Three Sociological Paradigms Assignment You must write no fewer than 750 words and your response must be typed in a word document (.docx file). ASSIGNMENT:Sociologists use what are referred to as “paradigms” to study social issues. Our textbook introduces those paradigms in chapter 1 and reintroduces them in other in chapters throughout the entire textbook. In WEEK 2, I asked you to watch my lecture video on these terms. The three sociological paradigms that we are studying in this course are: Structural Functionalism, Conflict Theory, and Symbolic Interactionalism.In WEEK 1, I asked you to read three recent New York Times articles and I labeled each other with a paradigm. I did this because each article is implicitly using one of the three paradigms to analyze the problem of the COVID-19 pandemic. Links to the three articles are listed on week one. Their titles are as follows:?Conflict theory: What the racial data can teach us about how the pandemic affects us.?Symbolic Interactionalism: A Hospital Chaplain and Spiritual Care in COVID Hospitals?Structural Functionalism: How did American nurses end up wearing trashbags instead of assignment will be to choose ONE of the three articles and explain the connection between that article and the paradigm I’ve attached to it. How is that first article is taking on the perspective of a conflict theorist? How is the second article coming at something from a symbolic interactionalist perspective? How is the third analyzing a problem from the perspective of a structural functionalist?You only have to explain ONE of these three articles. Your essay should take on the following structure:1. Explain the content of your chosen . Define the corresponding paradigm in your own . Explain how the paradigm is being used in the article to analyze as aspect of the global a refresher: Here are brief definitions of the three terms from your textbook (chapter 1):Functionalism, also called structural-functional theory, sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that society. Functionalism grew out of the writings of English philosopher and biologist, Hebert Spencer (1820–1903), who saw similarities between society and the human body; he argued that just as the various organs of the body work together to keep the body functioning, the various parts of society work together to keep society functioning (Spencer 1898). The parts of society that Spencer referred to were the social institutions, or patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs, such as government, education, family, healthcare, religion, and the theory looks at society as a competition for limited resources. This perspective is a macro-level approach most identified with the writings of German philosopher and sociologist Karl Marx (1818–1883), who saw society as being made up of individuals in different social classes who must compete for social, material, and political resources such as food and housing, employment, education, and leisure time. Social institutions like government, education, and religion reflect this competition in their inherent inequalities and help maintain the unequal social structure. Some individuals and organizations are able to obtain and keep more resources than others, and these “winners” use their power and influence to maintain social institutions. Several theorist suggested variations on this basic interactionism is a micro-level theory that focuses on the relationships among individuals within a society. Communication—the exchange of meaning through language and symbols—is believed to be the way in which people make sense of their social worlds. Theorists Herman and Reynolds (1994) note that this perspective sees people as being active in shaping the social world rather than simply being acted upon.
