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Good health and effective medical care are essential for the smooth functioning of society. Table 13.1 Theory Snapshot Theoretical perspective Table 13.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes what they say. As usual, the major sociological perspectives that we have discussed throughout this book offer different types of explanations, but together they provide us with a more comprehensive understanding than any one approach can do by itself. With these definitions in mind, we now turn to sociological explanations of health and health care. Finally, health care refers to the provision of medical services to prevent, diagnose, and treat health problems. This social institution in the United States is vast, to put it mildly, and involves more than 11 million people (physicians, nurses, dentists, therapists, medical records technicians, and many other occupations). Medicine refers to the social institution that seeks to prevent, diagnose, and treat illness and to promote health in its various dimensions. Although the three dimensions of health just listed often affect each other, it is possible for someone to be in good physical health and poor mental health, or vice versa. As this definition suggests, health is a multidimensional concept. Health refers to the extent of a person’s physical, mental, and social well-being. List the assumptions of the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist perspectives on health and medicine.īefore discussing these perspectives, we must first define three key concepts-health, medicine, and health care-that lie at the heart of their explanations and of this chapter’s discussion.Source: Adapted from Robb Webb’s Second Year A Level Sociology Text Book. Please click here to return to the homepage – Robert Merton was also famous for this Strain Theory of Deviance. It should be useful as part of the compulsory Theory and Methods module, usually studied in the second year. This post has mainly been written for students studying A-level Sociology. Parsons’ system theory is summarised in the second half of the post. You might also like to read this post on The Functionalist Theory of Society. Merton’s distinction is here useful for helping us to identify functions which members themselves might not be aware of. However, the ritual may also have an unintended or latent function – such as promoting a sense of solidarity in times of hardship, when individuals may be tempted to look after themselves at the expense of others. From a scientific viewpoint, however, this goal is unlikely to be achieved.
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This is its manifest, or intended function. He cites the example of the Hopi Indians who, in times of drought, perform a rain-dance with the aim of magically producing rain. Merton also contributes a useful distinction between ‘manifest’ and ‘latent’ functions. However, Merton argues that some aspects of society may be dysfunctional for certain groups, which relates to Conflict perspectives. Parsons seems to assume that everything in society performs positive functions for society as a whole. However, Merton argues that some parts of society may be relatively independent from others – maybe society wouldn’t collapse if the nuclear family disappeared altogether. Similarly, he argues that if one part changes, it will have a knock on effect for the others. Parsons assumes that all parts of society are tightly integrated into a single whole or ‘unity’ and that each part is functional for all the rest.
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For example, Parsons assumes that primary socialisation is best performed by the nuclear family, but one-parent families or multi-generational families may do this just as well. Merton argues this is an untested assumption and he points to the possibility of functional alternatives. Parsons assumes that everything in society – the family, religion and so on – is functionally indispensable in its existing form.
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Criticisms of Parson’s systems theory have come from both outside and inside Functionalism.