Structural Functionalist Approach In Sociology

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The essential similarities between critical perspective and the symbolic functionalist perspectives of sociology are the macro-level sociological view they use. Through this macro-level view, sociologists are able to focus on wide scale societal interactions. While critical sociology believes that the idea of health and medicine relies on the hierarchy of society and the inequalities result from that, both structural functionalists and critical perspectives speculate that there is a type of cooperative relationship between ones’ health and the particular neighborhood or social communities they belong to. For structural functionalists, the idea of social capital is networks that provide support by “interpersonal trust, norms of reciprocity and mutual aid, and a supportive social atmosphere …show more content…
Critical sociology more efficient than structural functionalism in acknowledging how medicine and health are affected by our society and how to alter it. Unlike structural functionalism, critical perspective is able to find the embedded inequalities in our society which also affects one’s health. Through these inequalities, critical sociologists are able to determine the sociological determinates of health and its variables. These variables are able to help sociologist understand the issues within our current class system, as well as understand how to use variables to decrease the gap between the health of the upper class and the health of the lower class. With structural functionalism, sociologists conclude that sickness creates deviance which serves a specific function in society and must remain to help maintain the organic existence of society. When evaluating medicine and health in relation to our society, one will benefit more by using a critical perspective rather than a structural functionalist

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