Sociology - write an essay about the main theoretical perspectives

Sociology - write an about the main theoretical perspectives. Compare and contrast the explanations offered by the different theoretical perspectives with regard to the family - Essay Example Similarly sociology can be studied from a majority/minority perspective wherein the issues and problems faced by minority communities are given special attention. Ultimately, all these approaches have one thing in common, namely, the identification of pressing social problems and devising of ways to alleviate them. While these conceptual analyses are usually applied to large groups of people such as the inhabitants of cities, counties and states, the family could be considered the fundamental unit of society. Hence a good understanding of these interpersonal human interactions at the level of the family is essential for grasping the broader picture. The rest of this essay will delve further into various prominent theoretical perspectives with regard to the family. â€Å"Simply put, a theory is an explanation of a fact pattern. Social scientists generally do not develop theories to explain individual cases or incidents. Rather, theories are developed to explain how and why certain things happen, particularly when those things happen repeatedly. For example, scientists and therapists realized that a lot of couples who get divorced exhibit certain patterns of destructive conflict. Scientific theories serve a number of useful functions. Perhaps the most basic function of a theory is to explain how and why a phenomenon occurs or operates. A related function of theories is to predict when a phenomenon might or might not happen.† (Segrin, 2005) Hence, from the above definition of a sociological theory one can see its importance in resolving family issues and alleviating interpersonal conflict between family members. An important theory relating to the institution of family is called the Family Systems theory which was derived from the broader General Systems Theory (GST), â€Å"which is a theoretical perspective developed for explaining how elements of a