please treat each Discussions Response separately
1) Adriana C
According to the video on Social Theory Major Sociological Paradigms, Conflict Theory society is composed of different groups that struggle with scarce resources. There are some assumptions: Humans are self-interested, Societies operate under a perpetual scarcity of resources, and conflict is pervasive and unavoidable within social groups and between social groups. Some theorists believe that competition will be a constant. The reason why competition exists is because of insufficient resources, which include material resources like money, property, power, and status. I believe that whenever there is a disproportion, a shift in power, or anything that might destroy the balance between different groups or social classes, a problem can occur. Some strengths of conflict theory are that it acknowledges multiple classifications in society who do not necessarily share the same values, beliefs, and or opportunities in life, it reminds the population of the struggle for power, and it tells us the possible underlying reasons for conflict, we know that most of the time the conflict occurs because of limited resources, money, and power. On the other hand, one of the weaknesses of conflict theory is that many times it does not define a proposal for changes, or how we should fix the problem. The way the Conflict theory is different from other theories such as functionalism and Symbolic interactionism theory is that functionalism views society as a large system that collaborates together for the good of people. Also, all members of a society have to agree and work together to accomplish what is best for society as a whole. On the other hand, Symbolic Interactionism focuses on how society acts according to their interpretations of the meaning of their surroundings. Reading about the different sociological perspectives gave me a better understanding of the various experiences such as human beliefs, values, and behaviors.
2) Angelique S
Role theory is a micro-oriented approach. It is used to understand social life that also encompasses the more important elements of society. Micro-oriented is looking at the smaller point of view of things. The big and small are always connected. Role theory also concerns one of the most important features of social life, behavior patterns, and characteristics (Cragun D., Cragun R., Konieczny, 2017). People’s roles define themselves and others based on social learning and reading. For example, society leans toward women being the primary caregivers for children or be caretakers in the employment field. People form these expectations about roles that they and others are supposed to play. It is expected that people act in the role that is expected of them.
The strength in role theory is applying it in specific situations in order to simplify what is going on. This could be used to hep other people discover things about themselves or even hep yourself in situations. Knowing what you are destined to do helps know the role that you should play in life. For example, a few social roles that people may have are gender roles such as male female, father, auntie, etc. Situation roles such as jurors in jury duty, or a witness in a case. cultural roles can be pastors, bishops, or priest. Lastly social differentiation roles such s nurses, teachers or taxi drivers. All these thigs are roles that people play. Some weakness of role theory could be having a hard time explaining social deviance when it does not correspond to pre-specified roles (Cragun D., Cragun R., Konieczny, 2017). This theory could be different from others because there are more functional perspectives which could be contrasted with more micro-level approaches. Role theory also can’t explain how role expectations came to be what they are, like who said a waiter had to be a waiter. It does not explain when and how role expectations change.
Reference
Cragun, Deborah, Cragun, Ryan T., Konieczny, Piotr, 2014. Introduction to Sociology. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology
