![]() Social inequality characterizes the quality of health and the quality of health care. The physician-patient relationship is hierarchical: The physician provides instructions, and the patient needs to follow them. Patients must perform the “sick role” in order to be perceived as legitimately ill and to be exempt from their normal obligations. Good health and effective medical care are essential for the smooth functioning of society. Table 13.1 Theory Snapshot Theoretical perspective Table 13.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes what they say. As usual, the major sociological perspectives that we have discussed throughout this book offer different types of explanations, but together they provide us with a more comprehensive understanding than any one approach can do by itself. With these definitions in mind, we now turn to sociological explanations of health and health care. Finally, health care refers to the provision of medical services to prevent, diagnose, and treat health problems. This social institution in the United States is vast, to put it mildly, and involves more than 11 million people (physicians, nurses, dentists, therapists, medical records technicians, and many other occupations). Medicine refers to the social institution that seeks to prevent, diagnose, and treat illness and to promote health in its various dimensions. Although the three dimensions of health just listed often affect each other, it is possible for someone to be in good physical health and poor mental health, or vice versa. As this definition suggests, health is a multidimensional concept. Health refers to the extent of a person’s physical, mental, and social well-being. List the assumptions of the functionalist, conflict, and symbolic interactionist perspectives on health and medicine.īefore discussing these perspectives, we must first define three key concepts-health, medicine, and health care-that lie at the heart of their explanations and of this chapter’s discussion.Herbert Spencer: Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher and social theorist. It is less well-adapted to understanding individual discrimination because it ignores the inequalities that cause tension and conflict.ĭuring the turbulent 1960s, functionalism was often called “consensus theory,” criticized for being unable to account for social change or structural contradictions and conflict, including inequalities related to race, gender, class, and other social factors that are a source of oppression and conflict. It also allows for the micro-analyses that much of modern sociology is oriented around, such as identity formation and the socially constructed nature of race. Given this emphasis on equilibrium and harmony, the functionalist perspective easily allows for specific macro-analyses of more contentious power imbalances, such as race-related issues. From this perspective, societies are seen as coherent, bounded, and fundamentally relational constructs that function like organisms, with their various parts (such as race) working together in an unconscious, quasi-automatic fashion toward achieving an overall social equilibrium. This approach was notably in evidence in respect to the sociology of race” (Coulhan 2007, Sociology in America, p.559). As noted sociologist Michael Omi observes, “The structural-functionalist framework generally stressed the unifying role of culture, and particularly American values, in regulating and resolving conflicts. ![]() In the 1960s, functionalism was criticized for being unable to account for social change, or for structural contradictions and conflict (and thus was often called “consensus theory”), and for ignoring systematic inequalities including race, gender, and class, which cause tension and conflict. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a functionalist approach to raceįunctionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions.
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