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NEW DELHI
DEFINITION OF SOCIETY
A society is a group of people involved in persistent social interaction, or a large
social group sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to
the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. The aggregate of
people living together in a more or less ordered community.
Linton: Any group of people who have lived and worked together long enough to
get themselves organized and to think of themselves as a social unit with well
defined limits".
A number of theories have been put forward to explain the origin of society. Thus
the Divine Origin theory makes society the creation of God. Just as God created all
the animals and inanimate objects of this world, so he created the society as well.
This theory in course of time, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries took the form of Divine Right Theory.
The Force theory makes society the result of superior physical force. According to
this theory, the society originated in the subjugation of the weaker by the
stronger. In the primitive times the man of exceptional physical strength was able
to overawe his fellowmen and to exercise some kind of authority over them.
Thus through physical coercion or compulsion men were brought together and
made to live in society. The Patriarchal and Matriarchal theories make society the
expansion of family system. Sir Henry Maine defines patriarchal theory as ‘the
theory of the origin of society in separate families, held together by the authority
and protection of the eldest male descendant’.
He believed that society is the family writ large. The matriarchal theory suggests
that polyandry and transient marriage relations were more common in primitive
times than monogamy or polygamy. Under such circumstances descendance is
traced through the mother for, as Jens point out motherhood in such cases is a
fact, while paternity is only an opinion.
Divine origin theory: According to this theory, the creation of society was due
to god just as be created the animate and inanimate objects of the world.
The force theory: According to this theory the society is the result of superior
physical forces. The society originated by the congress of the weaker by the
strengthen.
In the primitive times the man of exceptional physical strength was able to
control his fellowmen and exercise some kind of authority over them. Thus the
physical coercion men were brought together and made to live in society.
The society emerged spontaneously and followed its own line of development. It
passed through several stages of evaluation before reaching its modern complex
form. According to Comte, the society has passed through these stages the
theological, the meta physical and the positive. In his view, society came into
being as result of a need for association, a felt need of human beings which
evolved in accordance with definite law. According to Herbert Spencer, human
society has advanced from a savage state to a civilized state. He marked out three
stages, the primitive, the militant and the industrial in the course of social
evolution.
The kinds of theories we’re interested in for understanding schools are those that
attempt to explain why societies have the features they do. I’m going to describe
three kinds of theories of society, three general ways to make sense of the world
around us. When someone tells a story about why things are the way they are,
that story will usually fit into one or another of these three categories.
Functionalism
Functionalist theories assume the different parts of a society each have their own
role to play (their own "function"), and work together smoothly in order to form a
harmonious whole. The metaphor often used to describe functionalism is that it
views society as a body, with the different parts of society—government, media,
religion, the family, etc., and, of course, schools—being like the different organs
in a body, each contributing in a different way to keeping the entire body healthy.
The early sociologist Emile Durkheim is often associated with functionalism. You
may recall that in our first class meeting, during the discussion of the purpose of
education, I mentioned that Durkheim had said the purpose of education is not
the same across all societies, but that its purpose in any given society will instead
be whatever it needs to be in order to maintain that society. That’s clearly a
functionalist sentiment.
Liberal/Enlightenment theory
A second general perspective is sometimes called Liberal theory or Enlightenment
theory. It’s important to distinguish the term "liberal" as used here from the way
it’s used in everyday language to describe where someone resides on the left-
right political spectrum (i.e., to mean the opposite of "conservative"). Here it
refers to "classical" liberalism—liberal political theory as expressed by Thomas
Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, the American founding
fathers, etc. (The closest equivalent on the contemporary scene would probably
be the libertarians.) Liberal and Enlightenment thinkers emphasize freedom of the
individual (same root as "liberate"), the priority of reason over religious or
hereditary authority, and social progress. Free individuals, they believe, guided by
their powers of rational thought, will, over time, accumulate greater knowledge
and wisdom, and form societies that inevitably become more prosperous,
humane, and egalitarian. The future will be better than the past.
If any one perspective can be said to form the basis of what’s considered
"common sense" in American culture, it’s this one. That does not necessarily
mean, however, that it is an accurate description of American society.
Liberal/Enlightenment thinking has a hard time explaining some of the less savory
aspects of our history. The spread of justice and equality has not been steady,
enjoyed equally by all residents of the nation, or automatic. It has involved—
despite the popular mythology—setbacks, advances for some that came at the
expense of others, and considerable struggle among competing factions. Which
brings us to...
Conflict theory
In contrast to the consensus orientation of the other two perspectives, conflict
theories view society as composed of distinct groups with opposing interests, and
view social change as resulting from struggle among those groups. Different
varieties of conflict theory recognize different kinds of divisions, but all view
society as fundamentally characterized by conflict rather than consensus. Marxist
conflict theorists see society as divided into classes, with owners and workers
having opposing interests; feminist conflict theorists see society as divided by
gender, with women generally being less privileged than men; anti-racist conflict
theorists emphasize conflict across racial lines; anti-imperialist conflict theorists
emphasize global conflict between wealthy and poor nations; etc.
Comparison
As illustrated in the chart , functionalism and Liberal/Enlightenment theory share
an assumption of consensus, an assumption that all members of a society have
common interests and generally concur with the direction the society takes,
whereas conflict theory assumes the opposite, that various groups have
conflicting interests and that historical developments are determined by that
conflict.