intended and obvious. For instance, a school for formal education (manifest) but also creates social networks and reinforces social norms (latent).

Functionalism operates under the assumption that societies are interdependent and have necessary functions. It also posits that social change is slow and evolutionary, rather than by sudden interruptions. Sociologist in this school of thought believe that when dysfunction is produced by the failure of social institutions to adapt and evolve during periods of rapid change. For example, the sharp increase in elements like crimes, mental illnesses, addictions and others, is a result of social disorganisation during the industrialisation and rapid development periods. Durkheim, called this normlessness, the weakening of social norms in moments of rapid social change.

Functionalism suggests that the means to ensure the stability and cohesion of society is to strengthen social norms. Functionalism exists on micro, meso, and macro levels of human interaction and coordination. Although sociologists often distinguish between micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis for clarity, these levels are deeply interconnected. Social structures shape institutions and individual behaviour, while everyday interactions can, over time, influence institutional practices and broader social patterns.

Functionalism is only one of the paradigms and it is as conspicuous in interpersonal relationships as in institutional and global.

In our next section, we will examine another approach with multiple frameworks.

 Thoughtfully,

M.