Critical Analysis of Key Sociological Theories and Concepts

This essay critically evaluates several sociological theories, focusing on structural and social action theories. It delves into disengagement theory, exploring how aging and social withdrawal can lead to alcohol consumption and related health issues. The essay also examines labeling theory, illustrating how societal labels can influence deviant behavior and contribute to alcohol use. Furthermore, it explores sociocultural theory, emphasizing the impact of family, society, and culture on child development, and the role of alcohol consumption in Western cultures. The essay compares the theories of Lev Vygotsky and Piaget's cognitive development, highlighting their different approaches to understanding individual growth and societal influences. It concludes by summarizing the key findings and suggesting ways to mitigate the negative impacts of these theories, such as promoting social engagement and providing second chances to those labeled as deviant. The essay draws on a range of academic sources to support its arguments.

HEALTH SOCIOLOGY
ASSESSMENT 1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSIONS..............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
A sociological theory is the complete collection of ideas that gives us a proper
explanation of the human society. There are several sociological theories and each theory is quite
selective in terms of their priorities and perspectives. Sociological theories can be categorised
into various criteria, but the important among them is structural and social action theory. Present
study will critically evaluate various sociological theories.
MAIN BODY
Structural theory implies in a way that a society is a pool system of relationship that
creates a structure of the society in which we live together. This theory stresses upon the
formation of certain structural laws that is applied in the society.
In this series secondly comes the social action theory. Max Weber was the first
sociologist to supports a social action approach. Various symbolic interactionist tried to explain a
person's behaviour by explaining the style in which the people explains the action of others,
build up a self-image.
There are several types of sociological theories which are discovered, one among them is
Disengagement Theory. This theory was created by the scientists Elaine Cumming and William
Earle Henry, and they presented in the book Growing Old, published in the 1961. It is the first
ever social science theory for ageing (DeLiema and Bengtson 2017.).
This theory outlines the disengagement from the social life that people experience as their
age increases and they become old. This theory states that with the passage of time elderly
people withdraws themselves from the social roles and relationships which were once part of
their life in adulthood. With collection of large data, the scientist prepared few postulates
describing this theory.
People loses the social interaction around them and they start expecting for death. After being
disengaged, they make themselves free from social norms. This process is different for both men
and women. Complete disengagement occurs when a person and its society are ready to do this.
People who get disengaged adopt new social norms to not get demoralized.
The theory of disengagement states that the older people get isolated from the social life
which makes them feel very bored and even get depressed which may lead to physical illness
which is too more painful to handle and which in turn leads them to start using alcohol to make
these problems bearable. They start drinking alcohol when they become more isolated from the
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society and a time comes when it becomes an integral part of their daily routine. They get
completely dependent on it and then at the end it will be difficult for them to give up on this. Too
much consumption of alcohol at this age is too dangerous for them, as it can damage nearly
every single part of the body causing diseases like, ulcers in stomach, liver failure, failure of
heart muscles, cancer in mouth and liver, strokes and many more serious problems (Romero and
Piña-Watson 2017).
This theory faced many controversies when it was published. Some critics said that this is
an inaccurate social science theory. Some critics also pointed out that the theory completely
ignores the role of class in shaping the experience of ageing. Even some assume that elder have
no such concern in this process but are only the compliant toll of society.
In the same series, there came another theory named, Labeling Theory. According to this
theory person began to identify himself and start behaving in a way how other people label them.
It is commonly associated with the sociology of crime and deviance, which is used to depict us
that how treating and labelling someone as criminal will actually promote his deviant behaviour
which has the negative impact on that person and person start taking himself with that identity
(Scheff. 2017).
This theory thrived during the 1960's by the sociologist Howard Becker. Many other
scientists were also involved in the development of this theory which includes Frank
Tannenbaum, Edwin Lemert, Albert Memmi, Erving Goffman and David Matza. Labeling
theory is the key approach to understand deviant and criminal nature. To understand this first we
should know why some people are labelled as deviant and not others. The people who represents
some sort of laws and order like policemen, court officials, school authorities are the main source
of labelling. Thus, they apply such label to the people and this will start the process of deviating
people. And once the person is labelled as deviant it becomes very much difficult to remove that
label. Then such people are treated as criminals, the person on which no one can trust and finally
society starts avoiding them treating them as bad. This results in change in their thought process
and finally these people start accepting the labels, seeing themselves as deviant and start acting
in the way that fulfils the need of that label. At the extreme condition when society start ignoring
them treating them as criminal they got stressed up and finally tempted to start drinking alcohol.
They keep on drinking alcohol to lose their temper and to relax themselves from the frustrating
behaviour of society (Sukhera and et.al, 2017).
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The Sociological theory is the result of study conducted by psychologist name Lev
Vygotsky. This theory believes that parents, family, society and culture prevailing in society at
larger extend are responsible for development in child. According to this theory, interaction with
other people can become base for learning. Socio cultural theory focuses on various factors that
have impact and effect on individual development. They also aim at how culture belief and
attitude effects individual learning. Each and every society have different culture for example
western culture is prevailing in society then the children of society may have negative impact of
that culture. Drinking alcohol and drugs are common activities in western culture. The children
may become addicted to such harmful things (Storch, 2017). A person starts using various
hazardous things like drugs and alcohol to reduce the pressure created by the society on him.
According to this theory when children takes birth they have basic biological constraints on their
minds. Each and every culture provide “way for Intellectual adaptation”. These tools allow to
developmental ability that could be adaptive by the society in which they are living (Balfour,
Bell and Marmot, 2014).
Another concept was being developed by Piaget's name “Piaget's theory of cognitive
development was developed in relation to concept of socio cultural theory. According to him
cognitive development states that the children have to pass through four stages of mental growth
This study focuses not only how children acquire knowledge but also on analysing the nature of
intelligence(Bidell,2017). According to him children plays active role in learning process their
behaviour is like scientist as they perform experiment, they observe activities and they learn
from those activities. For example, according to this theory children observe and then they adopt
or follow those things. For instance, if they see people drinking alcohol they will follow that
without analysing that it is harmful for their health. Addiction of alcohol by youth may have
negative impact on society as well, they may create situation of conflicts, and give rise to
criminal activities in society. They may affect the society culture and may have negative effect
on social environment.
Difference between both studies Lev Vygotsky and Piaget's theory of cognitive
development the sociocultural theory by Lev Vygotsky has focused on social factors influencing
the behaviour of individual while Piaget's theory of cognitive development study focuses on how
child’s interaction and explorations help in his development. Piaget suggests that growth in
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individual’s mental abilities is universal while other says cognitive growth can vary according to
culture.
The zone of Distal development: This is another concept in the explanation of
sociocultural theory. According to this theory there is a wide gap between actual development
level and Potential level of development. There are some aspects of knowledge that could be
gained under the guidance of other people or by observing the activities carried out by others
living in that society.
Critics: The concept of zonal proximal development is not clear. The theory fails to
conclude that which factors influence the various aspects of individual, aspects include learning
needs of human being, his mental behaviour and motivation. The theory does not apply on all
social and cultural group. It focuses on modern society and western culture (Hawkins 2017.).
The study disregards the role of individual in his development it says that child is dependent on
society for mental growth. It’s based on concept which is not universally accepted. What makes
difference between one activity from another is the objective of the study. According to Lev
Vygotsky the concept of activity is connected with the concept of motive.
CONCLUSIONS
From the above report, it can be concluded that according to Disengagement Theory the
older people get unhooked from the social roles and happening thus they get isolated and get
physically and mentally ill which force them to use alcohol. But this can be controlled by taking
certain steps like getting them engaged with the group of people of their age and letting them to
get socially reconnect themselves. This will be helpful in avoiding the consumption of alcohol.
Similarly, in the case of Labeling Theory the people are forced to accept those labels by the
society and they get transformed into deviant person but everyone should be given a second
chance, such thought process can bring change in such type of people and reform them into
normal human and will prevent them from getting moulded into the bad ones.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Balfour, R., Bell, R. and Marmot, M., 2014. Social determinants of mental health. International
Review of Psychiatry. 26(4). pp.392-407.
Bidell, T.R., 2017. The Transformative Turn in Sociocultural Theory. Human
Development, 60(1), pp.55-59.
DeLiema, M. and Bengtson, V.L. 2017. Activity Theory, Disengagement Theory and Successful
Aging. Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. pp.15-20.
Hawkins B. 2017. Using sociocultural theory to examine the context (s) of language learning
and teaching. Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics. 8(2008).
Romero, A. and Piña-Watson, B. 2017. 7 Acculturative Stress and Bicultural Stress:
Psychological Measurement and Mental Health. The Oxford Handbook of Acculturation
and Health, p.119.Allen. J.
Scheff. T. 2017. Updating labelling theory: Normalizing but not enabling. Nordic Journal of
Social Research. 1.
Storch, N., 2017. Sociocultural Theory in the L2 Classroom. The Routledge Handbook of
Instructed Second Language Acquisition, p.69.
Sukhera J. and et.al., 2017. Labelling of mental illness in a paediatric emergency department and
its implications for stigma reduction education. Perspectives on Medical Education. pp.1-
8.
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