‘Every sociological perspective has its limitations; however some are more useful than others to our understanding of society’. Assess this view.
Society is a population of humans that share relationships, culture and institutions. More broadly, a society is an economic, social and industrial structure in which a variety of people are a part. In the early twentieth century people started recognising the importance of the relationship between the individuals and society and tried to determine whether the power balance between society and the individual was tilted in one direction or the other. The two main views that argue the opposite opinions are the structional view and the social action view. From these ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ perspectives stem a range of sociological views such as Functionalism, Marxism, Feminisist theories and social action theories, that all take upon different views and ideas of society. It is through these perspectives that claims are made about society and people’s ideas and thought are put across. Sociological theories and perspectives are usually concerned with making generalisations about social life and try to explain the patterns we see in the world around us. A sociological perspective helps us gain a better understanding of ourselves and the social world; it enables us to see how behaviour is largely shaped by social action or social structure. However there can be limitations and weaknesses to people’s ideas and theories due to the methods of research they use, and criticisms from other sociological perspectives, and so people claim that they give a false picture of society. Sociology has developed as a discipline with a diverse set of theoretical approaches, all contributing to the richness of sociological explanations of the social world, these theoretical approaches are important as they provide us with an understanding of the concepts that can be applied to, and interpreted in, sociological debates. In this essay I am going to...