Critical Thinking Sociology

Sociology Critical Thinking Assignment

The article entitled “Should We Blame The Parents Of The Nevada School Shooter?” written by Lisa Belkin examines the parental response to student-led massacres. The article draws the following questions: Do we hold the parents to blame? Should we? How much blame should be placed on the parents? The article engages in this idea that “child shooters” who in reference to the article are children under the age of 14 who have killed or posed a threat of violence with a gun in the school system are a product of their environment, more specifically the institution of the family. The article relates to concepts involving the institution of the family- as family is defined as the social institution that unites people in cooperative groups to oversee the learning and raising of children. If family is there to oversee the learning and raising of children are these “child shooters” simply uneducated about the impacts of violence or have the parents simply “checked out”? Could this two questions overlap? As a sociologist you must ask yourself what this suggests for the current socialization process and how the current state of the process will affect the future of socialization. The article also relates to concepts such as deviance particularly deviance from within the institution of the family. Within the article it briefly touches on the idea that there are “kids who have always been on edge” but “increasingly there are forces conspiring to push them over.” Are these forces coming from within the family? Is the family unintentionally pushing them to be deviant? Will these answers be enough to determine whether or not blame should be placed on the parents?

I want to approach this article with a structural functionalists perspective. Structural Functionalists is the theoretical perspective that assumes that social institutions(in this case the family) are structured to maintain stability and order in society. If these shootings...