BTEC Level 3 in Health and Social Care
Unit 7 – Sociological Perspectives for Health and Social Care
Task 1
What is Functionalism?
Functionalism is where the institutions in society start to work in harmony with each other to try and make every aspect of society run undisturbed, making clear contributions to the smooth running and stability of society. People believe things function better if you work together; therefore, the institutions function into a consensus whereby the majority of people agree on how something should work; shared public values, consequently trying to fight of any bad influences in society or adapting to recapture a new order, stability and productivity. An example of this is the government will provide education for the children of a family, which in turn pays taxes which the government depends on to keep itself running. The parents are then dependent upon the school to give the children the right education they need to get qualified jobs so that they are able to raise and support their own families. In the process, the children will become law abiding, taxpaying citizens who then work to support the government.

What is Marxism?
Marxism is a conflict model where individual behaviour is shaped by society, however, the economic system defines society and peoples place within it and this is dependent upon which class you are in: working or ruling class. Employees will often be in conflict with their employers as they may think that they are higher than they are in class as they have a certain control over the workers who are then obliged to follow certain rules that are given, this can then cause conflict –verbally, this is down to the two different classes working class and ruling class doing two alternate jobs. Karl Marx believed that the history of humankind is the history of a struggle between social classes, the nature of the struggle lies in the economic relations of production, he believed that the working class would take over the ruling class, capitalism to a socialist and ultimately leave a classless society and any inequality would be completely gone, however, this did not work.
What is Feminism?
Feminism is living in a patriarchal society whereby sexism is happening all the time, women are seen as housewives who stay home and keep on top of all the household chores and also, mothers who likewise stay at home and spend time raising the children, this is being forced into a traditional role. However, nowadays women have equal opportunities in work and anything else a man can do, this is down to women fighting for their rights and demanding justice; aiming to create a world where there is no domination between men and women, where people are valued for being who they are freely. Overtime, feminism has expanded to how everyone is treated both men and women due to their social status. Like, some religions and cultures nowadays still have their different views with men and women with discrimination, exploitation and oppression of people due to their gender, sexual orientation race, class and other differences.
What is Interactionism?
Interactionism is the influence from small groups on individual’s behaviour in everyday life, how they use symbols to interact with one another – including all body language and mannerisms; the way we behave is caused by the way we deal with situations to create and maintain impressions and how others may see us along with always comparing ourselves to peers. Human interaction produces social processes such as conflict, cooperation and identity formation. People tend to misbehave and become more risk taking to impress other people in a group which often leads to consequences and end up experiencing the reality of a social situation. However, people can end up communicating with one another on good terms; strength could cause good behaviour from the right influence. Overall, it is the way