Sociological Thinkers and Perspectives: Comte, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Mead and Major Perspectives
What the exam tests
You must state each thinker's core concept, apply it to a social situation, and distinguish functionalism, conflict theory and interactionism.
Core rules and concepts
- Comte: positivism; social statics (order) and social dynamics (change); hierarchy of sciences.
- Durkheim: social facts are external and constraining; mechanical vs organic solidarity; anomie; suicide types: egoistic, altruistic, anomic and fatalistic.
- Marx: historical materialism; class conflict rooted in the mode of production; alienation; ideology.
- Weber: verstehen; ideal types; authority as traditional, charismatic and legal-rational; rationalisation; class, status and party.
- Mead: symbolic interactionism; the self arises through social interaction; 'I' and 'me'; significant and generalised others.
- Perspectives: functionalism stresses integration and functions; conflict theory stresses power and inequality; interactionism stresses micro-level meanings.
Worked example
A student protest against a fee hike. Reasoning: a functionalist may ask how the protest signals discontent and pushes negotiation; a conflict theorist asks who bears the cost and how class power shapes policy; an interactionist asks how slogans, symbols and face-to-face solidarity create the protesters' identity. Each perspective illuminates a different level.
Traps that cost marks
- Making Marx a purely economic thinker and ignoring ideology and alienation.
- Confusing Weber's ideal types with moral ideals.
- Treating Durkheim's suicide types as individual diagnoses.
- Using 'interactionism' for macro-institutional analysis.