Assess the contribution of Social Action Theory to sociology Essay

Social movement Theorists, or Inter numberionists ar also known as micro sociologists, this is because or else of thinking at the bigger picture in night club, and how the large structures and institutions such(prenominal) as the education and judiciary systems affect individuals, which is what Marxists and Functionalists (macro sociologists) look at, Social doing Theorists look at the opposite, how us, individuals, act by our own accord, and how we make up society. This is known as a bottom up view of society.They view people as having a much more active bureau in society, as opposed to the passive puppets that Structuralists make us forbidden to be. They reject the view that our behaviour is the product of these organisations and structure. Although Social Action Theorists do look genuinely much as individual behaviour, they also flummox into account the fact that we are aware of the people around us, they present that our behaviour is influenced by how other individua ls react to us and behave, so society is made up because people come together and interact.We are sufficient to react to each others behaviour in this look because we have learnt how to expect what people should and shouldnt do, and how to interpret behaviour. We have lowlyings for unlike symbols during interactions, for exemplar, mortal frowning may show confusion or anger, and some ace swearing with a hand gesture may be insulting, because of these codes and symbols, we are able to anticipate behaviour, and judge how people are feeling.This also gives us a knowledge ab tabu what behaviour is and isnt appropriate in certain situations. These different situations sight also affect how we behave and what behaviour is unexceptionable, for example shouting and swearing may be seen as acceptable at a football match, but this would be highly wrong in the middle of a supermarket or library. These behaviours and expected ship canal of carrying ourselves, or norms and values, (esp ecially the basic ones, such as how to act around others) are learnt from the family at a young age.However education teaches us how to act in a larger range of social situations. The acquiring of this knowledge is what leads to us gaining our identity. Social action theorists suggest that there are three important parts to our identity. The first of these parts is the things that make us individual, such as name, signature and photograph. The second aspect is social identity, which is made up of the constitution characteristics that are associated with our role in society.For example, I am seen as an aged(a) brother, which society may make me out to be annoying and defensive of my younger sibling, but I am also seen as a student, who is perceived to be hard-working and easy-behaved. The final part of our identity is the concept of ego, or what we think of ourselves, and how we think we play our respective roles. This concept of self has been developed further by social actio n theorists, who believe that this can be further broken down into two components, the I and the me.The I is the private inner self, what we truly think of ourselves, whereas me is the social self, and is the one that carries out the roles of brother and student. Goffman referred to society as a play, and that we are all as individuals, actors in this play, or in the drama of everyday life. The expected ways of behaving, or social norms are the script, for example, greeting someone with Good forenoon is expected. He suggests that the roles we carry out are simply a action designed to create a particular impression.For example in anterior of grandparents, I put on this performance of being exceptionally well mannered (believe it or not). Another part of social action surmisal is the concept of labelling. This is when someone is put into a group, or stereotyped, because of the way they look or act. For example a young person may be labelled as a goth because they have pale skin, shocking hair, and listen to a certain type of music. Becker came up with the idea of a Master Status. This nub that an individual can have a status (normally negative) which overrides all other labels.For example, someone may be a very good brother and son, but thence may be arrested for robbery, and then the label of criminal give become his master status, and people wont see the brother or the son they saw before, they will simply see him as a criminal. It is believed that these labels lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. This means that someone will react to the label they have been given, and this label will become true. For example, if a teacher (very wrongly) labels a student as unsounded they may think they genuinely are dumb, and will not do well at school.However it has been argued that the opposite can occur, and people may go out of their way to disprove their label, to carry on with the example before, the dumb student may try exceptionally hard at home and at school , to prove the teacher wrong, the label may act as motivation. There are many criticisms of Social Action Theory, one being that they tend to be very vague when describing who is responsible for creating these norms and values, and interpretations that mean we know how to act around people and in certain situations. They live to explain power, and factors which may affect these norms such as class or gender.