Lillian Pettengill’s account Toilers of the Home: The Record of a College Woman’s Experience As a Domestic Servant (New York: Doubleday, 1903) is based on two years of employment in Philadelphia households.
4. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 228.
5. Earning money as domestic workers to pay college expenses not covered by scholarships is not that uncommon among other women of color in the United States. Trudier Harris interviewed several African American women public school and university college teachers about their college-day experiences in domestic service. See From Mammies to Militants: Domestics in Black American Literature (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), pp. 5–6.
6. Judith Rollins, Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1985); Bonnie Thornton Dill, “Across the Boundaries of Race and Class: An Exploration of the Relationship between Work and Family among Black Female Domestic Servants” (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1979); Judith Rollins, “‘Making Your Job Good Yourself’: Domestic Service and the Construction of Personal Dignity,” in Women and the Politics of Empowerment, ed. Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 33–52; Soraya Moore Coley, “‘And Still I Rise’: An Exploratory Study of Contemporary Black Private Household Workers” (Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1981); Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Issei, Nisei, War Brides: Three Generations of Japanese American Women in Domestic Service (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986).
7. In some cases, it was important to let women know that my own background had involved paid housework and that my mother and sister were currently employed full-time as private household workers. Sharing this information conveyed that my life had similarities to theirs and that I respected them. This sharing of information is similar to the concept of “reciprocity” (R. Wax, “Reciprocity in Field Work,” in Human Organization Research: Field Relationships and Techniques, ed. R. N. Adams and J. J. Preiss [New York: Dorsey, 1960], pp. 90–98).
8. Clark Knowlton, “Changing Spanish-American Villages of Northern New Mexico,” Sociology and Social Research 53 (1969): 455–75.
9. Nancie Gonzalez, The Spanish-Americans of New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967), p. 123.
10. William W. Winnie, “The Hispanic People of New Mexico” (Master’s thesis, University of Florida, 1955).
11. Thomas J. Malone, “Recent Demographic and Economic Changes in Northern New Mexico,” New Mexico Business 17 (1964): 4–14.
12. Donald N. Barrett and Julian Samora, The Movement of Spanish Youth from Rural to Urban Settings (Washington, DC: National Committee for Children and Youth, 1963).
13. Clark Knowlton, “The Spanish Americans in New Mexico,” Sociology and Social Research 45 (1961): 448–54.
14. See Paul A. Walter, “The Spanish-Speaking Community in New Mexico,” Sociology and Social Research 24 (1939): 150–57; Thomas Weaver, “Social Structure, Change and Conflict in a New Mexico Village” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1965); Florence R. Kluckhohn and Fred L. Stodtbeck, Variations in Value Orientations (Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson, 1961); Frank Moore, “San Jose, 1946: A Study in Urbanization” (Master’s thesis, University of New Mexico, 1947); Donald N. Barrett and Julian Samora, The Movement of Spanish Youth (Washington, DC: National Committee for Children and Youth, 1963).
15. David Katzman, Seven Days a Week (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1981), pp. 269–70.
Reading 4 Theoretical Perspectives In Sociology
Chris Hunter and Kent McClelland
This reading, “Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology,” is the first of three to introduce sociological theories. Theories are different explanations of social phenomena; they provide a lens or a perspective to help us understand our social world. Some scholars distinguish between grand theories (large theoretical frameworks like Marxism, feminism, etc.), and others focus on what is called the mid-range theory or theories that addresses one particular social finding. Sociological theory both drives research and can be generated from research, and like scholars in other disciplines, sociologists debate different theoretical approaches to their work. This reading succinctly summarizes the three main theoretical perspectives: functionalism or structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. It also introduces a number of contemporary theories that are often used in sociological research. The authors, Chris Hunter and Kent McClelland, both professors of sociology at Grinnell College, designed this reading as a handout for introductory sociology students. Note that key concepts related to each theoretical perspective are in bold.
Functionalism
Functionalism was for decades the dominant theoretical perspective in sociology and many other social sciences. This perspective is built upon twin emphases: application of the scientific method to the objective social world and use of an analogy between the individual organism and society.
Source: “Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology” by Chris Hunter and Kent McClelland. Unpublished manuscript, reprinted by permission of the authors.
The emphasis on scientific method leads to the assertion that one can study the social world in the same ways as one studies the physical world. Thus, functionalists see the social world as “objectively real,” as observable with such techniques as social surveys and interviews. Furthermore, their positivistic view of social science assumes that study of the social world can be value-free, in that the investigator’s values will not necessarily interfere with the disinterested search for social laws governing the behavior of social systems. Many of these ideas go back to Emile Durkheim (1858–1917), the great French sociologist whose writings form the basis for functionalist theory (see Durkheim 1915, 1964); Durkheim was himself one of the first sociologists to make use of scientific and statistical techniques in sociological research (1951).
The second emphasis, on the organic unity of society, leads functionalists to speculate about needs which must be met for a social system to exist, as well as the ways in which social institutions satisfy those needs. A functionalist might argue, for instance, that every society will have a religion, because religious institutions have certain functions that contribute to the survival of the social system as a whole, just as the organs of the body have functions that are necessary for the body’s survival.
This analogy between society and an organism focuses attention on the homeostatic nature of social systems: social systems work to maintain equilibrium and to return to it after external shocks disturb the balance among social institutions. Such social equilibrium is achieved, most importantly, through the socialization of members of the society into the basic values and norms of that society, so that consensus is reached. Where socialization is insufficient for some reason to create conformity to culturally appropriate roles and socially supported norms, various social control mechanisms exist to restore conformity or to segregate the nonconforming individuals from the rest of society. These social control mechanisms range from sanctions imposed informally—sneering and gossip, for example—to the activities of certain formal organizations, like schools, prisons, and mental institutions.
You might notice some similarities between the
