Good Example Of Macro Level Theoretical Approaches Of Culture Essay

Culture, in short words, is the sum total of people’s way of life. It encompasses the ways of thinking, acting, and includes all the material objects used by the people in a society who share the same culture. Sociologists employ different paradigms and approaches to analyze social phenomena and for answering the questions related to the behaviour of people in a society or culture. The macro level theoretical approaches of culture give us a big picture of social and cultural patterns and help us to understand how culture makes sense of ourselves and the surrounding world.
When the structural functional approach is a strategy where people co-operate for meeting human needs, the social-conflict approach stresses the link between culture and inequality. The structural functional approach considers culture as a relatively stable system where the cultural patterns are based on core values and beliefs. On the other hand, the social-conflict approach views culture as a dynamic system with inequalities, change and conflicts, where some people are benefitted and some others are met with disadvantages. Here, the cultural patterns are rooted on the systems of economic production. The socio-biology approach tells how human biology affects the creation of culture. It looks into the long history of humanity’s biological evolution that shaped the cultural patterns.
The approach of socio-biology, while claiming that the cultural universals are based on biological aspects, points out that the double standards for sexual behaviour seen all over the world has an underlying “bio-logic” .This approach which is supported only by some sociologist have been criticised for two main reasons. Socio-biologists don’t have adequate evidence to support their theories. Secondly, according to some scholars, the double standard for sexual behaviour, like, the men are seen more promiscuous than the women, can be due to sexual superiority in the past. But, socio-biologists argue that there are biological reasons which are responsible for the disparity between males and females which the culture can’t overcome easily.

Reference

Macionis, J. J. & Plummer, Kenneth. (2008). Sociology: A Global Introduction. : Pearson Prentice Hall. Print .