Functionalist Perspective on Social Problems

Functionalist Perspective on Social Problems When in a society people agree that there exists a condition that threatens the quality of their lives and their most cherished values, and they also agree that something should be done to remedy it, sociologists say that society has defined that state of affairs as a social problem. Sociologists ask questions about how the problem effects the collectivity rather than the individual aspects of a problem. The main sociological approaches to the study of social problems are the functionalist and conflict perspectives. Functionalism aims at analysing the social and cultural phenomenon in terms of the functions they perform. From this perspective, the main reason for the existence of social problems is that societies are always changing and the failure to adapt successfully to change leads to social problems. Functionalist analysis was prominent in the work of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, two of the founding fathers of this discipline and was further developed and refined by Emile Durkheim and more recently by Talcott Parsons. Durkheim is the most important sociological forerunner of modern day functionalism. His description of organic solidarity focussed on the interdependence of roles and lack of self-sufficiency that held people together. According to the functionalist perspective, each part of society is interconnected and contributes to society performing as a whole. If all goes well, the diverse parts of society produce order, equilibrium and performance. If all does not go well, then the different parts of society must adapt themselves to re-establish a new balance, equilibrium and performance. For example, during a financial recession and consequent high rates of unemployment and inflation, state spending on social programs is reduced or eliminated, Schools offer fewer educational programmes and families spend less, so a new social order, steadfastness and productivity occurs. The conflict perspective, which originated primarily out of Karl Marxs writings on class conflicts, presents a picture of society in a different light from the functionalist perspective. While the functionalist perspective focuses on the positive aspects of society that contribute to its stability, the conflict perspective focuses on the antagonistic, disharmonized and ever-changing nature of society. Conflict theorists challenge the existing state of affairs, strenghten social change (even when this means social revolution) and believe affluent and authoritarian people force social order on the destitute and the weak. Capitalism, the economic system which dominates the world today, is based on private ownership of the means of production (manufacturing industry, the raw materials and resources needed for industry and even the seeds necessary for food production) and exploitation of the labour of the working-class. The working-class, with no land or substantial inherited wealth, have no means of supporting themselves and are forced to sell their labour to survive. Capitalists buy this labour power, then get their money back and make profits by selling necessities and other products to the working-class and other classes in society. Critics of the conflict perspective point to its exceedingly negative outlook of society. The theory ultimately accredits charitable efforts, benevolence, democracy, civil rights, and other positive aspects of society to capitalistic motives meant to control the masses, and not to fundamental interests in sustaining society and social order. For generations before the establishment of a welfare state, most poor people who did not earn a living somehow managed to cope. Relying on family and, if necessary, on local charities, they pooled together the resources necessary to maintain a dwelling and prevent starvation. The term Poverty has many definitions and it is often defined as a state of deprivation relative to those standards of living enjoyed by others within the same society e.g. income or consumption poverty, social preclusion, lack of basic needs and relative hardship. The extensive sociological literature on poverty overlaps with that on race, ethnicity, subcultures, the underclass and stratification. The study of poverty is central to any examinations of social inequality, including an analysis of who is destitute and the reasons for their poverty. Although the poor have often been blamed for their poverty, which is seen as the consequence of some form of personal inadequacy such as idleness, most studies attribute the existence of poverty in terms of the social and economic structures of industrialised societies. The Functionalist belief on poverty is based on the assumption that poverty serves a constructive use for society since functionalism is interested in large scale fundamental justifications of social life. Therefore, poverty is studied on a macro level on the basis of the benefits it provides to society as a whole, rather than for the persons who are in poverty. The most influential writer on this aspect is Herbert J. Gans (1971) who suggests that poverty benefits the rich and powerful, who have a statutory interest in preserving poverty. According to Gans, poverty ensures there is always someone in society who needs to perform physically dangerous, temporary, undignified and underpaid work for low wages, which is ultimately better than destitution. Furthermore, without the underpaid in society, many enterprises would be unable to operate as they rely upon under paid workers to ensure their dividend and success. The very existence of poverty provides the rest of society with benchmark against which society can measure itself. In Britain, Peter Townsend played a leading role between 1950, and 1970s in making the public aware of the continuing existence of poverty. According to Townsend individuals, families and groups can be said to be in poverty when they lack the means to obtain the types of food, participate in the activities and have basic living conditions and facilities which are recognized, or at least widely sanctioned or approved, in the societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those required by the average person or family that they are, in effect, excluded from everyday living ways, customs and activities. In Poverty in the United Kingdom Townsend claims that the existence of class division is the major factor causing poverty; but he also acknowledges that poverty is related to lifestyles. From a conflict perspective, poverty is imposed, reflecting unequal power among social groups, and it will continue to be imposed until those harmed by it manage to force a change. Conflict theory argues that the explanations offered by functionalism theory is part of what sustains poverty, as they conceal its true origins and encourage the poor to accept social arrangements rather than organize to combat them. Marxism attributes poverty to the existence of class divisions in society. Poverty helps to maintain the domination of the bourgeoisie. In the 19th century the recognized explanation of poverty came from Malthuss Essay on Population (1798). Malthus affirmed that population grows faster than production. Increasing poverty is therefore unavoidable; any increase in the standard of living of the poorest classes simply leads to an increase in births or decrease in death rates and the population again presses on food supply. Marx held the Malthusian theory in great disdain. Under capitalism, production grows very rapidly because of continual innovation and the surplus population a group of unemployed living in poverty is not the result of natural population increase, but of the dislocation of workers by labour-saving machinery. The surplus population could all work if the length of the working day were reduced. But employers dont want this, for various reasons. Marxists believe that the capitalist society is constucted by the economy, and this structure needs to be completely reconfigured to be able to eliminate poverty. This would include a revolutionary eradication of capitalism because eventually the situation will progress to a small minority of the bourgeoisie (ruling class) and a pool of cheap labour. Marxists illustrated this by suggesting that institutions in the superstructure, such as the media, abuse of the proletariat, keeping them poor. A fragileness to the Marxists point of view is that it fails to explain why some groups are more inclined to poverty than others, e.g. women and the disabled. According to Marxists, the welfare system is an instrument of the state, which helps to maintain absolute lack of balance of prosperity that see some people living in privation with little possibility of ever really escaping from it. Absolute poverty, also known as subsistence poverty, is the idea that it is possible to create an absolute minimum standard of living required for physical health, this is often called the poverty line. This concept is used in Drewnowski and Scotts level of living index where nutrition is defined in terms of calories and protein, shelter in terms of quality of dwelling and degrees of overcrowding, and health in terms of infant mortality and the quality of available medical facilities. Some sociologists attempt to include measures of education, security, leisure and recreation as basic cultural needs to be added to the notion of subsistence. The theory of relative poverty has mainly replaced that of absolute poverty in sociological research. Relative poverty is measured in terms of judgements by members of a particular society of what is considered as a reasonable and acceptable standard of living. This definition of poverty suggests that the poor in any given society are, in part, defined by their opposite, the rich. A society has a distinctive set of cultural values, and any definition of poverty must include the choices and interests that individuals have in their society. Researchers have linked poverty to several key issues of child welfare. Children from families in poverty experience more emotional and behaviour problems than children from middle and upper class families. Although all children go to school, the background of some puts them academically behind their peers from the beginning. Impoverished students are far more likely to enter school a disadvantaged because they have not had experiences that promote literacy and reading readiness. More than one billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a day. In total, 2.7 billion struggle to survive on less than two dollars per day. Poverty in the developing world, however, goes far beyond income poverty. This entails having to walk more than one mile everyday to collect water and firewood; it means suffering diseases that were annihilated from rich countries decades ago. Every year eleven million children (mostly under the age of five) die from malnutrition and more than six million from completely preventable causes like malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia. A total of 114 million children do not get access to a basic education and 584 million women are illiterate. Social protection systems in Europe are among the most highly developed in the world but still, 16% of Europes population amounting to 79 million people live below the poverty line (set at 60% of their countrys median income) with one European in ten living in a household where nobody has an employment. Children, are more exposed to poverty with 19% amounting to 19 million children living under the threat of poverty. For this reason the European Union has proclaimed 2010 as the European Year For Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion with four main objectives: The fundamental right of persons experiencing poverty and social exclusion to live in dignity and to take an active part in society; Foster commitment by all public and private actors to combat poverty and social exclusion; Encourage cohesion; Promote commitment and practical action of the EU and its Member States to combat poverty and social exclusion, and involve all levels of authority in the pursuit of that aim. Malta does not live in a vacuum and new forms of poverty brought about by social progress as a result of new lifestyles have been very actual. A large number of families are living through difficult times, with children being the innocent victims of their parents and guardians, the authorities or the community at large. Problems created by gambling, usury, alcohol, drug abuse and mental health. The report by the National Family Commission states that relative poverty exits not just financially but also in cases of stigmatised illness, domestic violence and cases where a husband chooses not to work so that he can default on paying maintenance to wife and dependants. More and more international efforts have been organized in recent decades to address the problems of the poorest among us. However, while the world has certainly seen an overall improvement in rates of poverty and poverty-related issues, success has been uneven and hampered by serious setbacks. One devastating disease, such as AIDS, can obliterate the economy of a low-income country and one violent conflict can crush any human development advances that might have been achieved. Can we envisage a society without absolute poverty and relative poverty? In a society without absolute poverty everyone that could work would be employed, there would be little crime, just a great place to live. In a society without relative poverty people would all have the same wealth and there would be no competition to be better then anyone else. This type of society is only possible in the imagination. Poverty survives because it is useful to our society. Societys dirty work could still be carried out without poverty by paying the dirty workers decent wages. If the poor were more affluent they would make less willing clients for upper-class philanthropy. Poverty will only be eliminated when the poor can obtain enough power to make a change in todays society.

Lord Of The Flies: Chapter 8 Notes :: essays research papers

1. The conch being inexpertly blown and the fact that Piggy has only one lens shows that society has begun to function poorly. The reason for this decline in society is Jack. Jack broke Piggy's lens, and now Jack who has power, represented by the conch, does not know how to blow it properly. This tells us that Jack is an inept leader who misuses power and destroys knowledge. To become an expert at something, such as blowing a conch or leading a society takes time, so this is also significant because it shows that Jack has just recently come to power. Because the conch and Piggy's glasses are crippled, knowledge and power are crippled, but not yet fully eliminated.2. When Simon says, " I think we ought to climb the mountain.", he means that society should conquer its fears and reclaim the island. When the boys first founded society, one of the first things that they did was to climb the mountain and attain knowledge of the island. It is important to note that knowledge was a priority for this early society. Climbing the mountain was also a task undertaken with great enthusiasm and the offering of hope for what their society could be. This was the peak of their civilization. Ever since then their society has been "declining" or going "downhill", so the mountain represents the "peak" or "height" of their civilization. As the boys' civilization fell apart, it became primitive and controlled increasingly by evil elements (Jack). Because of this the boys began to fear a beast. The beast was a symbol of this demise and an obstacle to the return of glory. I say that the beast is an obstacle because they now fear climbing the mountain, a mountain that symbolizes the peak of society. When Simon says that they should climb the mountain, he is also saying that the boys should abandon their primitive fears and return to previous glory.3. The new fire is symbolic because it is Piggy's attempt to rebuild society. Piggy believes that without Jack (evil), he himself (knowledge and civility) can prosper. The first step that Piggy decides to take is the construction of a new fire. The fire represents the domination and manipulation of nature and therefore the return to civility. It is important to note that the fire is in a new location. The new fire represents a new society engineered by Piggy and founded upon knowledge. Lord Of The Flies: Chapter 8 Notes :: essays research papers 1. The conch being inexpertly blown and the fact that Piggy has only one lens shows that society has begun to function poorly. The reason for this decline in society is Jack. Jack broke Piggy's lens, and now Jack who has power, represented by the conch, does not know how to blow it properly. This tells us that Jack is an inept leader who misuses power and destroys knowledge. To become an expert at something, such as blowing a conch or leading a society takes time, so this is also significant because it shows that Jack has just recently come to power. Because the conch and Piggy's glasses are crippled, knowledge and power are crippled, but not yet fully eliminated.2. When Simon says, " I think we ought to climb the mountain.", he means that society should conquer its fears and reclaim the island. When the boys first founded society, one of the first things that they did was to climb the mountain and attain knowledge of the island. It is important to note that knowledge was a priority for this early society. Climbing the mountain was also a task undertaken with great enthusiasm and the offering of hope for what their society could be. This was the peak of their civilization. Ever since then their society has been "declining" or going "downhill", so the mountain represents the "peak" or "height" of their civilization. As the boys' civilization fell apart, it became primitive and controlled increasingly by evil elements (Jack). Because of this the boys began to fear a beast. The beast was a symbol of this demise and an obstacle to the return of glory. I say that the beast is an obstacle because they now fear climbing the mountain, a mountain that symbolizes the peak of society. When Simon says that they should climb the mountain, he is also saying that the boys should abandon their primitive fears and return to previous glory.3. The new fire is symbolic because it is Piggy's attempt to rebuild society. Piggy believes that without Jack (evil), he himself (knowledge and civility) can prosper. The first step that Piggy decides to take is the construction of a new fire. The fire represents the domination and manipulation of nature and therefore the return to civility. It is important to note that the fire is in a new location. The new fire represents a new society engineered by Piggy and founded upon knowledge.

Anatomy and Physiology (M1 and D1) Essay

How Energy is used in the Body (M1) We get chemical energy from food we eat and oxygen that we breathe –we need this to get energy into a usable form to be used by the cells Glucose + Oxygen —————-> Carbon Dioxide + Water (C6H12O6) (O2) Metabolism (CO2) (H2O) (1C6H12O6) (6O2) In Cells (6CO2) (6H20) Metabolism is the process of getting chemical energy from larger molecules in food and breaking them down into smaller molecules by the use of enzymes (which are biological catalysts that are used to speed up a chemical reactions), the circulatory system then transports the nutrients to the cells. They’re two types of metabolism which are Catabolism (Aerobic Metabolism) and Anabolism (Anaerobic Metabolism). Catabolism (Aerobic Metabolism) occurs when there is plentiful supply of glucose and oxygen for the cells to use for cellular respiration (Aerobic Respiration happens eventually with the mitochondria in the cells producing A.T.P-Adenosine Triphosphate). Anabolism (Anaerobic Metabolism) will occurs after vigorous exercise when demand for glucose and oxygen cannot be met by the body, cells then breakdown proteins to produce energy. This occurs after the body has used up stored glucose called glycogen from the liver. The bi product of this reaction creates lactic acid this bui lds up in muscles and so forth gives you cramp How the Respiratory and Circulatory System Work Together to Control Metabolism (D1) The heart in the circulatory system pumps blood into the lungs where the blood is oxygenated. The blood is then returned to the heart and the newly oxygenated blood is circulated to the rest of the body. The respiratory system performs a process known as gas exchange that releases carbon dioxide from the body and brings in oxygen. This occurs in the respiratory and the circulatory system then transports the oxygen to tissues that used internal respiration to burn fuel in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for  energy, thus creating more carbon dioxide. The circulatory bring the oxygen the lungs take in around the body and bring the carbon dioxide back for the lungs to expel. The lungs bring oxygen into the blood which feeds the heart and the rest of the body. Homeostasis which is the maintenance of internal body condition. The circulatory system maintains homeostasis by transporting nutrients to every cell of the body, carrying away waste products and the pH of blood (blood pH should be 7.2 [Slightly Alkaline] to much CO2 blood becomes 6.8 [Slightly Acidic]). The respiratory system maintains homeostasis as it is responsible for bringing in oxygen ( which is then incorporated into the circulatory system and brought to cells in need) and bringing out carbon dioxide (cell waste) (which is brought from the circulatory system to the respiratory system to leave the body)

French Conjunction Tant Que Doesnt Need Subjunctive

Tant que is a conjunctive phrase (locution conjonctive) that, unlike many other conjunctive phrases, does not need the subjunctive. It means as / so much as or as long as / while / since, depending on the context. Tant que is a phrase that communicates certainty and intensifies quantity, frequency, degree and the like. Thus, there is really no reason for the subjective subjunctive. Tant que tu es ici, tu peux maider. As long as / Since youre here, you can help me.Jai tant lu que jai mal aux yeux. I read so much that my eyes hurt.Il a tant manger, quil est malade. He ate so much that hes sick.Tant que tu es la, cherche mes lunettes. As long as / since youre here, look for my glasses.Tu peux rester tant que tu veux. You can stay as long as you want. Tant Que vs. Autant Que Do not confuse tant que  with autant que,  another conjunctive phrase that seems similar but is really more about equalizing and comparisons. It, too, is an adaptable and widely used phrase in French that has a number of possible meanings in English: as far as, as / so much as or as long as / while. So while tant que is about intensity, autant que is about balance. Autant que communicates conjecture and doubt, so the verb following it should be in the subjunctive, indicated in bold below: Autant que je me souvienne... As far as I remember...Autant que je vous le dise tout de suite. I may as well tell you right now. Other French Conjunctive Phrases A conjunctive phrase is a group of two or more words that function as a conjunction that links clauses. French conjunctive phrases end in que, and many, but not all, are subordinating conjunctions, rather than coordinating conjunctions, that require a subjunctive verb. One asterisk below indicates those that take the subjunctive. à   condition que*  Ã‚  provided thatafin que*  Ã‚  so thatainsi que  Ã‚  just as, so asalors que  Ã‚  while, whereasautant que* as far as / as much as / whileà   mesure que  Ã‚  as (progressively)à   moins que**  Ã‚  unlessaprà ¨s que  Ã‚  after, when à   supposer que*  Ã‚  assuming thatau cas oà ¹Ã‚  Ã‚  in caseaussità ´t que  Ã‚  as soon asavant que**  Ã‚  beforebien que*  Ã‚  althoughdans lhypothà ¨se oà ¹Ã‚  Ã‚  in the event thatde crainte que**  Ã‚  for fear thatde faà §on que*  Ã‚  in such a way thatde manià ¨re que*  Ã‚  so thatde mà ªme que  Ã‚  just asde peur que**  for fear thatdepuis que  Ã‚  sincede sorte que*  Ã‚  so that, in such a way thatdà ¨s que  Ã‚  as soon asen admettant que*  Ã‚  assuming thaten attendant que*  Ã‚  while, untilencore que*  Ã‚  even thoughjusquà   ce que*  Ã‚  untilparce que  Ã‚  becausependant que  Ã‚  whilepour que*  Ã‚  so thatpourvu que*  Ã‚  provided thatquand bien mà ªme  Ã‚  even though/ifquoi que*  Ã‚  whatever, no matter whatsans que**  Ã‚  withoutsità ´t que  Ã‚  as soon assupposà © que*  Ã‚  supposingtandis que  Ã‚  while, whereastant que  Ã‚  Ã‚  as long asvu que  Ã‚  seeing as/that *These conjunctions must be followed by the  subjunctive.**These conjunctions require the  subjunctive  as well as the  ne explà ©tif, a more formal negation that uses ne without pas. Additional Resources Tant Que vs. Autant QueFrench ConjunctionsThe SubjunctivatorQuiz: Subjunctive or indicative?