Logged out
Access All our Essays in an Instant
Swap your work for FREE access, or pay £4.99 for instant access
Durkheim & Functionalism Durkheim looked at how the big things affected the little people in society; the ‘top-down’ approach’
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Fri Jan 20 2006
Page Preview
On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:
Durkheim & Functionalism Durkheim looked at how the big things affected the little people in society; the 'top-down' approach'. - using systematic research - the idea of social structure - the idea of imperial research He came up with the idea of SOCIAL FACTS - these refer to social structures and cultural norms These 'social facts' are independent institutions that affect the way that people behave Durkheim argued that sociology should study these social facts, arguing that the belief systems, customs and institutions of society and the facts of the social world should all be considered as things in the same way as the objects and events of the natural world. Durkheim sees society as not just a collection of individuals, each acting independently. Instead members of society are directed by collective beliefs, values and laws, by social facts which have an existence of their own. Durkheim splits these social facts into MATERIAL and NON-MATERIAL social facts: Material...
To see the full version of this document, and 145,348 others
