Conflict Theory Culture
Conflict theory culture refers to the perspective that culture is shaped by power struggles and inequalities within society. It emphasizes how dominant groups use culture to maintain their position and control over resources, while marginalized groups may resist or challenge these cultural norms. This approach highlights the role of culture in perpetuating and reinforcing social conflicts and inequalities.
7 Key excerpts on "Conflict Theory Culture"
eBook - ePub- Cheryl A. Picard(Author)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- Dundurn Press(Publisher)
...1 The Theory Chapter 1: Conflict Theory Conflict is an inevitable, pervasive, and important aspect of social life. It is a relational concept that involves the interaction of people or groups in society. Conflict is generated by differences in ideas, values, and beliefs. Although a familiar part of our existence, conflict has contradictory forms, processes, and outcomes. On the one hand, it can serve to enhance relations, increase productivity, and create new understandings. It helps to clarify and reinforce societal standards and provide an opportunity, for growth and moral development. On the other hand, conflict can create dysfunction and disorder in society, destroy relationships, and cause pain. The central assumption of conflict theory is that it has personal and social value – that it is “functional” for society (Coser, 1956). The study of conflict has been undertaken by a range of disciplines; its resolution has become the fascination of a diverse group of psychologists, sociologists, economists, and game theorists. The result is a field of study and practice that is both rich and stimulating. The central assumption of conflict theory is that it has personal and social value. History Classical thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle viewed conflict as a threat to the success of the state, a view which led to the belief that conflict needed to be kept to a minimum, if not totally eliminated. 1 Seventeenth-century philosophers Hobbes and Locke posited the social contract theory that order was essential for a proper society. In opposition to the belief that conflict was undesirable and harmful, contemporary theorists argue that conflict is as essential to the proper functioning of society as are stability and order...
eBook - ePubCriminological Theories
Introduction and Evaluation
- Ronald L. Akers(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 8 Conflict Theory DOI: 10.4324/9781315062723-8 Introduction Conflict theory begins with the assumption that society is not held together by agreement and consensus on major values but rather is: [A] congeries of groups held together in a dynamic equilibrium of opposing group interests and efforts. The continuity of group interactions, the endless series of moves and countermoves, of checks and cross-checks…in an immediate and dynamically maintained equilibrium…provides opportunity for a continuous possibility of shifting positions, of gaining or losing status, with the consequent need to maintain an alert defense of ones positions…. Conflict is viewed, therefore, as one of the principal and essential social processes upon which the continuing on-going society depends. (Vold, 1958 :204) Power is the principal determinant of the outcome of this conflict. The most powerful groups control the law, so that their values are adopted as the legal standards for behavior. The members of less powerful groups, though they suffer legislative and judicial defeats, continue to act in accordance with their internal group norms, which means violating the law. Thus, conflict theory offers both an explanation of law and criminal justice and an explanation of criminal and deviant behavior. In the first part of this chapter, conflict theory is contrasted with consensus/functionalist theory as an explanation of law and criminal justice. In the second part, the theory that crime is produced by group and culture conflict is presented and evaluated. Law Is a Type of Social Control Social control consists of a normative system with rules about the way people should and should not behave, and a system of formal and informal mechanisms used to control deviation from, and promote conformity to, these rules. Informal social control exists in the family, friendship groups, churches, neighborhoods, and other groups in the community...
eBook - ePub- Ewan Ingleby(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...Chapter 4 Conflict theory and social work Conflict theory Conflict theory is influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx. It is a sociological perspective that is similar to functionalism, with its focus on the social system. Conflict theory is different to functionalism due to the importance that is placed on economics. The perspective explores the material circumstances that produce conflict within social systems. Taylor et al. (2004, p15) emphasise the importance of the concept of ‘ideology’ to conflict theory. Ideology is produced by beliefs and values which are regarded as being based on material circumstances, and is considered to support the values of the rich and powerful sectors of social groups as opposed to the social system’s poor and powerless. Marx is associated with conflict theory and he was especially interested in those aspects of the social system that appear to be contradictory. He also talked about the terms ‘infrastructure’ and ‘superstructure’. Whereas the infrastructure relates to all tangible aspects of the economic system, the superstructure corresponds to systems of belief and the ideas that are generated from these beliefs. According to Marx, the economic infrastructure has a critical influence on the beliefs and ideas of the superstructure. He draws attention to the importance of social classes. The traditional Marxist emphasis is placed on the existence of two main social groups: a ruling class and a subject class. The contradictory circumstances of these two social classes form the basis of conflict within society according to conflict theorists, and Marx argues that there are a series of fundamental contradictions within capitalist societies. This interest in contradictions links Marx’s philosophy to the work of Georg W. F. Hegel, and the exemplification of such contradictory relationships can be seen in the traditional working arrangements for factories...
eBook - ePubSocial Movements
Ideologies, Interest, and Identities
- Anthony Oberschall(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Social conflict analysis overlaps with existing macrosociological theories about stratification, social change, group formation, and collective action. Insofar as there are clearly formulated and tested theories of the relationship between structures of domination and the origin of conflict, and of the links between group structure, mobilization, and collective action, this knowledge can be and has been readily incorporated into conflict theory. I have shown above that two competing clusters of sociological thinking and theorizing, referred to as the breakdown-frustration and the mobilization-solidarity approaches, have provided the sociological underpinning for explaining and understanding the forms, incidence, and outcomes of social conflict. Whatever the relative merits of the two approaches, it should be said that neither is yet close to providing a dynamic analysis of conflict as a process. I have also shown in the discussion and in several illustrations that the choice of levels of analysis (group vs. individual) and of fundamental behavior assumptions (rational choice vs. a more complicated psychology of the actor) does make a difference for the interpretation of conflict. At the present time, neither the substantive theoretical controversy nor the two methodological issues are close to being resolved. And that is all to the good, for better theory will probably result from the existence of controversy over conflict theory. Notes 1. A comprehensive review of the literature on social conflict is provided by Kriesberg (1973). This chapter is primarily concerned with modes of theorizing and theory construction. 2. The social change and modernization literature that incorporates breakdown ideas is immense. Two sophisticated exponents of breakdown views are Huntington (1968) and Smelser (1968). 3. This sentence has been misinterpreted. It most certainly was not intended to mean that grievances are unimportant in the explanation of collective action...
eBook - ePubThe Sociology of Law
Classical and Contemporary Perspectives
- A. Javier Trevino(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...8 Conflict Theory In the previous chapter we saw how the structural-functionalist paradigm has made an enormous contribution to the development of a contemporary sociology of law. In this chapter we look at conflict theory and how this approach has also left its imprint on sociolegal theory and research. This chapter discusses conflict theory’s key concepts by contrasting them with the basic tenets of structural-functionalism. The chapter first presents a general description of the conflict model of society. We then examine the notions of competition and dissensus and their role in the legal sphere. Next, we consider some of the theoretical statements proposed by a few of the more visible conflict theorists. The chapter then focuses on how the elite social classes have historically manipulated certain laws in order to maintain their economic and political positions. This is followed by a discussion regarding the legislative measures taken by powerful cultural groups in imposing their morals and values on other, less powerful groups. Finally, the chapter addresses how law is used as a weapon in social conflict. Conflict Theory: Society as an Arena for Conflict The structural-functionalist approach, and in particular Talcott Parsons’s singular interest in the social system, is critiqued severely by British sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf in his highly influential article “Out of Utopia” (1958a). In this essay, Dahrendorf argues that structural-functionalism assumes a Utopian or unreal image of society because it highlights the benefits but disregards the detriments resulting from the interdependence of social institutions...
eBook - ePubConflict and the Social Bond
Peace in Modern Societies
- Michalis Lianos(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...3 Conflict as change Sociodiversity and the conscious path to peace 1 We view conflict as an irregular condition that breaks with ‘normal’ sociality. But conflict is everywhere in its various forms. Office blocks, factory shop floors, villages, neighbourhoods and often households are full of it. Courts and other institutions are there to stop or avert it, armies to conduct it, and all individuals experience it from the very early days as they crawl on a playground. Although rarely violent, conflict is an omnipresent mode of human interaction, an organised disposition of individuals and groups who can shift into a conflict mode from one moment to another with remarkable sense of timing and precision when an invisible signal says so. Those who have been part of crowds in conditions of tension know how overdetermined each individual is by others, how football fans may turn into fighters, peaceful protesters into rioters and groups of friends into camps attacking each other. Despite its importance, relatively little is known of this process. It is hardly a coincidence that social psychology is somewhat more advanced than sociology in this area. Muzafer Sherif’s seminal Robbers Cave experiment and Realistic Conflict Theory (for example, Duckitt 1994) have interestingly systematised what we know from observation about conflict between both equal and unequal collectivities. On the other hand, the process is so familiar and reliable that repeated conflict experiments have even been marketed as antidiscrimination courses 2 and bestselling common sense (Friedman 2007) on economic, thus geopolitical, interdependence. An interesting “peace ethology” perspective (Verbeek 2008) has emerged too. The success and proliferation of conflict resolution programmes, theories, projects, workshops, research institutes and organisations around the globe is a testimony to the dominant approach of the issue, which is that of ‘conflict resolution’, i.e. a post-conflict approach...
eBook - ePub- Francis Castles(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...If this applies to the sociologists and political scientists that have examined American society in recent decades, it is equally true of these social anthropologists that were the originators of the functionalist school, for if primitive and modern societies resemble each other in one respect it is in regard to the stability of social structures. It is the societies intermediate between these two extremes that manifest change to a marked degree, and produce theorists of social conflict. This rather speculative generalization should be tempered by one major consideration. The last decade has seen something of a revival of the conflict perspective, and it is not impossible that this is a reflection of the emergence of new and important sources of dissensus in our society. The not infrequent suggestion that events like the French student revolt and the Czechoslovak bid for a ‘national road to socialism’ are but symptoms of the instabilities created by the emergence of a monolithic and bureaucratic state apparatus may provide pointers to the type of conflict situations that the social and political analysts of the future will find commonplace. The substance of conflict and change The concepts of conflict and change are by no means as simple as they appear, and an examination of the conflict metatheory requires some discussion of their more problematic aspects. Very early on we delineated ‘perfect conflict’ as a situation in which two individuals or groups are aware of each other’s normative expectations, but because they have opposed ends are unwilling to take action to fulfil those expectations. In consequence it is possible to identify two essential criteria which must exist before a conflict situation can be said to exist: the opposition of ends and the abrogation of normative expectations...
