Social Phenomena Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Social Phenomena - Essay ExampleEach of these views relies upon much or less legitimate arguments and evidence, but neither of them is flawless.Functionalist perspective still remains arguably the around influential tool for understanding the phenomenon of deviant behavior. Since the term deviant behavior is rather broad, only two types of social diversion will be closely analyzed within this project crime and self-destruction. Functionalist explanation of the causes and social outcomes of these types washbasin lead us to understanding of bitalist perspective on deviant behavior in ordinary.Emile Durkheim, the famous French sociologist of the 19th - 20th century, was probably the first scholar to adopt the logic of the functional near perusal the phenomenon of deviant behavior. Thus, Durkheim claimed, When . . . the explanation of a social phenomenon is undertaken, we must seek separately the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfills. We must determine wh ether there is a correspondence between the fact under consideration and the general needs of the social organism, and in what this correspondence consists (Durkheim, 1930 in Coser, 1977 143).Ut Utilizing these principles Durkheim focused on the way a association stimulates singles demonstrate deviant behavior than on individual characteristics of those whom demonstrate such behavior, though volume of sociologists of those days viewed crime, suicide, and other forms of social deviance as an outcome of inborn psychological characteristics of the individual. Durkheim considered such approach flawed. Instead, the scholar argued that deviance in general and crime in particular was by no center abnormal or dangerous for the society Crime is normal, an inevitable and necessary part of every society although it may take abnormal forms, such as when the crime rate is unusually high (Durkheim, 1961 872). Durkheims views on another form of deviance - suicide - were absolutely the same. La Suicide was the third major work on of Emile Durkheim. This book was the first sociological research that established the traceable empiric connection between the phenomenon of individual suicide and social environment, and defined certain social functions of suicide. In the end of the 19th century suicide or self-destruction was considered a form of deviant behaviour that occurred in insane individuals. Durkheim challenged this traditional outdoor stage that suicide was an unpreventable pathology. Instead, he provided a sociological explanation for a phenomenon traditionally regarded as completely psychological and individualistic (Thompson, 1982 109). In fact, Durkheim formulated the founding principles of functionalist perspective on deviance precisely in his study of suicide. Even today, despite abundance of recent studies, Durkheims work remains the most significant sociological analysis of suicide in modern societies.Suicide is a complex phenomenon that can be caused by n umerous factors. Many reasons both individual and social have been demonstrated to have certain correlation coefficient with self-destructive