5.7 Conclusion
Critiquing the dominant culture in terms of power and gender can help us better understand issues of inequity, oppression, poverty, and racism and we can also use sociology to better understand relationships to solidarity, reciprocity, intersectionality and social cohesion, particularly in terms of the lived experience of individuals in sub-culture groups within the dominant culture. In other words, we can use these frameworks in sociology to both change society for the better, and to understand what makes a healthy society in the first place.
5.7.1 Key Terms
- Conflict theory: macro sociological theory explains conflict in a society by there being basic needs (food, shelter) that have to be met for individuals in the society to survive, and that those items are in short supply, hence causing conflict.
- Feminism: the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.
- Functionalism: the theory that all aspects of a society serve a function and are necessary for the survival of that society.
- Macro-level analysis (macrosociology): a sociological perspective that looks at trends among and between institutions and societies and it emphasizes the influence of structures, institutions, and systems.
- Micro-level analysis (microsociology): a sociological perspective that looks to study small groups and individual interactions, it places a strong emphasis on context, meaning making, and interactions.
- Post-structuralism: a school of thought attempting to decolonize concepts of culture and importance.
- Queer theory: a framework for understanding gender and sexual practices outside of heterosexuality. It challenges the mainstream idea that heterosexual desire is normal between individuals. The theory emphasizes that sexuality and gender identity are socially constructed and should be reexamined regularly.
- Sociological imagination: seeing the relationships between individual experiences to their larger social influences.
- Symbolic interactionist: the theory that how we communicate with each other, and how that communication is perceived by individuals and by societies, is why we behave the way we do in certain situations: a model of how a key component of something works based on decades of research.
- Theory: a model of how a key component of something works based on decades of research.
5.7.2 Licenses and Attributions for Conclusion
“Conclusion” by Dana L. Pertermann is licensed under CC BY 4.0.