147 Chapter 10.Doc

Chapter 10

The Social System—Talcott Parsons

Chapter Objectives:

After reading and understanding this chapter, a student should be able to

• Discuss the systems approach to understanding society

• Explain how social systems are formed through modes of orientation, types of action, and through roles, norms, and status positions

• Describe a system’s functional requisites and interstructural relations using Parsons’s AGIL analytical scheme

• Explain how the cybernetic hierarchy of control works and its importance for understanding how society functions

• Discuss the process of social change through the ascendancy of a social movement through the equilibration of the system

• Discuss the differences between modernism and postmodernism in terms of the kind of theory each wants to produce and be able to explain the significance of neo-tribes

Chapter Outline:

I. Parsons Perspective: Abstract Social Systems

Key concepts: system; boundary negotiation; integration; generalized media of exchange; equilibrium; analytic theory; institutionalization

A. Society as a system

1. Two problems that systems must solve to exist

a. Relationship with boundary

b. Internal integration

2. Two qualities of Parsons’s systems theory

a. Generalized media of exchange: ways that structures within a system talk to one another

b. Equilibrium: systems will tend toward equilibrated states (balance between integrating and dividing forces)

B. Analytic theory

1. Parsons doesn’t give a theory capable of predicting only explaining—it’s an analytical scheme that can be used to understand diverse social systems

II. The Making of the Social System

Key concepts: voluntaristic action; action theory; the unit act; normative influence; modes or orientation; cognitive, appreciative, and moral values; cognitive,...