Structural-Functional Approach vs. Social Conflict Approach

Please select TWO of the following 12 essay questions. Provide a brief response to your chosen questions (one paragraph for each should be sufficient).
Chapter 1
The sociological perspective helps us recognize that the lives of individuals are shaped by the forces of society. Explain, in a short essay, how the sociological perspective reveals “the general in the particular.” To illustrate, explain how society plays a part in your own decision to attend college.
Explain how the structural-functional approach is more focused on understanding society as it is and how the social-conflict approach (consider the gender-conflict or race-conflict approaches) is more focused on social change. Do you prefer one approach to the other? Explain.
Can you identify some social pattern that people in our society tend to see as an expression of personal ability or personal choice? Describe the pattern and then explain how society is at work in the pattern you have identified.
Chapter 2
None of the major methods of sociological research—experiment, survey, participant observation, and secondary research—is better than any other in an absolute sense, but each is suitable for addressing a certain type of question or situation. Explain why this is true and develop brief illustrations of the type of questions that would lead a researcher to select one method over the others.
Based on your own interests, identify a research question that you would like to investigate. State the question, identify an appropriate research method, and point to any challenges or issues that you would have to resolve in order to complete such a project.
What are some of the dangers of sociological research to subjects? Explain why the discipline has developed ethical guidelines to guide research. What are three specific problems with research that ethical guidelines address?
Chapter 3
“Human nature is the development of culture.” Explain how human beings came to be the only creatures to make use of culture as a strategy for survival.
How does ideal culture differ from real culture? Illustrate your essay using three examples of how ideal and real culture differ in U.S. society.
How do cultural values differ in low-income nations and in high-income nations? What reasons can you provide for this difference?
Chapter 4
Describe Gerhard Lenski’s model of sociocultural evolution, summarizing several key traits of each stage. What major technological revolutions have reshaped human societies in the past?
Describe how Karl Marx would likely view today’s Information Revolution. How would his view likely differ from those of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim?
Drawing on the ideas of Lenski, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, cite ways in which one might claim modern society is better than societies in the past. In what ways might any of these thinkers see modern society as getting worse?