Name: 當代社會學理論--微觀、宏觀和綜合 (Contemporary sociological theory - Micro, macro and integrative)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T07:50:16.000Z
Duration: 54 min 57 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

In this collaborative presentation, Dr. Simone

Pulver provides a summary of contemporary

sociological theory organizing theorists and schools

of thought based on their historical Genesis

and the levels of analysis at which they operate.

Several sociologists then present the key

ideas of specific contemporary theorists.

Dr. Dana Fisher discusses Giddens idea of structuration

which combines structure and agency and then to

Habermas' notions of deliberative democracy.

Dr. Lori Peek summarizes symbolic interactionism

highlighting the focus on symbols and their

interpretations based on individual and social experience.

Dr. Andrew Jorgenson presents world systems

theory from the Chase-Dunn perspective and focuses

on trends and interstate relationships and structures.

Finally, myself, Dr. Kristal Jones discusses

Polanyi and Bourdieu's theories about the

My name is Simone Pulver, I'm an associate

Santa Barbara, and it is my pleasure to preface

and provide an introductory overview to this

panel, so this is going to be a panel format.

Contemporary social theory is considered to include

the work of social theorists from around 1935ish to

the present; it's essentially defined in opposition to

classical social theory, I think a metaphor to describe

the relationship between the two bodies of thought

that I find useful is the idea of roots classical theory

and branches contemporary theory and while there

is mostly agreement about the canon included in

classical theory, who is considered a key contemporary

theorist and sociology is much more debated.

From that perspective, contemporary sociology

is best described as multi-paradigmatic unlike

economics with the majority of economists working

within a single shared paradigm, contemporary

social theory is a collection of multiple paradigms.

There are scholars whose work is in the direction

of synthesis, so I'm going to, Habermas I think

fits into this, Giddens, Bourdieu, but there is

no quest for one grand unifying contemporary

social theory, right, no one's trying to do that.

When deciding the best way to provide an overview

of contemporary social theory, I opted for

the overly crowded, text heavy slide advised

against by all PowerPoint instruction manuals.

This slide is intended to give you a visual

depiction of key approaches and individuals

that fall within the category of contemporary

As soon as I put this together, I was arguing with

myself about these categorizations, so recognize

that the boundaries are fluid, some of these

individuals would self-identify as sociologists,

but others are political scientists, anthropologists,

philosophers, or more broadly public intellectuals

who don't affiliate with a particular discipline.

Nevertheless, the goal of this diagram or

schematic is to create some order out of chaos.

There are both time and levels of analysis

dimensions to this schematic, broadly we go from

earlier to later and then also macro to micro and

then those folks essentially work or those areas

are more integrative across the macro micro divide.

Most textbooks on contemporary sociology will

start with the structural functionalism of Talcott

Parsons, an economist turned sociologist at

Harvard, and his most prominent student Robert

Merton, who spent his career at Columbia.

Parsons, who is described as a towering figure

discovering the fundamental social laws that

govern society, so harking back to the biophysical

sciences in the search for fundamental laws.

In particular, he developed a grand theory

function together to maintain social order.

Parson's body of work was grounded in Durkheim and

Weber and essentially ignored Marx completely.

So as a result, several critiques emerged grounded

in or mirroring Marx's theories of conflict challenging

Parson's work and its emphasis on stability and order.

The first of these perspectives, coming out

of Europe, is the critical theory approach

Key names associated with this school are

Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Habermas, who's,

and the last of which his work has received most

attention I think of that list of critical theorists.

Second, there were conflict and power theories

developed by Dahrendorf, Mills respectively; those

are both U.S. based scholars, sort of they didn't

really know about Marx when they were developing

their theories, but they're in line with sort of

Marx's traditions or Marx's conflict approaches.