Author: Andre Coleman

Robert Merton and the institutional imperatives of organised science. Do you think that the normative structure of science is working today? Why?

Robert Merton has been hailed as the most important American sociologist of the 20^th century^[1]. His oeuvre includes works on the theory of knowledge, the sociology of science as well as functional and structural analysis. This essay will examine one of the most significant claims of Merton, that is that science is regulated by four distinct norms. While his work has arguably to the foundation of a whole academic discipline^[2], the normative notion of science itself unites various strands of enquiry that are testament to the diverse personal and scientific interests of Merton. In nuce, Merton’s claim that science is essentially a normative endeavour conducted to the tune of shared ethical rules, straddles the fields of the philosophy of science and theories of knowledge just as it draws on assumptions located in the domain of moral philosophy and the theory of truth.

The essay will approach this complex in the following way. First, Merton’s claims will be outlined in as much detail as possible. Second, the essay will sketch the main lines of criticism that Merton’s theory of scientific ethos has attracted. Finally, an example of scientific debate will be examined in view of Merton’s claim that will allow us to assess the validity and usefulness of Merton’s theory.

Merton’s thesis about the normative structure of science goes back to an article he published originally in 1942, early on in his career^[3]. The essay is short and, with the exception of mentioning two works by Talcott Parsons, makes no references to its immediate philosophical context, the emerging sociology of science. Furthermore, Max Weber is not mentioned at all throughout the piece. Nevertheless the article has become one of the most celebrated and debated publications in the theory of science.

Merton contends that science is characterised by four interconnected but distinct organisational principles. These principles are ethical in nature and function as structural imperatives for science. First, science is universal insofar as contributions to it are ‘assessed on merit and significance’^[4]. Second, scientists judge scientific theses against empirical material that is available, and ‘suspend judgement’ until all the facts are known. Merton calls this ‘a methodological and institutional mandate’^[5]. Third, Merton maintains that scientists are committed to disinterestedness, and do not regard self-interest as a viable motivation for scientific work. The objective for scientists is to advance scientific knowledge rather than personal interests. Fourth, scientific knowledge that has proven to be reliable and accurate is to be readily available to every member of the scientific community, a phenomenon that Merton calls ‘communism’. ^[6]

Merton’s sketch of all four principles in the article is brief. Organised scepticism receives especially short shrift with just about two paragraphs^[7]. In these two paragraphs Merton conspicuously fails to provide a definition of it altogether and instead discusses the wider context of this ‘methodological and institutional mandate’^[8] for scientists. The question is whether Merton has presented a picture of science that is accurate today. The problem is that it is not quite clear what Merton actually says. He has been praised for his eloquence, but his admirable articulacy sometimes obscures the meaning of his thesis. The essay will now examine some of the more obvious criticisms.

The first difficulty concerns the main thrust of Merton’s argument. In arguing that four normative principles organise scientific endeavour, is he making a normative or descriptive point? Are these observations of empirical nature or do they outline prescriptive ideals that ought to guide scientists in their work? We may take Merton’s thesis to articulate some more general prescriptive standards of science, which ideally ought to be applied in the scientist’s work in order to facilitate scientific progress. ^[9]

Merton makes a point then which requires empirical verification. He has to show that science conducted in this way promotes scientific advancement which scientific work conducted contrary to these norms would not. Understandably this is hard to prove. It requires a historical argument, a narrative of successful scientific development, which to a certain degree he attempts to provide in his article.^[10]

So what does Merton try to say with his four criteria? The list of norms does not allow us to differentiate between valid and invalid science. It also fails to provide us with guidance as to what good and bad science is in a more general context. Perhaps at some time in the future, science requires secrecy and the exclusion of some parts of the scientific community from the results of scientific work. In fact, critics pointed out that Merton’s thesis works on the peculiar assumption that only academic science is science. Industrial research must by nature fail to comply with his standards of enquiry and hence cannot aspire to be science^[11]. A nonsensical conclusion since much of sciences progress is owed to research in an economic and entrepreneurial environment, conducted for reasons of profit and the furtherance of self-interest.

Yet, perhaps all these interpretations of Merton’s argument overlook the obvious. Possibly, his four standards of scientific discovery only make an observation on the nature of science in general. In this way Merton must be understood to make a simply descriptive point that scientific conduct is regulated by norms that may not always be explicit and unarticulated. If we would take him to argue this, his argument then all of a sudden fits into the wider functional theory of science that he was keen to advocate^[12].

Merton argues that the adherence to the four norms produces a system of knowledge that has features that we associate with science, and which have subsequently have come to be synonymous with science. The scientific ethos is then only a historical by-product and Merton’s succinct formulation of this ethos in four principles of scientific behaviour simply describes the way in which science is done. Research that does not comply with these standards may still be science but does not contribute to science as a coherent system of human behaviour. Merton’s normative structure of science thus tells us something about the way in which science has come to sustain itself as a system of knowledge^[13]. The four standards of scientific enquiry fulfil a function in generating systematic knowledge that contributes to the advancement of science as a coherent system of human interaction within a (academic) community.

Critics have pointed out that this vision of science is not less problematic than the ones we have sketches above. Two general accusations have been levelled against this Mertonian notion of science. The first criticism argues that Merton is simply stating the obvious or, even worse, that his argument is tautological^[14]. The second criticism is of different calibre and claims that Merton’s normative vision of science advocates one particular type of scientific endeavour that de-legitimises other forms of research^[15]. Both criticisms warrant some closer examination.

The first criticism is easily outlined and echoes some points made earlier. If Merton believes that the normative principles structure scientific knowledge then he can be taken to make either of two points which are different in scope and nature. First, he may simply be stating the obvious, describing the way in which science is being conducted. Any future changes to this may result in the end of science as we know it and as a coherent sub-system of human conduct but may give rise to the development of a new system of science, along different, yet unknown lines. Norms and standards, in this scheme of things, are contingent yet critical for the type of science that is currently institutionalised universally. Unless Merton attaches some value to this current form of science, his observation is bordering on the tautological, since it fails to tell us anything about the way in which we ought to do things in science. If he does associate the current state of science with a particular value, he needs to tell us what is so valuable about this specific type of science, an issue that philosophers of science discuss through the lens of scientific innovation^[16]. Philosophically, this requires some wider justification, something that Merton fails to do. In fact, there is a plethora of criticism that targets exactly the kind of (modern) science that Merton seems to find commendable. Feminist and environmentalist criticism abounds. So there is evidence to the contrary that he would have to confront.

The second criticism draws on radical theory and maintains that Merton’s normative notion of science acts as a gatekeeper to exclude other, conflicting visions of science. His theory of scientific endeavour thus fulfils a political function that translates into the suppression of deviant forms of scientific conduct. Bourdieu makes this claim forcefully in an article on Merton’s sociology of science in 1990 when in an unflattering way he calls Merton’s work ‘a hagiographic vision’^[17]. Further on he writes:

… if Merton takes note of the existence of the work of scientific production, he continues to apply to it analytical categories which hare imposed on him by this very world itself, so that what he present as a description of its positive laws of functioning is often little more than a record of the normative rules which are officially professed by its members. He therefore departs only in appearance from the ‘internal’ reading…^[18]

This is a damning observation since the critical content of Merton’s theory of normative science resides in its ability to provide an external as well as internal picture of what scientists do^[19]. If Merton, as Bourdieu claims, only replicates in his vision of science the self-understanding of scientists, his theory is little more than self-congratulatory contribution to identity formation in the scientific community. On a more sinister note, propagating these standards of scientific enquiry would deny other scientifically orientated behaviour the badge of honour. Merton’s theory of normative science would then become the main vehicle for defending a particular version of science, resting on values and principles that are far from universal. This is the point where theory spills over into institutional practice and may result in exclusion of scientists that fail to conform to a particular type of scientific behaviour.

A brief example may demonstrate this problem. In 1994 two American professors published ‘The Bell Curve’, a sociological investigation into the link between race and intelligence^[20]. Their work presented ample empirical material while their conclusions were particularly repugnant. The book included an argument for and against various social policies and therefore the authors deliberately placed their work in a political context. Although they adhered to all obvious scientific standards critics labelled the book as a political treatise with a foul set of conclusions. One of these conclusions was the authors maintained that there was evidence that African Americans were of inferior intelligence to White Americans. There can be no doubt that this repulsive claim strikes everyone who does not harbour racist attitudes as demonstrably false. Academic critics consequently slated the books’ premises and conclusions and pointed to a whole array of either ethical or methodological inconsistencies in the work^[21].

What does this mean in the context of Mertonian imperatives for scientific discovery? First of all, Merton’s vision of science claims that disinterestedness is a norm of scientific enquiry, hence however abhorrent the conclusions are scientists must pay no heed to the social or political ramifications of their endeavours if they wanted to preserve science as a coherent system of human activity. Given the social context of race studies this is a plea for unethical behaviour while salvaging an internal code of practice that may have repellent consequences. To contend that scientists can conduct their enquiries in a bubble of self-contained norms is nonsensical. It is far more likely that scientists constantly re-negotiate the standards and norms of their work^[22]. Science is a social endeavour, yet the social norms that apply to scientific conduct are drawn from wider society not from the reclusive community of academics only.

Secondly, however, it is exactly the violation of the proclaimed standards of scientific behaviour which allows scientists to re-assert and re-evaluate the boundaries of science as a particular type of human conduct. Adherence to the self-professed norms thus does not advance science as a body of knowledge but produces a sterile and eventually inert body of knowledge that lost its connection with the purpose of scientific enquiry, to better the human condition. Thus science is in a constant process of boundary revision and definition, interacting with society and its needs.

Merton’s internalist functionalist vision of science cannot accommodate this aspect of scientific endeavour and hence fails to acknowledge the actual purpose of science in the wider context as well as its resources for constructive change and transformation.

References

Pierre Bourdieu. Animadversiones in Mertonem. In Robert K. Merton. Consensus and Controversy, edited by Jon Clark, Celia Modgil, and Sohan Modgil. London New York Philadelphia: Falmer Press 1990, pp.297-301.

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein. Seredipitous Science and The Prepared Mind: Merton on the Microenvironments of Discoveries. In Contemporary Sociology. A Journal of Reviews, September 2005, Vol.34, No.5, pp.477-453.

Steven Fraser (ed.). The Bell Curve Wars. Race, Intelligence and the Future of America. New York: Basic Books 1995.

Lowell L. Hargens. What is Mertonian Sociology of Science? In Scientometrics, Vol. 60 (2004), No.1, pp.63-70.

R. Herrnstein and C. Murray. The Bell Curve. New York: Free Press 1994.

John Law and David French. Normative and Interpretive Sociologies of Science. In The Sociological Review, 22 (1974), pp.581-595.

Robert K. Merton. The Normative Structure of Science [1942]. In Robert K. Merton. The Sociology of Science. Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Edited and with an Introduction by Norman W. Storer. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, pp.267-278.

Nico Stehr. Robert K. Merton’s Sociology of Science. In Robert K. Merton. Consensus and Controversy, edited by Jon Clark, Celia Modgil, and Sohan Modgil. London New York Philadelphia: Falmer Press 1990, pp.285-294.

Nina Toren. The Scientific Ethos Debate: A Meta-Theoretical View. In Sic. Sci. Med., Vol. 17, No. 21 (1983), pp.1665-1672.

Jonathan H. Turner. The Structure of Sociological Theory. Homewood: The Dorsey Press 1978.

1

Compare and contrast Merton’s theory and the labelling theory of deviance.I. Introduction
Your Essay Outline

Write about Compare and contrast Merton’s theory and the labelling theory of deviance in the first sentence. Summarize Mertons Theory in the second sentence. Summarize Labelling Theory of Deviance in the second sentence. Summarize Comparions & contrast in the third sentence. Briefly summarize So in short, both theories try to explain crime from a social perspective but one explains why crime begins while the other one explains why crime continues. in the final sentence of the first paragraph.

In second paragraph you need to expand on Mertons Theory. Write one sentence summarizing Mertons Theory. Then write two sentences expounding on Mertons Theory. Be sure to back up your argument for Mertons Theory. In the final sentence transition from Mertons Theory to Labelling Theory of Deviance

In third paragraph you need to expand on Labelling Theory of Deviance. Write one sentence summarizing Labelling Theory of Deviance. Then write two sentences expounding on Labelling Theory of Deviance. Be sure to back up your argument for Labelling Theory of Deviance. In the final sentence transition from Labelling Theory of Deviance to Comparions & contrast.

In fourth paragraph you need to expand on Comparions & contrast. Write one sentence summarizing Comparions & contrast. Then write two sentences expounding on Comparions & contrast. Be sure to back up your argument for Comparions & contrast. In the final sentence transition from Comparions & contrast to your So in short, both theories try to explain crime from a social perspective but one explains why crime begins while the other one explains why crime continues..

In the fifth and final paragraph, summarize Mertons Theory again. Summarize Labelling Theory of Deviance again. Summarize Comparions & contrast again. Then write two sentences stating your So in short, both theories try to explain crime from a social perspective but one explains why crime begins while the other one explains why crime continues..

Outline and assess the structionalist themes of crime and deviance

Structural theories of deviance are similar to Merton’s theory. They explain the origins of deviance in terms of the position of individuals or groups in the social structure.

In the 1930’s Robert k Merton wrote an article entitled Social Structure and Anomie. It became one of the most influential explanations of crime and deviance. He offered a social rather than psychological or biological explanation. In particular, it was a structionalist theory as it saw the structure of society shaping peoples behaviour.

According to Merton, American culture attaches great importance to success – and success is measured in terms of money and material possessions. There are norms which define legitimate means for achieving success. These legitimate means include gaining skills and qualifications and career advancement. The American dream states that anybody can make it to the top if they try hard enough. So much emphasis is placed on material success that many people experience pressure to deviate from accepted norms and values. Deviance occurs when they reject the goals of success and/or the legitimate means of reaching that goal. For example, some people are tempted to use nay means of getting to the top-even if that involves criminal behaviour. Merton refers to this pressure as a ‘strain to anomie’. Anomie means normlessness – it refers to a situation where norms no longer guide behaviour, where ‘anything goes’.

Despite what the American dream says, not everybody has an equal chance at success. The social structure prevents equal opportunity. In particular, the strain to anomie is most strongly felt by those at the bottom of the class structure. They are less likely to acquire skills and qualifications needed to reach the top. As a result, they are more likely to seek alternative routes to success.

Merton identifies five possible adaptations or responses to the strain to anomie in American society, conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion. Conformity according to Merton, most people conform despite the strain to anomie. Even if they don’t make it, they continue to strive for success and follow the normative means of getting there. Innovation, people who adopt the deviant adaptation accept the goals of success but, in Merton’s words, they have ‘little access to conventional and legitimate means to becoming successful.’ As a result, some innovate-they turn to legitimate means, to crime. The pressure to select this adaptation is greatest for those in the lower levels of the class system. Ritualism, people who follow this deviant route abandon the goal of success, but stick rigidly to the rules- for example, people in dead end, white collar occupations that follow their job descriptions to the letter. Retreatism, this deviant adaptation involves a rejection of both the goal of success and the normative means of achieving it. It applies to people who ‘drop out’- tramps, drug addicts and habitual drunkards. Rebellion, this involves a rejection of conventional goals and means and their replacement with alternatives. The revolutionary who seeks to change society illustrates this type of deviant adaptation.

Merton’s strain theory was an early attempt to explain crime and deviance in terms of culture and structure of society. It provided a sociological alternative to biological and psychological theories. In particular, it offered an explanation for working class crime. Whatever its weaknesses, Merton’s work provided a spur for the development of further theories of crime and deviance.

Merton’s theory does raise a number of unanswered questions. First, why do people but not others adopt deviant adaptations? For example, why do some people in the lower levels of the class system turn to crime but others do not? Secondly, Merton’s theory focuses on individuals rather than groups. Crime and deviance are often collective activities. How can this be explained in terms of strain theory? Thirdly, crime and deviance are not always motivated by a desire for monetary gain. How can activities such as vandalism and fighting between rival gangs be explained in terms of Merton’s theory? In search for these answers subculural theory was formed.

Subcultural theories explain deviance in terms of the subculture of a social group. They argue that certain groups develop norms and values which to some extent different from those held by other members of society. For example, some groups of criminals or delinquents might develop norms that encourage and reward criminal activity. Other members of society may regard such activities as immoral, and strongly disapprove of them.

Subcultual theories claim that deviance is the result of individuals conforming to the norms and values of the social group to which they belong. Members of subcultures are not completely different from other members of society: they may speak the same language, wear similar clothes, and attach the same value to family life. However, their subculture is sufficiently different from the culture of society as a whole to lead to them committing acts that are generally regarded as deviant. Often, structural and sub cultural theories are combined, as in Albert Cohen’s analysis of delinquency. The development of subcultures is explained in terms of the position of groups and individuals in the social structure.

Cohen was the first sociologist to develop a subcultual theory of working class crime and deviance. He examined delinquent gangs in low-income, inner city areas. Delinquency refers to the criminal and anti social acts of young people.

Cohen agreed with Merton that the mainstream value of success creates problems for young working class males. Many do badly at school and fail to acquire the skills and qualifications needed for success.

Employing Durkheim’s concept of anomie, Robert K Merton, an American sociologist, developed his theory of deviance by analysing the American reward system. Merton’s argument is that in a well-regulated society, goals and the means of achieving these goals are integrated in that they are available to all in society. In some societies the accepted means of achieving these goals are not available to all, hence those who wish to achieve the goals, but are not able to do so through legitimate means, must adapt to the situation. Merton presented a typology describing the modes of adaptation. The important aspect of the typology is the relationship between the cultural goals and the institutionalised means of achieving them. I will describe the typology in the following paragraphs.

Howard S. Becker’s labelling theory of deviance asserts that “deviance and conformity result, not so much from what people do, but from how others respond to those actions”. It analyses how definitions for deviant behaviour are created by social groups.

Merton then sets out a typology of modes of adaptation in terms of conformity, or non-conformity, to cultural goals and institutionalised means:

1. Innovation – accepting cultural goals but employing illegitimate means, for example, property theft, cheats.

2. Ritualism – adherence to means whilst ignoring the goals, for example, bureaucratic adherence to routine – going through the motions.

3. Retreatism – withdrawal, opting out of socially defined desirable behaviour, for example, alcoholics, addicts.

4. Rebellion – not only rejection of goals and means, but a positive attempt to replace them with alternative values, for example, political revolutionaries, religious prophets.

Merton’s analysis suggests that deviant behaviour is functional. First, for the individuals involved, since it enables them to adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves. And second, for society as a whole – since modes of individual adaptation help to maintain the boundaries between acceptable and non-acceptable forms of behaviour.

Criticisms

1. Non conformity, such as ritualism, is not really the same as deviance (indeed with ritualism you do the actions, but have the wrong thoughts – it’s nearer blasphemy). It does not convey the same stigmatising quality as in the label ‘deviant’.

2. The assumption of cultural consensus is implicit in the idea of cultural goals, and ignores the possibility of sub-cultures and a pluralistic culture, where cultural goals might differ considerably.

3. It does not really provide a causal theory as to why some groups might adapt via rebellion and others by retreatism. Obviously some form of socialised commitment and differential associations becomes crucial for influencing perceptions of the alternatives to conformity. It does not explain movement into deviant careers.

4. It does not take into account that just as legitimate means to success are limited, that so too are the illegitimate opportunities. Not everyone has equal access to criminal sub-cultures. An analysis of the opportunities for deviant activity is required.

However, Merton never claimed that his typology was a total theory of deviance and many of the criticisms of his work were picked up on and improvements attempted by sub-cultural theorists.

Conclusion

Merton’s strain theory is basically an explanation of why people commit crime. His approach involves looking at how people accept reject or redefine our cultural goals according to the means available to them in accepting those goals. So for example, success is the goal, the appropriately accepted way to achieve success in America is through the belief that hard work will get us success. But many people work hard and are not successful. So one adjustment would be to reject the idea that hard work is how to become successful and replace that means of achieving success with an alternative method such as selling drugs. You achieve monetary success without hard work.

Labeling theory is also an effort to explain crime from a sociological position. However labeling theory explains why a person continues committing a crime but does not explain why they committed a crime in the first place.

So in short, both theories try to explain crime from a social perspective but one explains why crime begins while the other one explains why crime continues.

‘Education policy in the UK now contributes to a more meritocratic society’. Discuss the various explanations that sociologists have offered for differences in educational outcomes
Introduction

Many policy developments regarding education have had as their express aim the need to make the education system fairer (including the 1870 and 1944 Education Acts and the 1988 Education Reform Act, which introduced the National Curriculm): that is, to achieve a position in which educational achievement reflects children’s innate ability.^[1] However, despite these manifest aims the basic pattern of educational achievement remains stratified along lines of class, race and gender: in general, children from middle and upper class families (as defined by the occupational grouping of the father) tend to achieve both a longer and more qualified education (see Douglas, 1964 or Halsey et al, 1980). Similarly, race differentials of attainment are also evident (see Orr, 2003). Finally, educational outcomes, despite successive attempts to overcome them, remain gendered: girls tend to be concentrated within the ‘feminine’ subjects such as English, whilst boys tend to do better in mathematics and the sciences (see Thomas, 1990). However, the largest factor affecting educational outcomes in the UK remains class: this is not to say that all working class children fail educationally; however, there remains a strong correlation between social class and achievement levels.

Thus, despite a widespread belief in the meritocratic nature of modern western society this belief may in fact be little more than a legitimating ideology: it is therefore the unequal educational outcomes of children with similar ‘natural’ abilities that social theorists have sought to explain. However, as many theoretical approaches have been utilised in this attempt as the number of theorists so involved: theorists with liberal, conservative, feminist and socialist leanings may further show actor-centred, structuralist or functionalist tendencies to their explanatory schemas. In this essay I have decided to concentrate on the work of two theorists, Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein, my reasoning is threefold: firstly, space limitations negate the feasibility of a broader survey; next, though Bernstein was previously influential within educational theory, it is the work of Bourdieu that now appears ascendant and to have wider applicability; finally, whilst both Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein have been associated with class-based analysis, it is that of Bourdieu that has subsequently been more widely adopted, therefore they provide neatly contrasting explanations of educational differentials.

In the next section I outline the educational theory of Basil Bernstein; in the following that of Pierre Bourdieu. In the conclusion, I critically asses both approaches, arguing that, whilst at first glance they appear similar in that they both aim to account predominantly for the class-based dimension to educational differentials, in fact it is the more subtle and nuanced theory of Bourdieu that is better able to account for educational differentials of a wider type: those based on gender, race, and class.

Basil Bernstein: The Elaborated and Restricted Codes

Basil Bernstein (1925-2000) initially developed his account of the elaborated and restricted codes during his time teaching young men motorcycle repair in the 1960s. It was then that he noticed the different ways in which language was used by the tutors and pupils, leading him to conclude that it was in fact two different forms of language that were being used: the restricted and elaborated codes. He defined the ‘restricted’ code as being inherently context bound, emotion based and reliant on condensed symbols: ‘restricted codes are more tied to a local structure and have a reduced potential for change’ (Bernstein, 1972: 164). In contrast, the ‘elaborated’ codes ‘orient their users towards universalistic meanings’ (Ibid.) and are defined by Bernstein as utilising rationality and logic; ‘elaborated’ codes are thus described by Bernstein as being context-free; it is the elaborated code that Bernstein takes to be dominant within education.

Bernstein believed that the elaborated language code is the norm for the middle classes, whilst the restricted code is usually used both within working-class and middle-class families, with differences the result of the ‘cultural transmission’, via socialisation, that turns the biological infant into a cultural being (Bernstein, 1972: 162). He argued that the process of socialisation naturalises the social order and occurs via social institutions such as the family and school. He identified two family types: the ‘positional’ and the ‘person-centred’, and these are likely to utilise specific modes of interaction (Bernstein, 1972: 170). Arguing that all children have access to the restricted code, Bernstein believed that it is only those from the person-centred family type (the middle-class families) who are likely to have had regular contact with the imaginative and interpersonal language of the elaborated code outside of formal education, giving them an advantage within education:

Historically and now, only a tiny percentage of the population has been socialised into knowledge at the level of meta-languages of control and innovation, whereas the mass of the population has been socialised into knowledge at the level of context-tied operations (Bernstein, 1972: 163).

In short, the language used within the home gives middle class children an advantage at school; they ‘speak the same language’ as the teachers. Bernstein does not argue that either mode is better than the other, his aims to be a descriptive, rather than a prescriptive, account; instead he argues that it is the educational system itself that favours one code above the other and thus privileges the children of one group, middle-class children.

Pierre Bourdieu: Cultural Capital

Similar to Bernstein, Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) developed his theory of cultural capital as part of an attempt to explain the class-based educational differentials between children with similar natural abilities. Two concepts are central to this schema: those of cultural capital and cultural reproduction. In the first, culture is viewed as similar to power (Bourdieu, 1986: 243) because, like money, one is able to inherit it and it can be translated into other social resources, including wealth and status (Bourdieu, 1986: 244-5). It is this transferability of cultural capital that leads to the second key concept, that of cultural reproduction: for in this schema the class that dominates economically is also able to dominate culturally and ideologically; thus, similarly to Bernstein, schools play a key role in socio-cultural reproduction by valuing middle-class culture more highly than that of the working-classes.

Bourdieu isolates three distinct types of cultural capital, embodied, objectified and institutionalised: the first describes the way that cultural capital becomes incorporated into the very body of the individual (Bourdieu, 1986: 244-5); the second refers to artefacts which may be inherited (Bourdieu, 1986: 246); whilst the third refers to those academic qualifications which allow an individual access to economic capital via the job market (Bourdieu, 1986: 247). In this way schools, along with other institutions, help to both naturalise and perpetuate inequality. Like economic capital for Karl Marx, for Bourdieu cultural capital has the capacity to reproduce itself ‘in identical or expanded form’ (Bourdieu, 1986: 241).

In short, for Bourdieu education plays a key role in legitimising and naturalising social inequality; for if all children are believed to have equal opportunities to succeed according to their ability then any failure must be a result of differences in their level of ability: it must be their own fault rather than the fault of the system as a whole. Bourdieu posits the educational shortcomings of the working classes on their situational constraints in two ways; firstly, the objective class position of the children’s family is used to provide the basis for assumptions regarding the kind of cultural resources they therefore hold; secondly, their social position limits the amount and type of capital an individual is likely to accrue and pass on to their children. Within Bourdieu’s theory, each economic class is thus assumed to have developed a ‘class culture’, or way of both acting in and perceiving the social world, and in this way social inequality is internalised or embodied as it is also naturalised.

Analysis and Conclusion

The two approaches appear similar at first glance; both concentrate on the class-based aspects of educational inequality, and, as such, both are open to the criticism that they fail to account for other educational differences, such as those resulting from race or gender (McCall, 1992: 851). Further, both approaches are liable to be criticised for their economic determinism: John Frow has argued that with Bourdieu’s approach the cultural resources of an individual are merely assumed from their class position (Frow, 1995: 63) and this criticism might equally be applied to Bernstein. Finally, both approaches entail the idea that differential educational achievement is best explained with references to ‘barriers’ to achievement: both posit the way that society is organised, the education system in particular, as itself limiting the ability of some children to succeed.

However, Bernstein’s theory has been criticised empirically, theoretically and ideologically; first, little empirical is cited to support his hypothesis and he conducted no participation observation of either middle or working class family homes (Rosen, 1974: 10). Theoretically, Bernstein utilises a crude conception of class analysis which ignores the ruling class entirely whilst also concentrating solely on the unskilled section of the working class (Rosen, 1974: 6). He fails to address the relations between the two classes (Ibid.), further, by concentrating on the role of the family his theory fails to acknowledge other institutions or the role of peer groups or the media (Rosen, 1974: 7). Finally, he fails to acknowledge the effect that the attitude of the teacher toward their students may have on their education. Whilst there is a ‘grain of truth’ to his argument, in that there are differences in the language use of the various social classes, by attributing the failure of working class children solely to their language-use Bernstein misses the point: it is not the language that inherently contains power, but rather it is the broader education system that, by imposing middle-class culture via pedagogic authority, limits the ability of working class children to succeed. Although he aims to only describe the differences between the two language types, Bernstein himself falls into the ethno-linguistic trap of believing his own language use to be the superior form (Rosen, 1974: 6). Finally, as Deborah Cameron states: ‘the theory of codes could be boiled down to a political truism, those who do not speak the language of the dominant elite find it difficult to get on’ (Cameron, 1985: 159-160).

Bourdieu’s approach is more subtle; although he agues, similarly to Bernstein, that language plays a key role in the under achievement of the working classes, Bourdieu’s explanation involves many other factors, including the development of a specific habitus, or set of predispositions, and the social, cultural and economic capitals. Thus Bourdieu does not point to language as the sole cause of working-class children’s educational failure, but instead describes a complex process that not only attempts to account for this failure but also its internalisation. Indeed, Bourdieu’s theory is supported by in-depth participation-observation, rather than the assumption and anecdote of Bernstein, reflecting his recognition of the complexity of the causes of unequal educational achievement.

In recent years Bernstein’s theory, though once influential, has fallen out of favour within educational sociology, as a quick survey of recent articles reveals, whilst the theory of cultural capital has become increasingly influential (Burkett, 2001). Whilst at first glance the theories appear similar, in fact it is the theory of Bourdieu that is better able to account for educational differentials of a wider type: those based on gender, race, and class and many theorists have sought to thus extend the theory to account for these wider differentials (see, for example, McNay, 1999; Reay, 2004). Indeed, Ben Fine has argued that academia has been gripped by a kind of ‘capital’ mania (in Burkett, 2004: 234), in part, at least, attesting to the strength of the explanatory schema.

Bibliography

Bernstein, Basil (1972) ‘Social Class, Language and Socialisation’, Language and Social Context: Selected Readings, Giglioli, Pier Paolo (Ed.), London: Penguin Education, pp. 157-178.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1986) ‘The forms of Capital’ in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, Richardson, J (Ed.), London: Greenwood Press, pp. 241-258.

Burkett, Paul (2001) ‘Book Review: Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political Economy and Social Science at the Turn of the Millennium’ by Ben Fine, London: Routledge, Historical Materialism, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 233-246.

Cameron, Deborah (1985) ‘Beyond Alienation: An Integrational Approach to Women and Language’, Feminism and Linguistic Theory, London: MacMillan, pp 134 – 161.

Douglas, J.W.B (1964) The Home and the School: A Study of Ability and Attainment in the Primary School, London: MacGibbon.

Frow, John (1995) ‘Accounting for Tastes: Some Problems in Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture’, Cultural Studies, Vol. 1(No. 1), pp. 59-73.

Halsey, A.H; Heath, A & Ridge, J.M (1980) Origins and Destinations: Family Class and Education in Modern Britain, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

McNay, Lois (1999) ‘Gender, Habitus and the Field: Pierre Bourdieu and the Limits of Reflexivity’, Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 95-117.

Orr, Amy (2003) ‘Black-White Differences in Achievement: The Importance of Wealth’, Sociology of Education, Vol. 76, pp. 281-304.

Piper, David Warren (1984) ‘The Question of Fairness’, Is Higher Education Fair to Women?, Acker, Sandra and Piper, David Warren (Eds.), Guilford: SRHE and NFER-NELSON, pp. 3-24.

Reay, Diane (2004) ‘It’s all Becoming a Habitus’: Beyond the Habitual use of Habitus in Educational Research’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 431-444.

Rosen, Harold (1974 [1972]) Language and Class: A Critical Look at the Theories of Basil Bernstein (3^rd Ed.), Bristol: Falling Wall Press.

Thomas, Kim (1990) ‘The Question of Gender’ and ‘Feminism and Education’ in Gender and Subject in Higher Education, Buckingham: SRHE & Open University Press, pp. 1 – 23.

1

The existing literature in nursing reviewed, and is mostly based on the reason for the shortage of men in nursing, and their experiences in a female dominated profession. Most of the articles obtained in this literature review were from the databases of Pub-Med, MEDLINE, Elsevier, Bio Med Central, SAGE pub, and Google Scholar.

The key search words were “caring,” “gender,” “men,” “nurses”, “nursing”, “stereotypes”, “non-traditional jobs”, and “advantages”. The data obtained for this literature review span from 1964 to 2010.

Little is it known about the experiences of men in nursing in Malta. However, Mr. Joseph Camilleri (1964) wrote about History of nursing in Malta stating that the knights themselves performed the nursing care “exclusively,” to the same gender.

The literature review presented is aimed to explore the advantages and disadvantages that male nurses experience while performing their caring roles in nursing.

2.2 Difficulties male nurses encounter in a traditionally female profession
2.2.1 Introduction

Nursing became predominately a female profession in the late 19th century. Though Florence Nightingale made major contributions in the nursing profession, she was greatly involved in excluding men from this profession by affirming that nursing was a discipline for female. She did work hard in establishing nursing as a laudable profession for ‘respectable women’, ignoring the past indispensable contributions made by men (Black and Germaine-Warner, 1995). Nightingale saw the males’ task restricted to physical jobs like moving or lifting patients and never appreciated their caring task. Besides, the Industrial Revolution largely influenced the way out of men from caring professions, such as nursing. During this period, the widely acknowledged professions for men were business, technology and science. Men pursued medicine and women pursued nursing (Black and Germaine-Warner, 1995).

Men entering the nursing profession cross the conventional lines of gender. As a result, their masculinity becomes an issue. Over time, masculinity has been defined by the roles men perform (Connell, 1995). The concept, notion or idea of masculinity deters men from entering women-dominated professions, such as nursing, but men are silent on the entry of women in the men’s traditional professions, such as medicine and technology. Williams (1995), Table 2.1 conducted in-depth interviews with 76 men and 23 female who work in predominantly female professions as social workers, elementary school teachers, nurses, and librarians. Through deft interpretation of her interviewees’ words, it was found that male nurses and those in other female-conquered fields frequently emphasize their masculinity and try as much as possible to avoid socializing with their women colleagues. This is argued by Williams as the only way of legitimising their working in the women’s conventional professions.

An exploratory study, conducted by Heike’s (1991),Table 2.1 based on in-depth interviews with fifteen male nurses, showed that male nurses saw themselves in the abnormal position of belonging to two very dissimilar groups. For instance, in the nursing profession, men are taken as a minority group tagged as ‘male nurse’, whilst in a broader society, men fit in the dominant social group where they are expected to be successful and excelling in their profession. Male nurses are therefore a unique type of minority group in the sense that they are either a minority of the principal social faction or minority of majority. This disparity in grouping (minority-majority) stresses and discriminates men in nursing more than other tokens. “Furthermore, the study indicates that many of the disadvantages male nurses experience (e.g., homosexual stigma, gender stereotypes) originate from outside of the nursing profession (Heikes, 1991, p.398).”

According to theoretical research of the literature, carried out by Evans (2004), Table 2.1, a man associated with the nursing profession compromises his reputation plus social status in patriarchal culture. Also, male nurses experience the stigma of working in a female-dominated profession, and they are seen by society as challenging the conventional roles of men (Lammi and Kauppinen-Toropainen, 1993). Evans argues (1997,p.228), citing Mangan (1994), that ‘stigmatising labels imply that men who do nursing are different from other men, isolating them as ‘deviants’ who are ‘odd’ or ‘homosexual’.

Furthermore, while analysing the data from semi-structured interviews with eight men nurses on their experiences in nursing, Evans (2002) noted that the male nurses are exposed to rejection and suspicion as nurturers and caregivers due to the perception that men and women caring styles were not the same. Touch was one expression of caring that all participants identified as central, to their practice as nurses, and potentially dangerous because it can be misinterpret, which makes them” vulnerable caregivers”.

Similarly, men in nursing are likely to be labelled gay. Pringle (1993) asserted that any ‘feminised’ profession is believed to attract homosexual men, be it fashion, hairdressing, or even nursing. A study link appears to be drawn between sexual preferences and gender. Savage (1987) suggested that a male nurse is always tagged with a predominant image of being homosexual. He further supported this suggestion by asserting that men entering the nursing profession have purportedly failed in other ‘manhood’ professions and that the only opening for them remains in the women’s world. Harding, (2007), Table, 2.1 in the social constructionist study conducted among 18 New Zealand men employed in general nursing found that majority of men in nursing are heterosexual. However, public perception is still that most male nurses are gay. This stereotype persists only in general nursing because it was” constructed as feminine and abnormal for men, whereas psychiatric nursing was constructed as normal for men” (Harding, 2007, p.641)

Male nurses are believed to be further weakened, emasculated or ineffectual by resorting on women’s traditional jobs in which they are anticipated to exhibit feminine qualities, such as being gentle, caring and subordinate to women. Thus, labelling of men in the nursing profession as homosexuals makes them feel remorseful, outcast and discouraged. Pringle (2002) asserted that in most cultures, male homosexuality is seen as an infringement of masculinity and a denigration of men’s mythical power. He further asserted that as homosexuality nibbles at masculinity, it deteriorates the gender order.

As earlier mentioned, up to this very moment nursing is extremely dominated by women and this translates to a number of personal and professional challenges to men entering the field. For example, several male nurses have reported about physicians and head nurses placing less trust in them. Besides, male nursing students encounter discrimination from physicians, practicing nurses and the general public (Kelly et al., 1996). Female nurses frequently request male colleagues for assistance in turning and lifting patients, thereby emphasising physical strength and not professional expertise. It is all very frequent for male nurses or students to find themselves unwanted in delivery rooms, prenatal clinics and other related settings that male physicians have liberated access (Black and Germaine-Warner, 1995).

Another difficult issue male nurses or students encounter is a mistrust emanating from their patients. Literature has it that a considerable number of patients become so violent or hostile in the presence of a male nurse and will be uncomfortable submitting to intimate medical procedures. This is a difficult position to encounter, and several male nurses usually become frustrated when patients are not willing to confide in them because of fear or underserved disrespect (Fisher, 1999). Also, mounting study indicates that men in female-dominated careers, such as catering, nursing and fashion, encounter gender bias, elevated rates of job linked to stress as well as job discrimination (Amour, 2003).

Table 2.1
The distribution of studies regarding the difficulties male nurses encounter in traditionally female profession
Author/s and setting
Sample and sampling method
Research design/Instrument
Significant findings

Evans, J.

(2004),

Canada

aˆ?Theoretical research of literature review on men nurses in Canada, Britain & U.S.A. between 1900 and 2003.

aˆ?Statistics, CINHAL, Pub Med, and Sociological Abstract databases

aˆ?Failure to recognize men’s participation in nursing leaves male nurses without historical background, almost invisible;

aˆ?Gender boundaries are negotiable during wars and acute nursing shortage,

aˆ?Men in nursing tend to choose areas of specialization that are more masculine,

aˆ?Men’s career path takes on traditional masculine role that seeks power and influence

Evans,J

.(2002),

Canada

aˆ?8 male nurses from community health nursing, medical-surgical, and general duty nursing,

aˆ?6 married, 1 with partner, and 1 ‘gay’;

aˆ?Age from late 20s to mid 50s

aˆ?Two rounds of semi-structured interviews

aˆ?The stereotype of men as sexual aggressors is compounded by the stereotype that men nurses are gay,

aˆ?These stereotypes sexualise men nurses’ touch,

aˆ?Men nurses are subject of accusation of inappropriate behaviour

Harding,T.

(2007),

Norway

aˆ?Discourse analysis of data from existing texts, and 2 films on men, nursing and masculinity, and interviews conducted in 2003-2004,

aˆ?18 participants, 11 self-identified as gay, 6 heterosexual, and 1 no information on sexuality,

aˆ?The workplace included clinical nursing, education, administration, midwifery, mental health and armed forces

aˆ?Purposive and snow ball sampling

aˆ?Loosely structured interviews with broad, open-ended questions

aˆ?Three themes emerged which characterized the participant’s experiences:

aˆ?Persistence of the stereotype of the gay male nurse,

aˆ?Meeting homophobia in the work place,

aˆ?Strategies to protect one’s homosexuality like working as psychiatric nurses.

Heikes, J.

(1991),

U.S.A.

aˆ? 15 male RN’s from nine different hospitals in Austin, Texas;

aˆ?Age range 26-43 years;

aˆ?Working experience ranged from 1-14 years

aˆ?In-dept interviews based on interview questions about the concrete work experiences, and non-work interactions

aˆ?Four role stereotypes emerged from the data: Ladder-climber, Troublemaker, and He-man, traditionally masculine traits, and homosexual, which is imposed on male nurses from the outside;

aˆ?Male tokens are expected to excel in the occupational or public sphere;

aˆ?Respondents reported social isolation in order to maintain higher status and to reduce the possibility of them being labelled “un masculine” or homosexual.

Williams,C. (1995),

U.S.A.

aˆ?76 men and 23 women in four occupations: nursing, librarian, elementary school teacher, and social worker;

aˆ?From 1985-1991

aˆ?Snowball sampling

aˆ?Age range from 20-66

aˆ?In-dept interview, with the interview questionnaire consisted of several open ended four broad questions on “motivation to enter

the profession, experience in training, career progression, and general about men’s status”. (p.229)

aˆ?Face to face interview

aˆ?Cultural and social stereotypes about masculinity pressure men to raise in a “glass escalator” to

the highest paid and most prestigious nursing specialities;

aˆ? Men encouraged to advance by an ‘invisible’ pressure;

aˆ?Men develop strategies to present themselves as masculine, and superior to female colleagues

2.3 Advantages and disadvantages perceived in male’s nursing career
2.2.1 Introduction

Male nurses belong to a minority group. Approximately 3.1 percent of nurses in Canada and the United States are male, about 8.77 percent in the United Kingdom, (Rott, et.al (2008), and in Malta 28 percent (Council for nurses and midwifes, 2010). According to Evans (1997), Table 2.2, women working in men’s traditional professions normally encounter hostile working environment. However, men working in female-dominated professions may never encounter such disadvantages. That said, the focal rationale for drawing men to nursing is to enhance the status and the prestige of the profession as a whole. It remains debatable whether this will really work or not. Several researchers and scholars have argued that the rationale puts a noteworthy pressure on men to ‘salvage’ the nursing profession, whereas others believe that allowing men in the profession merely raises the position of masculine gender in the society (Evans, 1997).

Male as well encompass an advantage in the nursing profession due to traditional stereotype that men are always the breadwinners of the families. In most societies, women usually take primary tasks for childcare and housework, giving men a distinct benefit. For instance, there is a devastating perception in the United States and most Anglo-Saxon world that women are less devoted to their work than men. This is largely due to the unfair division of labour inside the household. As such, even in ‘female’ professions, men remain with this unequal advantage over women (Williams, 1995).

In addition to, Abrahamsen (2004), Table 2.2, argues ” when men obtain leading positions more often than women, this can be result of favourism of men” (p.35). A quantitative, non-experimental descriptive study ,conducted over twenty years, in order to identify constructions of masculinity, and career development, showed that twenty years after graduation, ,70% of male nurses were in the leadership position, and away from somatic wards. They moved to a sector which offered better income , which suggests that salary is important when male nurses move within different parts of the healthcare sector ( Abrahamsen, 2004).

Additionally, the major functions in nursing accentuate technical knowledge, leadership and devotion to work, all these are perceived as being masculine traits. Consideration to detail and showing of emotions that are usually characteristics of females are not credited as good skills of leadership. What is more, male nurses are more social with doctors than their female counterparts. Since men feel they lack much in common with their female counterparts, they prefer talking about vehicles and sports with other men, especially male doctors. This in itself provides advantages for career projections, as doctors begin to appreciate male nurses as being competent just like their women colleagues (Bush, 1976).

The transversal study of Dassen, T., Nijhuis,J.N. & Philipsen, H. (1990), Table 2.2 which was based on a National Survey among intensive-care (IC) nurses in The Netherlands, showed that male IC-unit nurses consider IC-nursing to be a medical rather than a nursing activity in order to upgrade their own profession into a kind of medical profession. Due to an over-representation of men in technical wards, distribution of labour among male and female nurses is taking place according to traditional sex -specific patterns where male nurses stand a better chance of being promoted to higher positions. In addition, the study revealed that 50% of male nurses wish to become head of a nursing ward which proves that male nurses are more oriented towards profesionalization than female nurses.

On the other hand, Kanter’s (1977) notion of tokenism supposed that the numerical underrepresentation of individuals in an occupation, particularly those classified by gender, ethnicity or race, will lead to discriminatory treatment. Therefore, for all minority groups, a given profession will always experience negative job impacts. According to Kanter, members of minority group are likely to achieve less in the working environment than members of the majority group. However, Williams (1995) contravened that when men are seen as minority group in the nursing profession, they normally use their dominant gender privilege to rapidly rise to the topmost hierarchy (Saville-Smith and James, 1994).

Conversely, nursing is seen by several people as a feminine profession and is therefore devalued in male-conquered patriarchal society. This profession is always stereotyped as having the characteristics of caring, nurturing, submission and dependence. These traits accredited to nursing contrast with the alleged male characteristics of dominance, aggression and strength and thus male nurses usually isolate themselves from their female nurses as a way of expressing the notion of masculinity (Heikes, 1991). Moreover, when an individual forms an identity which is incompatible with the expectations of the society, people usually become uncomfortable and uncertain on how to behave. In most societies all over the world, nurses are perceived as women, and thus it is quite difficult for individuals to know how to interrelate with male nurses. They find it too unusual why a man would decide on a career dominated by a recessive sex. This is a major disadvantage to men in nursing and most of them are indeed deterred from the profession by assuming that other individuals will see them as unmanly (Bagilhole and Cross, 2002).

Table 2.2
The distribution of studies regarding the advantages and disadvantages perceived in male’s nursing career
Author/s and setting
Sample and sampling method
Research design/ Instrument
Significant findings

Abrahamsen, D.

(2004)

Norway

aˆ?1450 male and female nurses who completed training in 1977

aˆ?Norwegian survey of nurses undertaken at the end of 1998

aˆ?After a year from graduating, 10% of male and female, both were in leadership position,

aˆ?After twenty years later, 70% of men were in leading position away from somatic wards and bed-ridden patients,

aˆ? Better income was moved male nurses within different parts of the healthcare system.

Dassen,T.W.N.et.al.,

(1990)

The Netherlands

aˆ?1960 male and female nurses, data borrowed from the Intensive Care Association,

aˆ? 960 returned the forms by post,

aˆ?R.R.49%

aˆ?Survey, questionnaire sent by post;

aˆ?There is an over-presentation of men in technical wards,

aˆ?10% of the male nurses reported having chosen to work in an IC-unit,

aˆ?50% of the male nurses wish to become head of a nursing ward compared to only 15% of female nurses.

Evans,J.

(1997)

Canada

aˆ?Theoretical literature review

aˆ?Not stated

aˆ?Even in the female dominated profession , patriarchal society enables men to obtain dominant position,

aˆ? Marital status for men has significant career advantage,

aˆ? Men nurses have more university degrees compared to women nurses,

2.4 Why men choose nursing as a career
2.4.1 Introduction

Most men choose nursing for the similar reasons women choose nursing. They are goaded by the desire to care for patients (Boughn, 2001). Besides, men have numerous practical reasons that include career opportunity, job security, job flexibility and stable income. Conventionally, men tend to prefer active and challenging fields of nursing, such as cardiac care units, trauma units, emergency departments, cardiac care units, intensive care units, anaesthesiology or flight nursing, among others. Men are often attracted to the technical aspects of acute care specialties and always motivated by the challenges created by the medical instruments utilised in those units.

However, a pilot study investigating the motivations and experiences of 42 males in the nursing profession conducted by Whittock M. & Leonard L. (2003), Table 2.3 showed that a major factor that attracted men in nursing was influence of parents, specially mothers, employed in nursing or other healthcare professions. On the other hand, this finding was not true for all interviewees.

A similar, qualitative, study exploring what motivates Israeli men to choose nursing as their profession was conducted by Romem, P.& Anson, O. ( 2005), Table 2.3. Self- administered questionnaires which included 52-items were drawn up, in order to determine the social characteristics of male nurses, and their motives in choosing the profession. These questionnaires were distributed to all registered nurses, 137 female and 123 male, in three general and three psychiatric hospitals. The results of the study show that an early exposure to the profession, as well as the ethnic background are prominent factors that motivate men to choose nursing. Job security, career opportunities and salary, also play an important role (Romem, & Anson,2005). On the other hand, men in nursing are not taking leading positions in the health care system due to their social origins.

Nevertheless, there has been worry that several men may just look at the nursing profession as a facilitator to other masculine professions such as medicine and that they may not take nursing as their long lasting career. This is because of low pay and perceived low status of nursing as it is always associated with a lesser sex in the society (Williams, 1989). This anxiety was borne out in 2002 by a study conducted in the University of Pennsylvania. The study was based on the Analysis of the 1992-2000 the National Survey of Registered Nurses, ” the nation’s most extensive and comprehensive statistics on registered nurses with current licenses to practice in US.” In this study it was found that about 7.5% of new-fangled male nurses left this female-dominated profession within four years after graduating from nursing school. This was a higher percent compared to the 4.1% of female nurses who deserted the nursing profession in the same period (Solchalski, 2002).

While Sochalski (2002), Table 2.3, in her research ‘underscored the need to determine the reasons for the exodus’ of nurses, a study of Rajapaksa & Rothstein (2009), Table 2.3, showed that men and women nurses who left nursing had some similar and some different reasons for their actions. The sample consisted of 1,589 registered nurses who were employed in other occupations at the time of the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses 2000. Gender was the primary independent variable, although the vast majority of respondents in this study were female ( 93,5%). At the time of the survey , 63.2% of the respondents were working full time at their new jobs, and 36.8% were working part time. The survey consisted of a self-administered forced-choice questionnaire that included gender, participants age, working age, income, marital status, educational level and race. The results revealed that both men and women left nursing for better working hours and more rewarding positions elsewhere, and while”men nurses do not leave nursing for other occupations because of dissatisfaction with their roles as nurses, but rather because of their perceptions of the low financial rewards associated with nursing” (Rajapaksa, et al 2009, p.206).

A number of issues face majority of men who do decide to remain in nursing. These men frequently feel an emotional reaction, a role strain that might be felt by any individual in a profession which has a social formation conquered by members of the opposite sex. For those men raised in the culture of American andocentricism, not used to anti-male gender inequity, this may create discontent and anxiety. Increasingly, though, men today fill majority of leadership tasks in the nursing profession.

2.3 Table
The distribution of the studies exploring why men choose nursing as a career
Author/s and setting
Sample and sampling method
Research design/Instrument
Significant findings

Rajapaksa,S.&

Rothstein,W.

(2009)

U.S.A

aˆ?Secondary Analysis of the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses 2000,

aˆ?Sample 1.589 RNS who were employed in other occupations

aˆ?90% white,

aˆ?Age of the respondents 48.49

aˆ? Average number of years worked as an RN was 8.73 years

aˆ?The data used were the General Public Use Files,

aˆ? Self-administered forced choice questionnaire

aˆ?Three main reasons for leaving nursing:

aˆ?46% respondents stated that the working hours where more convenient in the new job,

aˆ? 47,2% found current job more rewarding,

aˆ?35% stated that they left for better salaries

Romem,P.&Anson,O.

(2005)

Israel

aˆ?260 participants, 123 male and 137 registered nurses in 3 general and 3 psychiatric hospitals during 1997-1998.

aˆ?RR 74%

aˆ?Mean age was 37

aˆ?Majority of the respondents were married

aˆ? 52-item questionnaire based on in-dept interviews with 5 male and 5 female RN

aˆ?Nursing appeals to groups out-of the stream (immigrants and ethnic minorities);

aˆ? Israeli men in nursing do not occupy leading positions in health care;

aˆ?Men are absent from the nursing

Administration.

aˆ?78% of the male in this study belong to immigrants or ethnic minority.

Sochalski,J.

(2002)

U.S.A.

aˆ?Data Analysis of 1992-2000 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses;

aˆ?The number of respondents in 2000 questionnaire was 35,579.

aˆ?R.R.71.7%

aˆ?Data from National Survey of Registered Nurses;

aˆ?Questionnaire

aˆ? New nurses at the beginning of their career show job satisfaction,

75% of women among new nurses were satisfied with their job, and only 67% men,

aˆ?7.5% of new male nurses left their job within four years,

aˆ? Male nurses are leaving profession twice the rate of women

aˆ?136,000 nurses are working in other professions.

Whittock,M.&

Leonard,L.

(2003)

U.K.

aˆ?1.Literature review on males in nursing from historical and present day perspective,

aˆ?2. Pilot study on what prevents from considering a nursing career

aˆ?30 pre registration male nurses,

30 post registration male nurses,

10 ex-nurses males.

aˆ?The sample to date 42 male nurse of different ethnicities

Mean age 33,64 years

aˆ?In dept semi-structured interview limited to 1 hour duration;

aˆ? Face to face interview

aˆ? Interviewees have expressed the view that males can be caring as females,

aˆ?They have experienced some form of caring situation, usually in family,

aˆ?School’s services are doing nothing or little to portray nursing as a possible career for young men,

aˆ?Only 14% of male are enrolling into nursing

2.5 Views of male nurses in the nursing profession
2.5.1 Introduction

Several male nurses have over time expressed their views concerning the nursing profession and in most instances they have reported undergoing a role strain. This has greatly implicated their career ambition and put a question as to whether caring is destined for them (Simpson, 2005). A qualitative study conducted by Simpson (2005), Table 2.4,in order to explore the experience of men in non-traditional occupations ,underscored from 40 in- depth interviews, that majority of men feel ” discomfort, embarrassment and shame”.

Many have reported masculinity challenges, including low pay and loss of status. Moreover, in the nursing profession, a good nurse is usually acknowledged by having attributes such as caring, subservience, compassion and kindness (Hicks, 1999). All these attributes are similar to those naturally depicted in females and thus the profession requires an individual with ‘feminine’ traits. Loughrey,M.(2007), Table 2.4 performed a quantitative, non-experimental descriptive design in order to find out the gender role perception of male nurses, for the first time, in Ireland. Following the analysis of this research, out of 104 male nurses, 78 respondents identified themselves as affectionate, sympathetic and understanding, which corresponds more to female gender roles, and that adoption of the characteristics of the female gender role may not be unusual to male nurses.

Hart, K. (2005), Table 2.4, reports on Men in Nursing Survey, that the reality that nursing is traditionally female profession is the main reason why more men aren’t attracted to the profession, according to 38% of respondents. Other key reasons cited were the stereotype that all men in nursing are gay (29 %), poor pay (15 %), and lack of role models (15%). One respondent said that many people think “a man who chooses to spend his career as a staff nurse is a failure or lacks direction”. Many others said that male nurses are perceived as men who ‘flunked’ out of medical school. (Hart, p.48). With these hard-hitting facts, men in nursing view themselves as unsuited for caring task (Wingfield, 2009).

Even more, male nurses have reported not once of being victims of homophobic abuse, some of them state that they have been called dreadful names, such as ‘you faggot this’ while providing nursing care to patients. There are even views of male nurses who feel disadvantaged in life because they decided on a female-dominated profession, which confers a lesser status upon them (McDougall, 1997).

The effect of nurse gender on nurse and patient perceptions of nurse caring were explored by Ekstrom, (1999),Table 2.4, using two matched, Likert-like, and 61 items questionnaires. The results collected from the two groups of 145 nurse-patient gender combination, indicated that caring is not particularly female quality, and that nurse caring can be performed by both genders male and female, from the nurse or the patient perspective. However, men find it difficult to demonstrate caring behaviours suggesting avoidance of self-identification with a feminine stereotype.

According to these views, it is as if humans are perpetually susceptible, incapable of handling their affairs. Undoubtedly, the preoccupation with the harms and hurts of being a male nurse appears at odds with the evidence of men’s masculinity and brisk technological advancement (Furedi, 2003).

2.4 Table
The distribution of the studies regarding the views of the male nurses in the nursing profession
Author/s and setting
Sample and sampling method
Research design/Instrument
Significant findings

Ekstrom,D.N.

(1990)

U.S.A.

aˆ?Sample of two 145 nurse-patients combinations, from 5 adult acute care medical centers;

aˆ? Random sampling of the patients,

aˆ? Mean age of female nurses 35.5

aˆ? Mean age of male nurse 36.3,

aˆ?Patients had a mean age of 46.4 with a range of 19-82 years.

aˆ? Two 61 items-matched Likert like questionnaires:

1. The nurse caring questionnaire,

2.The patient caring questionnaire

Introduction

Medical marijuana or medical cannabis can be defined as the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Marijuana itself is a drug that comes from the cut and dried leaves of hemp plant also referred to as cannabis sativa. Its most active ingredient is delta tetrahydrocannibinol. Throughout history marijuana has been used in many different cultures to change perception, mood and consciousness. Its effects range from provoking mystical experiences to the increment of creativity. It comes second from alcohol in the list of recreational drugs. Around the globe, it has been used for many purposes. For example in the primitive tribes of South America India and Africa it is used for religious and ceremonies and also for some medical purposes. For instance the African mine workers used it in easing the drudgery of their work while the Jamaicans used it in the evenings to ease or relieved their fatigue. The ancient Persians, Greeks, East Indians, Assyrians and Romans used marijuana as the drug for controlling reducing muscles spasms, treating indigestion and the reduction of pain (Roth Rebecca 1). There are two sides on the issue of legalization of marijuana and each side has a multitude of reasons as to why medical marijuana should be legalized. This leaves one unsure of which side is credible.

Reasons as to why medical marijuana should not be legalized.

There are some reasons as to why the some people in the society are refuting the legalization of medical marijuana. One of the reasons is that medical marijuana is perceived to be addictive in many countries. For example in the united states of America the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 classified marijuana as a schedule 1 drug on basis that it contained high potential for abuse. This was propelled by the perception that people who consume it usually get hooked up therefore becoming potheads and the drug eventually dominates their lives. They also believe that the frequent overuse of the drug can lead to lethargic behaviors or even serious health problems. Addiction is brought by the fact that there is a possibility that someone treated for chronic periods of time for a constant pain will eventually become more dependent on the drug. He will also require high amounts than before. This addiction may lead to death due to respiratory failure.

Another reason as to why some people are against the legalization of the medical marijuana is because they hold the idea that it has no accepted medical use. For example marijuana may yield considerable medical benefits for many patients with ailments such as cancer and glaucoma but these benefits have not been universally accepted both nationally and internationally. Another reason as to why many people are opposing this initiative is that it is historically linked to narcotics such as cocaine and heroine. For example in America the early anti-drug laws were stipulated so that they may regulate narcotics which included opium and its derivatives such morphine and heroine. These anti-drug laws also regulated marijuana although it is not a narcotic. The other reason is that some people believe that marijuana as a drug is associated with unfashionable styles. This is because often many people have taken marijuana to be the drug for losers and hippies. They feel that its legalization will lead to increased number of losers and hippies and therefore imposing of criminal sanctions against people who are found to be in possession of marijuana is perceived to a form of communal protection “or tough love.”

Some people who are opposing the legalization of medical marijuana feel that there is no enough evidence to show that the drugs cure disease. In some countries (Holland and Amsterdam) where medical marijuana is considered to be illegal, it is assumed that marijuana can not be used for medical purposes because of some harmful effect brought about by its use. For example it is assumed that it affects the skills required for one to drive safely because it lowers alertness or the ability to concentrate, ability to react quickly and personal coordination. It also affects the driving skills by making it difficult for one to react to signals, sounds on the road and judge distances. Other harmful consequence of marinol drug which is made from marijuana include premature cancer, mental disorders such as depression, increased aggressiveness and hostility, memory loss, general apathy impairment of the immune system and the reproductive disabilities. For example scientific studies indicate that marijuana weakens the immune system of people suffering from AIDS for it is estimated that marijuana smokers who are HIV positive progress to the full blown aids twice as fast as the non-smokers.

Opposers of legalization of the medical marijuana also believe that legalizing of the drug will lead to increased access to marijuana for the young population who are most likely to be damaged by the drug use. They also argue that there are many other drugs which can be used in the treatment of the same diseases. Therefore, the use of marijuana for medical purposes is uncalled for. The opposers continue to assert that it is harmful because it is an unstable mixture made up of more those 425 chemicals which usually convert to thousands especially when it is being smoked (Marijuana.com 1)

Reasons as to why medical marijuana should be legalized.

A raging debate has ensued about the legalization of the marijuana medicine. The proponents of the legalization of marijuana believe that marijuana should be moved to a schedule II drug so that it can be useful to a point that it can be prescribed by a doctor. They also believe that it doesn’t cause some health problems like those caused by alcohol or tobacco such as strong addiction, cancer, heart problems, birth defects liver damage and emphysema. They also believe that death from an overdose is impossible. A study carried out by the UCLA school of medicine which featured 243 marijuana smokers over 8 years of smoking has shown that neither the intermitted nor the continuing marijuana smokers showed any declining rates in the lung function compared to the people who have never smoked marijuana (Barry 1).

Many proponents also believe that many people are arrested and charged when they take marijuana for treatment since many people would rather face the law that die of certain diseases which can be remedied by marijuana. They also assert that scientific and medical tests dating back to thousand of years point to the medical properties of cannabis. They also state that thousands of doctors, patients and their families have also have also witnessed the medical benefits of marijuana because they have told other through testimonies in public hearing and also in the mass media. They have also contributed to books and even research studies on the drug. The proponents claim that the phenomenon (use of marijuana for medical purposes) is real and those who say the evidence is not sufficient are missing the point. They also argue that the evidence is enough for one to declare that there is no any valuable reason as to why medical patients who use marijuana for legitimate medical reason should be subjected to arrest, jails, public embarrassment and fines. They argue that the decisions about the use or purposes of marijuana lie in the hand s of doctors and patients.

Some countries or states have legalized and others are pushing for the legalization of medical marijuana because of its positive attributes which include the medical value and its use as a recreational drug accompanied by relatively mild side effects. Many people believe that it’s a good treatment of some ailments. For example it provide the relief in pain, spasticity, nausea and many other symptoms which have not been successfully been treated with conventional medications. This is evident from the State of California whereby the smoking of marijuana has effectively been used in the relieving of chronic HIV associated nerve pains which were characterized by aching, burning and painful numbness. The patients were advised to smoke marijuana at least three times a day so that they can do away with the pain. People say it helps cancer patients because they believe it can stimulate appetite therefore alleviating the vomiting and nausea associated with the chemotherapy procedures (Sanfranciscocannabisclubs.com 1).

It is also argued that marijuana offers a mild and moderate way of relaxing unlike alcohol which has some of the vices associated with it such as frequent urination, nausea and at times vomiting especially when the individual had not taken some food before drinking taking it. After personal observations done by many people it is said that marijuana can be a good choice of drug because it has relatively low dependence liability and it is a little bit easier to control its side effects compared to the other drugs. It is believed that most of the marijuana users mainly develop tolerance to the drug’s side effects and those who do not then stop using the drug with an immediate effect (Alternet.org 1).

Conclusively, legalization of marijuana is a hotly contested debate between the opposers and proposers. Each side has got a multitude of reasons to support its respective stand and this creates an evenly balanced debate. Some of the medical reasons cited by one side are a counter to the reasons put forward by the other side. This creates a quagmire regarding the whole issue as one is unsure of which side is more credible.

Works cited

Sanfranciscocannabisclubs.com. The Medical Marijuana Guide, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.sanfranciscocannabisclubs.com/medical-marijuana/ The source talks about the diseases which can be treated through the use of marijuana as the medicine

Roth, Rebecca. Medical Marijuana, 2008. Retrieved from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1901 This source talks about the history of marijuana a and how it was used the past or its main uses.

Alternet.org. The Top Ten Reasons Marijuana Should Be Legal, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/drugs/60959/ The article gives some of the reasons as to why there should be the legalization of the medical marijuana

Marijuana.com. Marijuana should not be legal because, 2000. Retrieved from http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/1004-marijuana-should-not-legal-because.html The article gives some of the reasons as to why some people do not support the legalization of medical marijuana

Barry, Ian. Legalize marijuana, 2009. Retrieved from http://blog.sanonofre.com/2009/06/ian-barry-teen-pot-essay.html The article gives some of the examples of the fact that marijuana is not harmful and also explains why medical marijuana should be legalized.

Medicalization is term for the erroneous tendency by society-often perpetuated by health professionals to view effects of socioeconomic disadvantage as purely medical issues. It is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions and problems, and thus come under the authority of doctors and other health professionals to study, diagnose, prevent or treat. The process of medicalization can be driven by new evidence or theories about conditions, or by developments in social attitudes or economic considerations, or by the development of new purported treatments. Medicalization is often claimed to bring benefits, but also costs, which may not always be clear. Medicalization is studied in terms of the role and power of professions, patients and corporations, and also for its implications for ordinary people whose self-identity and life-decisions may depend on the prevailing concepts of health and illness. Once a condition is classed as medical, a medical tends to be used rather than a social model. Medicalization may also be termed pathologization (from pathology), or in some cases disease mongering.

The concept of medicalization has educated the sociology of health and illness for many years now. Typically, it has been deliberated and examined with critical nuance, though some key thinkers within the discipline have suggested that it is not unequivocally negative. Conrad criticised and disputed that the development and growth of medical authority into domains of everyday existence was promoted by doctors and was a force of social control that was to be rejected in the name of liberation (Conrad 1973). Medicalization “describes a process by which non-medical problems become defined and treated as medical problems, usually in terms of illness or disorders” (Gabe et al. 2004:59) and likewise be simply classified as a procedure of increased medical intervention into areas which would more often than not be outside of the medical province.

The term medicalization entered academic and medical publications in the 1970s, for example in the works of figures such as Peter Conrad and Thomas Szasz. They argued that the expansion of medical authority into domains of everyday existence was promoted by doctors and was a force of social control that was to be rejected in the name of liberation. This critique was embodied in now-classic works such as Conrad’s “The discovery of hyperkinesis: notes on medicalization of deviance,” published in 1973 (hyperkinesis was the term then used to describe what we might now call ADHD).

Medicalization explains a situation which had been previously explained in a moral, religious or social terms now become defined as the subject of medical and scientific knowledge.

Many years ago for example some children were deemed and regarded as problematic, misbehaving and unruly. Some adults were shy and men who were balding just wore hats to hide it. And that was that. Nevertheless, nowadays all these descriptions could and possibly would be attributed to a type of illness or disease and be given a diagnosis or medicine to treat it in some cases. Medicalization explains this. Likewise, “medicalization has been applied to a whole variety of problems that have come to be defined as medial, ranging from childbirth and the menopause through to alcoholism and homosexuality (Gabe et al. 2006: 59). Furthermore, the term explains the process in where particular characteristics of every day life become medically explained, thus come under the authority of doctors and other health professionals to study, diagnose, prevent and or treat the problem.

Originally, the concept of medicalisation was strongly associated with medical dominance, involving the extension of medicine’s jurisdiction over erstwhile ‘normal’ life events and experiences. More recently, however, this view of a docile lay populace, in thrall to expansionist medicine, has been challenged. Thus, as we enter a post-modern era, with increased concerns over risk and a decline in the trust of expert authority, many sociologists argue that the modern day ‘consumer’ of healthcare plays an active role in bringing about or resisting medicalisation. Such participation, however, can be problematic as healthcare consumers become increasingly aware of the risks and uncertainty surrounding many medical choices. The emergence of the modern day consumer not only raises questions about the notion of medicalisation as a uni-dimensional concept, but also requires consideration of the specific social contexts in which medicalisation occurs. In this paper, we describe how the concept of medicalisation is presented in the literature, outlining different accounts of agency that shape the process. We suggest that some earlier accounts of medicalisation over-emphasized the medical profession’s imperialistic tendencies and often underplayed the benefits of medicine. With consideration of the social context in which medicalisation, or its converse, arises, we argue that medicalisation is a much more complex, ambiguous, and contested process than the ‘medicalisation thesis’ of the 1970s implied. In particular, as we enter a post-modern era, conceptualizing medicalisation as a uni-dimensional, uniform process or as the result of medical dominance alone is clearly insufficient. Indeed, if, as Conrad and Schneider (1992) suggested, medicalisation was linked to the rise of rationalism and science (ie to modernity), and if we are experiencing the passing of modernity, we might expect to see a decrease in medicalisation.

The idea of medicalization is perhaps “related only indirectly to social constructionanism, in that it does not question the basis of medical knowledge as such, but challenges its application”. Nettleton continues and states that is “draws attention to the fact that medicine operates as a powerful institution of social control” (Nettleton 2006: 25). It does this by claiming expertise in areas in life which previously were not regarded as medical problems or matters. This includes such life stages such as ageing, childbirth, alcohol consumption and childhood behaviour moreover, the “availability of new pharmacological treatments and genetic testing intensifies these processesaˆ¦ thus it constructs, or redefines, aspects of normal life as medical problems”. (Conrad and Schneider 1990 as cited in Nettleton 2006: 25).

Medicalization can occur on three different and particular levels according to Conrad and Schneider (1980). The first was explained as “conceptually when a medical vocabulary is used to define a problem”. In some instances, doctors do not have to be involved and an example if this is AA.

The second was the institutional level, “institutionally, when organizations adopt a medical approach to treating a problem in which they specialise” and the third was “at the level of doctor – patient interaction when a problem is defined as a medical and medical treatment occurs” (as cited in Gabe et al 2004:59). These examples all involve doctors and their treatments directly, not including alcoholism which has other figures to help people such as the AA.

The third level was the “interactional level” and this was where the problem, social problem, becomes defined as medical and medicalization occurs as part of a doctor-patient interaction.

Medicalization shows the shifting ideas about health and illness. Health and illness does not only include such things as influenza or the cold, but deviant behaviours. Deviant behaviours which were once merely described as criminal, immoral or naughty before have now been labelled with medical meanings. Conrad and Schneider “five-staged sequential process” of medicalizing deviant behaviour.

Stage one involves the behaviour itself as being deviant. ‘Chronic drunkenness’ was regarded merely as “highly undesirable”, before it was medically labelled as ‘chronic drunkenness’. The second stage “occurs when the medical conception of a deviant behaviour is announced in a professional medical journey” according to Conrad and Schneider.

A prominent thinker in the idea of medicalization was Ivan Illich, who studied it profusely and was very influential, in fact being one of the earliest philosophers to use the term “medicalization”. Illich’s appraisal of professional medicine and particularly his use of the term medicalization lead him to become very influential within the discipline and is quoted to have said that “Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn’t organized to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.”

Illich attributed medicalization “to the increasing professionalization and bureaucratization of medical institutions associated with industrialization” (Gabe et al 2004: 61). He supposed that due to the development of modern medicine, it created a reliance on medicine and doctors thus taking away peoples ability to look after themselves and “engage in self care”.

In his book “Limits to medicine: Medical nemesis” (1975) Illich disputed that the medical profession in point of fact harms people in a process known as ‘iatrogenesis’. This can be elucidated as when there is an increase in illness and social problems as a direct result of medical intervention. Illich saw this occurring on three levels.

The first was the clinical iatrogenesis. These involved serious side-effects which were are often worse than the original condition. The negative effects of the clinical intervention outweighed the positive and it also conveyed the dangers of modern medicine. There were negative side effects of medicine and drugs, which included poisoning people. In addition, infections which could be caught in the hospital such as MRSA and errors caused my medical negligence.

The second level was the social iatrogenesis whereby the general public is made submissive and reliant on the medical profession to help them cope with their life in society. Furthermore all suffering is hospitalised and medicine undermines health indirectly because of its impact on social organisation of society. In the process people cease to give birth, for example, be sick or die at home

And the third level is cultural iatrogenesis, which can also be referred to as the structural. This is where life processes such as aging and dying become “medicalized” which in the process creates a society which is not able to deal with natural life process thus becoming a culture of dependence. Moreover, people are dispossessed of their ability to cope with pain or bereavement for example as people rely on medicine and professionals. (Illick 1975)

Sociologists such as Ehrenreich and English had argued that women’s bodies were being medicalized. Menstruation and pregnancy had come to be seen as medical problems requiring interventions such as hysterectomies. Nettleton furthered this notion and discussed this in relation to childbirth. The Medicalization of childbirth is as a result of professional dominance. She stated that “the control of pregnancy and childbirth has been taken over by a predominantly male medical profession”.

Medicine can thus be regarded as patriarchal and exercising an undue social control over women’s lives. From conception to the birth of the baby, the women are closely monitored thus medical monitoring and intervention in pregnancy & childbirth are now routine processes. Childbirth is classified as a ‘medical problem’ therefore “it becomes conceptualized in terms of clinical safety, and women are encouraged to have their babies in hospitals”. This consequently results in women being dependent on medical care.

Nevertheless recent studies and evidence have shown that it may actually be safer to have babies at home because “there would have been less susceptible to infection and technocological interference” (Oakley 1884, as cited in Nettleton 2006: 26)

“Medicalization combines phenomenological and Marxist approaches of health and illnessaˆ¦ in that it considers definitions of illness to be products of social interactions or negotiations which are inherently unequal” (Nettleton 2006: 26). Marxism discussed medicalization and linked it with oppression, arguing that medicine can disguise the underlying causes of disease which include poverty and social inequality. In the process they see health as an individual problem, rather than a society’s problem.

Medicalization is studied in terms of the role and power of professions, patients and corporations, and also for its implications for ordinary people whose self-identity and life-decisions may depend on the prevailing concepts of health and illness. Once a condition is classed as medical, a medical model of disability tends to be used rather than a social model. “It constructs, or redefines, aspects of normal life as medical problems” (Nettleton 2006: 26).

Medicalization has been referred to as “the processes by which social phenomena come to be perceived and treated as illnesses”. It is the process in by issues and experiences that have previously been accounted for in religious, moral, or social contexts then become defined as the subject of scientific medical knowledge.

The idea itself questions the belief that physical conditions themselves constitute an illness. It argues that the classification and identification of diseases is socially constructed and. It has been suggested that medicine is seen as being instilled with subjective assumptions of the society in which it developed. Moreover, it argues that the classification and identification of diseases is socially constructed and, along with the rest of science, is far from achieving the ideals of objectivity and neutrality. The medical thesis “has much to recommendaˆ¦including the creation of new understanding of the social processes involved in the development and response to medical diagnosis and treatment”

To understand the level of social power that the medical community exercises through medicalization, Conrad explains that physicians have medicalized social deviance. They accomplish this by claiming the medical basis of matters such as hyperactivity, madness, alcoholism and compulsive gambling [Conrad, p 107]. By medicalizing social matters, medical professionals have the power to legitimize negative social behavior, such as the case of suspected killers in judicial courts who claim temporary insanity and are, therefore, exonerated on medical basis [Conrad, p 111]. In extending this concept, the Endocrine Society may have medicalized social deviance in men who reduce their work motivation or become characteristically unpleasant because they are experiencing andropause. In effect, despondency in older men might become an indicator of male menopause rather than a possible indicator of social deviance.

Physicians also play a direct and significant role in the medicalization of social experiences. In analyzing the doctor-patient interaction of medicalization, Kaw argues that medical professionals have medicalized racial features by encouraging cosmetic surgery among Asian American women, for example, in order to avoid the stereotypical physical features of “small” and “slanty” eyes that are often associated with passivity, dullness and lack of sociability [Kaw, p 75]. Kaw asserts that plastic surgeons use medical terms to “problematize the shape of their eyes so as to define it as a medical condition [Kaw, p 81].” Their use of technical terms and expressions should be questioned, especially since the power of such language influences Asian American women to pursue cosmetic surgery, when it is not necessary [Kaw, p 82]. Analogously, the Endocrine Society medicalized testosterone deficiency by defining it as Andropause; this helped perpetuate the notion, among older individuals, that if they lack sexual drive or sense depression and fatigue, they should seek medical attention because they are experiencing an acute medical condition rather than a stage in the physiological cycle.

The role played by the health care structures in medicalizing conditions is enhanced by that of the pharmaceutical industry. In order to achieve implementation of a drug in the market, the medicalization of a problem is critical [Conrad, p 111]. Once a medical definition for male menopause was established, the pharmaceutical company further medicalized the problem by launching strong advertisement campaigns aimed at older men and physicians alike, so as to popularize the drug among the general public and medical community [Groopman, 2002]. In a Time magazine advertisement, the industry appealed to the emotions of older men by linking “low sex drive” to the decline of testosterone levels rather than to a life process [Groopman 2002].” In this manner, the pharmaceutical industries’ profit based ideology facilitates the medicalization of testosterone deficiency by popularizing conditions that may be exceedingly common among health product consumers.

Medicalization also changes patients’ ideologies of biomedicine and leads them to believe that biomedicine must not only offer cure for illnesses, but also offer life enhancements. Similar to the way that impotence and hair loss was medicalized by promoting drugs like Viagra to enhance sexual performance, and solutions like Rogaine for hair re-growth, male menopause has been medicalized because it causes low “sex drive” among other general symptoms [Groopman, 2002]. As a consequence, older men will opt to not only seek but demand life enhancements achievable through medicine disregarding the fact that such treatments can be detrimental to health. In fact, Groopman states that known side effect of testosterone therapy include abnormal enlargement of the breasts, testicular shrinkage, congestive heart failure and enlargement of the prostate gland [Groopman, 2002]. Medicalizing a problem can be harmful and deadly, yet medical professionals perpetuate this dangerous behavior by medicalizing conditions that patients may seek to treat for their personal “wellbeing”

It is important to realize that medicalization is not merely the result of “medical imperialism” but rather the interactive process that involves society and the health community; [Conrad, p 115]. It includes patients and doctors alike. Nonetheless, awareness of the mechanisms by which the medical community affects society is important because medicine pertains to all health consumers. Male menopause only serves as one of the many examples of life experiences that have become medicalized by the healthcare community.

Concluding this essay, the concept of medicalization started with the medical dominance which involved the increase of medicine’s influence and labelling over things regarded as ‘normal’ life events and experiences. However in recent time, this view of a submissive lay populace, in thrall to expansionist medicine, has been challenged. As a consequence, as we enter a post-modern era, with increased concerns over risk and a decline in the trust of expert authority, many sociologists argue “that the modern day ‘consumer’ of healthcare plays an active role in bringing about or resisting medicalization”. Furthermore “Such participationaˆ¦can be problematic as healthcare consumers become increasingly aware of the risks and uncertainty surrounding many medical choices”. Moreover “the emergence of the modern day consumer not only raises questions about the notion of medicalisation as a uni-dimensional concept, but also requires consideration of the specific social contexts in which medicalisation occurs” (Ballard and Elston 2005). In addition they suggest that as we enter a post-modern era, conceptualizing medicalisation as a uni-dimensional or as the result of medical dominance primarily is insufficient.

The above statistics alone should immediately indicate that the negative effects of media violence on the minds of young people cannot help but be substantial, and may in fact lead to social violence on the part of those exposed. However, the fact is that even after decades of ongoing research, there remains a debate as to whether media violence substantially contributes to social violence (Haugen & Musser, 2008).

To provide context to the ongoing debate, it is helpful to first define the two key terms discussed in this essay, namely ‘media violence’ and ‘social violence.’ As noted by North, Wallis and Weingast (2009), the term ‘social violence’ technically refers to violent activities engaged in by people as a group. This would include violence associated with riots, revolutions, and gang warfare. However, for the purposes of this essay, the term is defined far more broadly as behavior that is aggressive and/or abusive and which results in, or has the potential to result in, some form of injury to one or more others. This is the definition used in most of the existing studies of media violence and social violence.

Haugen and Musser (2008) note that there are differing views as to what precisely is meant by the term ‘media violence,’ but that typically it refers to various gradations of violence presented by differing forms of electronic or film media such as television programs, computer games, and movies. The gradations considered to be within the domain of media violence can and do differ from research study to research study. However, the authors inform that a good deal of the decades long debate over media violence and social violence is more political than scientific.

Specifically, Haugen and Musser (2008) state that there are two schools of sociopolitical thought as to whether or not media violence actually causes real-life violence—–and these are both trying to use research on media violence to advance their particular perspective. One school of thought blames media violence for social violence and wants to censor certain content in order to protect children. The other side views censorship, even if relatively weak in scope, as a slippery slope to increasingly levels of censorship not only of violence but many other types of expressions within society. It is important to keep this in mind when evaluating the existing research.

It can be noted here that the central thesis of this paper is that there is sufficient evidence of a substantial relationship between media violence and social violence; however, social violence is multi-causal and media violence is likely to exert maximal effects if additional causal and contributory factors are operative. This thesis is supported in this paper by an extensive review of the existing research on media violence demonstrating exposure to be followed by engagement in antisocial behavior and aggression.

The Connection Between Media Violence and Social Violence
Effects on Children and Adolescents

Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis (2005) compiled a comprehensive review of the literature on the effects of media violence on the social violence and aggression of both children and adolescents using the findings of five meta-analytic reviews and one quasi-systematic review, all of which were from North America. The studies covered television violence, film violence, and video and computer game violence. Some of the most important of their findings were:

1. In the average home, children’s television programming exposes a child to 20 to 25 violent actions each hour; moreover, violent offenders in children’s programming sometimes go without punishment and the offenders themselves seldom show any remorse for the violence.

2. During both childhood and adolescence, the amount of time watching television violence is positively related to several antisocial behaviors such as threatening aggression, assault or physical fights resulting in injury, and to robbery.

In general, the review presented by Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis (2005) led the authors to conclude that violent images in the media can substantially affect children and adolescents’ thoughts and emotions in a manner that makes them both more fearful and more aggressive. Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis also reported that several other factors figure into the commission of social violence which makes the link between social violence and media violence significant but small. However, they point out that the effect sizes observed in meta-analytic studies of media violence and subsequent social violence show that even this small relationship exerts a substantial effect on the general public health in terms of the consequences of social violence to the victim and to the families of both the victim and the perpetrator of the violence.

Regarding the point made by Hamilton-Giachritsis (2005), it is helpful to briefly look at the statistics associated with social violence. In this regard, Santamour (2008) reports that acts of violence are associated with heavy human and economic costs. In his study, Santamour examined violence-related hospitalizations in the United States. He observed that hospital costs as a result of social violence totaled $2.3 billion dollars per year and were primarily the result of assaults and/or physical and emotional abuse. A clear gender difference was also noted which Santamour reports as follows:

Boys and men accounted for 82.4 percent of hospital stays resulting from assaults; girls and women accounted for 63.9 percent related to maltreatment and 58.5 percent resulting from self-inflicted violence. Young adults, 18 to 44 years old, made up 68.3 percent of assault-related stays and 62 percent associated with self-inflicted violence. (p. 1)

When considering that media violence contributes to statistics such as these, it is difficult to think of any connection between it and social violence is weak.

In another study of media violence and social violence, Bushman and Huesmann (2006) found that exposure to media violence was positively related to aggressive behavior, anger, and aggressive ideas in children, teens, and adults. It was also found that media violence had a negative effect on the helping behaviors of all groups, making them far less likely to help others in need. However, it was also found that the group most vulnerable to the effects of media violence were young children. This was said to be because young children were more easily impressionable; also, they had a harder time telling the difference between fantasy and reality. In addition, young children learn best by observing and then imitating behavior, making them more apt to engage in violent behavior.

Adding to the idea that media violence is directly related to social violence, Haugen and Musser (2008) report that the connection between media violence and social violence has already been accepted as fairly substantial by six major medical groups. These groups are the: American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association. Further, the authors also noted that each of these medical organizations hold that media violence leads children to increase their levels of antisocial behavior and to become less sensitive to violence as well as victims of violence.

Haugen and Musser (2008) also states that these medical groups warn that children exposed to long-term and frequent media violence are likely to develop a view of the world as violent and mean and to become more fearful of being a victim of the world’s violence than children who are not exposed to frequent/long-term media violence. Even more alarming is that the children who are exposed to frequent media violence over a lengthy period of time often show a desire to see yet more violence in their entertainment as well as in real life, and they come to see violence as a legitimate way to settle conflicts. These desires and attitudes, in turn, make them more likely to engage in social violence both as children and as adolescents and, in some cases, even as adults.

The foregoing literature provides fairly strong support for the idea that even a weak causal contribution between media violence and social violence can be viewed as substantial in terms of its costs and its escalating effects on people over time. However, this effect does have to be considered in light of all of the factors that drive people to commit violent acts against others. The next section of this essay considers the effects of media violence in relation to the other contributors of social violence.

Multifactorial Nature of Social Violence and Contribution of Media Violence

Kirsh (2006) reports that many factors are involved in the commission of social violence and as just demonstrated in the above review, one of these factors is media violence. However, its effects can vary depending upon the manner in which the violence is presented. If the violence presented in the media lacks consequences and/or is justified, and/or is associated with reward, it can have a very negative effect on children and teens, making them more likely to engage in such behavior. However, if the presented media violence shows that the offender is punished for the violence, then it can lessen children’s tendencies toward aggressive behavior.

In addition, the type of character or personality that engages in the presented violence can also have an effect. According to Kirsh (2006), if the violence is undertaken by an attractive person or by a charismatic hero——and the child or adolescent identifies with the perpetrator—–then it is likely that the negative effect of the violence will be stronger, making the viewer more likely to engage in similar behavior. Furthermore, Kirsh reports that if the child’s full attention is focused on the screen presenting the violence with minimal or no distractions breaking this focus, the impact will be greater. Finally, if the child views the show and its violence as realistic and reflective of ‘real life,’ then the effects will be stronger.

In what is now considered a ‘seminal study of media violence,’ the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Surgeon General (2001) concluded that there is a relationship between media violence and some social violence including homicide, forcible rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. However, it was also noted that there is a problem with the research that makes knowing whether there is a causal connection between media violence and social violence difficult to scientifically report. Regarding the nature of the problem, it is stated that:

Although there is clear scientific evidence of a correlation between exposure to media violence and some violent behaviors, randomized experiments-the research methodology best suited to determining causality-cannot ethically be used in studies of violent behavior. (p. 1)

It was stated that the best that could be done is to study the effects of media violence and how it affects certain aggressive behaviors in children and adolescence. These studies were said to provide at least indirect evidence of causality. For example, the Surgeon General (2001) reports that longitudinal studies reliably show that if children are exposed to media violence, as they grow older they become more likely to exhibit aggressiveness due to the increase in the amount of media violence exposure. This connection makes it seem very reasonable to believe that there is also some causal contribution of media violence to social violence in various forms of violent antisocial behavior and crime.

But if there is a causal connection, how strong is it and what other factors also contribute to social violence? According to the Surgeon General’s (2001) early study of youth violence, as well as a more recent study by Coyne (2007), what makes media violence likely to impact on any given child is its relationship to a host of several social violence risk factors. These risk factors include: individual risk factors; family risk factors; school risk factors; peer group risk factors; and neighborhood and community risk factors. Specifically, to the extent that one or more of these factors is present in a child’s life, they are likely to make the child more prone to both violent behavior as well as the negative effects of media violence.

The social violence risk factors discussed by both the Surgeon General (2001) and Coyne (2007) can be delineated as follows:

1. Individual factors – A child and/or adolescent is most likely to be at risk for the negative effects of media violence and social violence if the child is male, if there is substance use, if the child’s personality or temperament is already somewhat aggressive possibly as a result of a health condition such as hyperactivity, if the IQ is low, and if the child is generally antisocial in attitudes and beliefs. One point that can be noted here is that the Council on Communications and Media (2009) states that individual factors can also protect a child from the negative effects of media violence. These protective factors include the child having a high IQ, and a positive social orientation. Further, if the child shows a low tolerance for deviance and views transgressions as usually punished, this also would reduce or even eradicate any negative effects of media violence.

2. Neighborhood and Community Factors – Living in a deteriorating community or neighborhood can put a child or adolescent more at risk for the negative effects of media violence. For example, poor neighborhoods where drugs and gangs are present increase the risk. High crime areas also place a child at risk for social violence that is exacerbated by exposure to media violence.

3. Family Risk Factors – If the child’s family is poor, he or she is more at risk for the negative effects of media violence. If his/her parents are antisocial and/or have a poor relationship with the child, these factors can also increase the risk. Other family factors that place children at risk for the negative effects of media violence include: parental separation (broken home), abusive parents, neglect, harsh discipline and/or a lack of discipline, poor mental health of parents, and the presence of a good deal of conflict in the home.

As with individual factors, there are some familial/parental factors that can give the child some protection from the negative effects of media violence (as well as other forms of violence). According to Ferguson, San Miguel and Hartley (2009), these protective family factors include having good relationships with parents, and positive evaluations from peers. Steady and consistent, but not overly harsh, parental monitoring and discipline can also be protective.

4. School Factors – How a child feels about school can also affect the impact of media violence on the child. If his or her attitude is positive, the child will be less likely to be impacted; but if the attitude is negative, the risk is increased. Academic performance operates in a similar manner. School failure and low grades make a child more vulnerable to the negative effects of media violence, while good school performance has the opposite effects. Lee and Kim (2004) points out that one of the strongest school risk factors is bullying. If a child is bullied, he becomes very vulnerable to seeing some form of retributive violence as the answer to his problem and this tendency can be strongly exacerbated by media violence.

5. Peer Risk Factors – The nature of a child or adolescent’s peers can have a significant impact on the effects of media violence. If the child has strong ties to antisocial peers, then the impact is more negative. However, if most of the child’s friends behave in prosocial ways, then this will act as a protective factor.

Media Violence and Crime

The foregoing section of the review indicated that media violence operates conjointly with other factors to elevate a child’s risk for social violence. However, there are many forms of social violence, one of which is violent crime. This section of the essay examines the question: Is media violence directly related to the commission of violent crime? According to Coyne (2007), while many studies of media violence and violent crime do show at least a weak connection, they suffer from the fact that they are, in large part, laboratory-based investigations. Furthermore, such studies primarily rest on studies of aggressive urges or tendencies rather than examining real criminal behavior to see if those engaging in it have a history of watching violence in the media.

Coyne (2007) attempted to remedy the forgoing problem by examining longitudinal research with offender populations. It was stated that, “When integrated with other long-term studies on the development of crime, it is concluded that the link between media violence and crime is weak after other environmental factors are taken into account.” However, the fact remains that until there can be some good control for other contributors to criminal violence, it will remain difficult to know the extent to which there is a direct causal relationship between media violence and criminal violence. Failure to definitively establish a causal link is due to the fact that in studies which are significant statistically, these other factors often act as confounding variables. Nonetheless, it seems reasonable to state that the ongoing, now decades long, findings of elevations in aggressiveness in relation to media violence strongly suggest that there may be more than a weak connection.

Conclusions

The central thesis of this essay was that media violence substantially contributes to social violence where social violence was defined in the broad sense of aggressive and/or antisocial behavior that results in or can result in injury to one or more others. The key question that must be asked is whether the reviewed literature on media violence supported this thesis?

The answer to the above question is somewhat complex. The literature clearly indicated that media violence can lead to children and adolescents engaging in aggression and violent behavior. Moreover, it also showed that the degree to which said behavior is engaged in can differ depending on length of media violence exposure. The reviewed literature also demonstrated that the nature of the violence presentation and the strength of distracted focus can both operate to make it more likely that social violence will be engaged in by children and/or adolescents. This indicates that there is a real effect being exerted by media violence on children. However this conclusion needs some modification.

Social violence, as defined in this essay, is multi-determined which means that there are many contributors which, taken together or in part, operate to make a child and/or adolescent engage in social violence. Media violence is one of these and indications are that it can substantially contribute to social violence in the sense that it exacerbates the effects on social violence caused by other factors such as having conflict in the family, living in a gang ridden and poor neighborhood, doing poorly in school, and so forth. Media violence not only exerts a substantial contribution to social violence in this manner, it also exerts an effect in terms of the negative outcomes of social violence on the lives of the people who are involved in it. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that based on all of the reviewed findings, media violence does exert a substantial effect on social violence even though it is not the only contributor.

(Part B): Evaluate the usefulness of Durkheims concept of the sacred for understanding important forms of meaning and value in contemporary society. Emile Durkheim was a French positive sociologist and structural functionalist. During his lifetime, he devoted himself to studies and research on sociological phenomena including religion (The Elementary Forms of The Religious Life), suicide (Suicide), crime (On the Normality of Crime) and war (Who Wanted War?). This paper will concentrate on how the Durkheimian concept of the sacred (as opposed to the profane in his dichotomy) should be evaluated in the modern society and its impact on contemporary academic research and discussion. Therefore, I will deal with the following issues respectively:

The Durkheimian definition of the sacred: the sacred-profane dichotomy;

The value of the concept of the sacred and critique;

The sacred since Durkheim: recent development and perspectives.

The Durkheimian definition of the sacred: the sacred-profane dichotomy

At the beginning of his manoeuvre The Elementary Forms of The Religious Life, Durkheim proposed a theory of religion based on a sacred-profane opposition, which consists of the separation of different aspects of social life, tangible objects and human behaviours into two antithetical broad categories. Focusing on the concept of the sacred alone, Durkheim defined it as ‘things set apart’, more precisely, as “fundamental forms of power, meaning and purity qualitatively different to other aspects of social life”. Hence, it seems that the profane is defined in a residual way, as the absence of the opposite of the sacred. He then formulated a radical argument that such dualism is present in all known religious beliefs. Therefore, it appears that the dualist theory lies at the heart of any religious belief and without it, no religion can ever come into existence: “Religious beliefs are those representations that express the nature of sacred things and the relations they have with other sacred things or with profane things aˆ¦ rites are rules of conduct that prescribe how man must conduct himself with sacred things”. Thereby, the sacred is the only phenomenon capable of uniting all religions.

It is interesting to compare the “scared” of Durkheim with the “holy” in the eyes of Rudolf Otto, author of The Idea of the Holy (1917). According to Otto, the holy is rooted in people’s emotional attachments and apprehension of something indefinitely superior. In contrast, the Durkheimian sacred is an utterly “fluid”, unimaginable or unthinkable concept, which might include anything: after all, what truly distinguishes the sacred from the profane is a social act of separation or division: “The soldier who fall defending his flag certainly does not believe he has sacrificed himself to a piece of cloth”.

Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the concept of the sacred remains highly ambiguous. It is clear that the sacred cannot be simply replaced by “the divine”, the “pure” or “the good”. Rather, Durkheim referred to another aspect of the sacred encompassing “misfortune, anything that is ominous, and anything that motivates feelings of disquiet or fear” and even “evil and impure powers, bringers of disorder, causes of death and sickness, instigators of sacrilege”. Hence, the antithetical concepts such as the fortunate and the unfortunate, the pure and the impure are both constituting elements of sacredness. Furthermore, Durkheim observed that the borderline between these different facets of sacredness was blurred, but did not feel any necessity of reconciling the conflicting aspects, since “[The] two poles of religious life correspond to the two opposite states through which all social life passes. There is the same contrast between the lucky and the unlucky sacred as between the states of collective euphoria and dysphoria.”

The value of the concept of the sacred and critique

Significance of the concept of the sacred

By grounding on the division between the sacred and the profane, Durkheim elaborated the Australian totemism which is recognised as one of the most primitive religions: “Totemism places figurative representations of the totem in the first rank of the things it considers sacred; then come the animals or plants whose name the clan bears, and finally the members of the clan”. However, Durkheim formulated a further proposition that the totem and the sacred are inextricably linked with each other. In other words, the totem is the symbol of some supernatural force which he named mana. In his view, the sacred should be the form in which the society reveals itself to individuals.

We now examine what renders Durkheim’s view on the sacred so attractive. There appears to be a set of reasons:

Firstly, the sacred which transcends the society in division in terms of ethnicity, social class and religious belief seem to be the key to the understanding of social conflicts and the role played by social institutions in resolving these conflicts. Being a common feature displayed in all religious beliefs, the sacred is also essential to a better understanding of different religions, despite their diversity and divergence.

Secondly, Durkheim argued that the sacred is a necessity for human existence. As human beings are social and political animals in Aristotle’s view, there must be some socially bonding force which provides a deeper meaning of life (i.e. a spiritual meaning) and thereby binding different groups of individuals to common sacred society. More particularly, Durkheim refers to ancient Rome which was characterised by corporations offering people collective representations. Through rituals and ceremonies, these corporations play a fundamental role in unifying community members and linking them to the state. Concerned about the adverse impact brought about by modernity within a capitalistic system, Durkheim emphasised on the importance that individuals must reconnect with each other and re-establish some self-identity and meaning of life.

Critique

The Durkheimian concept of the sacred is equally subject to criticism. Firstly, it must be borne in mind that his view is far from being a general or universal theory of the society. Nowadays, most modern societies are no longer organised around a single form of the sacred and there is no set of institutionalized values and morals to guide people. It is even questionable whether there are some common forms of sacredness any more. More importantly, sacred forms are not “timeless”, but emerge through specific historical processes. Hence, the divergence of sacred commitments in the contemporary world even renders it harder for social institutions to play their role of public restitution after a breach of sacred forms (e.g. BBC and the DEC appeal for Gaza).

Secondly, as has been seen, the sacred is a morally ambiguous phenomenon and it is extremely difficult to separate the “pure” and “impure” aspects of sacredness. G. Lynch radically questioned about the necessity of the sacred: “Do we even need the sacred? Can we live by more mundane, everyday social bonds? Or collective rituals with minimal sacred content?” We must admit that Christmas is, unfortunately, a more commercial than sacred “ritual”.

What appears more problematic is the distinction between the sacred and the profane. Quoting Durkheim: “Religious and profane life cannot coexist in the same space” and “religious and profane life cannot coexist in the same time”. This is highly debatable, since such mutual repulsion between the two poles of religion is not self-evident. Some scholars went further and suggested that the Durkheim antithesis is fundamentally flawed: Evans-Pritchard does not hesitate to say that he has “never found that the dichotomy of sacred and profane was of much use for either purpose”. Moreover, British anthropologists challenged the applicability of the Durkheimian theory to the real-life situations. W. E. H. Stanner found that it was impossible to apply the distinction unambiguously. Jack Goody argued that “it was very much a product of European religious thought rather than a universally applicable criterion”.

Nevertheless, the Durkheimian theory should be understood in light of the context of his writing, which is a time when the society was undergoing constant change and general disorder. Thereby, Durkheim felt the necessity of reorganising the society around a strong center of sacred norms and ideologies. Interestingly, in his Emile Durkheim, His Life and Work, Steven Lukes suggests that Durkheim was “obsessed” with dualisms. As we see, Durkheim elaborated the concept of the sacred alone and merely defined the profane in a residual manner, as the opposite of the sacred.

The sacred since Durkheim: recent development and perspectives of neo-Durkheimism

In his The Living and the Dead, W. Lloyd Warner analysed Memorial Day rites which united the society as large with sacred national heroes such as Lincoln and Washington. In his eyes, the rites “are a modern cult of the dead and conform to Durkheim’s definition of sacred collective representations”. By referring to the Durkheimian sacred, R. Bellah developed his concept of “American civil religion”-“a collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred things and institutionalized in a collectivity”.

(1615 words inclusive footnotes exclusive bibliography)

Since the Enlightenment, social scientists tried to use philosophical concepts to understand the social world, and one of the concepts is epistemology which means the study of knowledge. Above this, there are two distinct approaches, positivism and interpretivism. The first one focuses on objective knowledge, as universal truth of the social world, that is to say knowledge be gained through observation. The modern academic discipline of sociology began with the studying of Emile Durkheim, who is an extremely important French sociologist and the founding father of positivism. He pointed out the social sciences are a logical extension of the natural sciences into the land of human behavior, and insisted that they may keep the same objectivity, rationalism, and approach to causality(Wacquant, 1992). The other approach called interpretivism, which is also known as antipositivism. In contrast to positivism, interpretivism focuses on subjective knowledge, it means that knowledge is built in the mind, and affected by personal experience. In addition, studying humans’ subjective experiences may cause the obtainment of knowledge. Max Weber was a key proponent of interpretivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive ways, based on understanding the purpose and meaning that individuals attach to their own actions (Macionis, 2012). Above these two founding fathers of sociology, the theories and methods are relatively different. Therefore, this essay will account the comparison and contact about their theories and methods to make a better understanding. Finally, there are four sections in this paper, section one and two will describe the detailed theories and methods supported by Durkheim and Weber respectively. The comparisons and the contacts will in section 3.

Emile Durkheim’s theory and method

Auguste Comte effectively sought to extend and apply the scientific method found in the natural sciences to the social sciences, this sociological positivism influence on Durkheim’s thought (Calhoun, 2002). According to Comte, two of theories are developed by Durkheim which are social fact and suicide method.

2.1 Social Fact

“A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint; or again, every way of acting which is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing in its own right independent of its individual manifestations”(Durkheim, 1895, pp.13). For Durkheim, sociology was the science of social facts. By definition, social fact is that social structures that exist independently of the individual. In this theory, the key point is social structures which include institutions, traditions and beliefs, and patterns of behavior (Dictionary of the Social Sciences). Durkheim’s work around this, and argued that “a social fact must be sought among the antecedent social facts and not among the states of the individual consciousness” (Durkheim, 1895, pp.13). That is to say, social fact is an independent existence greater and more objective than the activities of the individuals that combine society. Though such study, sociology could determine whether a given society is ‘healthy’ or ‘pathological’, and seek social reform to negate organic breakdown. In his study social fact is not equal to social phenomenon, the studying of social phenomenon is not a person’s subjective activity, but it is a kind of objective existence, and the social fact once happens, it will affect the individuals in society.

2.2 Suicide method

Durkheim also attempted to find out whether human behavior was caused by social structures, rather than an individual’s mental formal. Among his researches, his seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), was published. In Suicide (1897), Durkheim explores the different suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, discussing that stronger social control like Catholics lead to lower suicide rates. As Durkheim’s researcher, Catholic society has normal levels while Protestant society has low levels. Overall, suicide rates are not caused by non-social factors, such as race, genetics, mental disorder, climate, season of the year, in addition, suicide rates are caused by social factors, such as religious faith, marital status, employment, and sudden change in income (Calhoun, 2002). Thus Durkheim treated suicide as a social fact, explaining there are such things as ‘social facts’ that influence an individual’s behaviour. In Durkheim’s though, suicide is not only the collection of personal behavior, it has the feature model of this phenomenon. In spirit of its limitations, Durkheim’s studying on suicide has influenced supporters of control theory, also it is often supposed as a classic sociological study. The theory founded modern positivism and served to decide social science from psychology and political philosophy (Poggi, 2000).

2.3 Method using

With positivism, social scientists started to ‘import’ or borrow views, assumptions and methods of research from physics, chemistry, and particularly anatomy. In the methodology, Durkheim also developed the functional analysis of sociological research principles. In his book, Rules of the Sociological Method (1895), when a society is unchanging it could be affirmed as being healthy and normal; when a society is in opposition it could be understood as abnormal. This description is similar as anatomy, when all the structures in the body are healthy, the body is healthy and normal; when one organ does not work, the whole body is affected and its behaviour is abnormal. In addition, researchers would need to exclude the emotional factors, moral judgment, and prejudices interference, and stand on the standpoint of neutrality. From the social fact with stability, the description of the phenomenon is scientific (Allan, 2005).

Max Weber’s theory and method

Different from Durkheim, the key theory is called “Verstehen ” which is the interpretive understanding of social action, and though this studying, ‘ideal types is the main method Weber used.

3.1 Verstehen

Verstehen is a German word; in general it is in the situation of German philosophy and social sciences. Verstehen involves an understanding of what someone is thinking, which needs an understanding of the culture that individuals live in. Weber thought of sociology as a science of social behavior. He believed that studying why individuals do the things they do is the basic foundation of sociology, this is the concept he termed Verstehen. In addition, He argued that sociologists should not just study a group of people but also try to improve an empathetic understanding for the individuals in that group (Udehn, 2001). There is a phrase which is “put yourself in his shoes”. This is the same as what Verstehen describe: developing an understanding of social action from the insider’s point of view in order to better understand the exchanges within a group and the group’s determination. This, in turn, helps to describe how groups of people make sense of the world around them, how they fit into society as a whole, and how they’ve helped society evolve over time(Udehn, 2001). Weber put value to understanding and meaning of key elements – not just with perception or consideration with the individual but also the creation of “systematic and rigorous research”. The aim is to identify human behavior and understanding them as observable events leading us to believe that it not only delivers for a great explanation for human behavior but also for group interactions. The meaning attached needs to include constraints and limitations and analyze the motivation for action. Weber thought that this gives the sociologist a benefit above a natural scientist because “We can accomplish something which is never attainable in the natural sciences, namely the subjective understanding of the action of the component individuals” (Weber, 1968, p. 15).

3.2 Method using

One of the methods Weber used to study his objects of analysis was ‘ideal types’. It means an abstract summary of the common features of complex social phenomena. For Weber, one of many subjective basics which certainly discriminate sociology from natural science is social science depends on the construction of hypothetical concepts in the abstract. Therefore, ideal type is a subjective division in social theory. Weber wrote: “An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct…” (Shils& Finch, 1997).While opposition supporters of the ideal type including normal type theory supporters. Some sociologists consider that, ideal type more prone to extreme phenomena and ignore the connection, it is difficult to display how the varieties and the elements into the whole social system theory.

The comparisons and the contacts

On the basis of theoretical background and the logical starting point, Durkheim and Weber inherited and developed the traditional social theory of two methods in the study: positivism and interpretivism, and laid the basic methodology character for future generations of sociological research.

Durkheim treated social facts as its research objection of sociology. Compared to Weber’s social action, is the macro level. From this point Durkheim’s theory of society is existent, while Webb argues that only individuals exist, only explain the understanding of human social action, understand the meaning behind, and finally makes a causal explanation. This is the whole process of sociological research.

Durkheim’s sociology theory is positivism. It used the objectivity of social facts as the object of study, and thought society and nature are identical in nature. As the objective necessity of domination, society and natural phenomena are the same, which determines its research methods must be used the empirical research method in the natural sciences, through observation, such as experiments, comparisons, and test methods (Durkheim, 1895, pp.13). Weber’s sociological understanding to social action is same as the research object, and argued that the method of natural science in special effect is difficult to apply social science research, it cannot explain human behavior with subjective meaning hidden behind the value and significance (Weber, 1968, p. 15). Weber thought that researchers should focus on experience, at the same time, putting on the same subject to each other’s as their own thinking and evaluation, its distinctive feature is the emotion in the thinking object and thinking process input. Therefore, researchers make a reasonable explanation about social fact though changing the role the subjective motives of others’ social action.

But the study method of Weber and Durkheim’s theory still has something in common. In a sense, Weber thought methods in social science research should establish the ideal type (Shils& Finch, 1997). He realized that the research object of social science has unique characteristics and subjective, and if researchers want to keep the absolute objectivity is not an easy job. Ideal type refers to a series concept system in sociological research in which scholars generally recognized and accepted, so that it can reduce or even avoid the sociological study of arbitrariness and disunity. Researchers in research processes must keep value objectively themselves, and eliminate their additional influence and intervention on the object of study. Similarly, Durkheim also emphasized that the fact more important than the conception; the existence precedes the essence; and observation of the phenomenon should be eliminated the subjective emotion (Allan, 2005)..

Above all, the social fact and social action are two different sized concepts, which can be said a relationship between containing and being contained. That is to say, Weber’s social action is more specific than Durkheim’s social fact .Because social facts and macroscopic reasons, Durkheim research object in the theory of sociology is the objective existence. But Weber’s social science research should be specific, individual existence, it will be in the society of human action as the research object, to explain the understanding of it, and to know the “secret” the hidden behind the specific social action, in order to make the causality of the final paper. Weber also will provide two major tasks of sociology as the explanatory understanding and causality of social action description. In this way, the two major factions in social science research — positivism and interpretivism, make differences between increasingly bigger, thus it caused the contradiction between both sides.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay described and analyzed Durkheim’s and Weber’s theories and methods. Both of them played important roles in social science history, and they have big influence on social science. Their theories and methods are researched and used by many scholars. After comparison, it could be seen that their ideas about social science are quite different. Durkheim’s theories based on positivism. It used the objectivity of social facts as the object of study, and thought society and nature are identical in nature.

Durkheim thought that structures that exist independently of the individual.

Weber’s theories based on individuals’ existence, he only explained the understanding of human social action, understood the meaning behind, and finally made a causal explanation. Weber thought that verstehen involves an understanding of what someone is thinking, which needs an understanding of the culture that person lives in. But, the contrast of their ideas is that the study method of Weber and Durkheim’s theory still has something in common.

The difference of social research methods found by the two fathers cannot say which one is better, because both of them in the field of social science had gained the success that attracted worldwide attention, and each method found a reasonable breakthrough for sociological research. Because of this differences, which makes the social science research shows a kind of mutual opposition and mutual encouragement and supplement of the state. Society science research is infinite in the future, each historical giant higher later is through the shoulders of giants before. But social science research is still arduous task, social scientist should summarize the experience of the former step by step, in order to continuous the development and progress of science which is a heavy and meaningful subject to society.

Mauritius has seen tremendous changes during the past few decades in the socio-economic environment. Globalisation and technological changes have also opened new avenues to Mauritians which were previously unavailable to them. It is becoming a society where women are coming out of the private spheres of the home into the public sphere of the economy and politics.

Nevertheless while having adapted to the new economic opportunities, there has been an increase in the participation of women in the formal wage. The proportions of women in workforce in Mauritius from year 2009-2012 have increased considerably from 18,500 to 191,600 (Economic Social Indicators, statistics Mauritius). Women have benefited significantly from the upgrading of their economic status but at the same time have succumbed to stresses and strains of coping with their new roles in the ‘new age’ society.

Moreover, The White Paper on Women in Development emphasises on the increasing employment of women in the labour market and the greater sense of individuality and how freedom felt by women themselves have brought about positive development. Such being the case, it is too much of a glorification to say that this reflects the changing roles of women in the Mauritian society.

1.2 Woman’s triple role within the family

Women play a very crucial role within the family and the society. They are the pillar of the house and they accordingly contribute in sustaining the family. Thus, women are associated with the triple role of productive (work outside the home), reproductive which is related to household tasks associated with children and family and community management. In the same context, Dunscombe and Marsden (1995) stated that women in paid employment bear the burden of working a ‘triple shift’.

1.3 Changing functions of the family

Modernization and industrialization have brought about the breakdown of the extended family to the emergence of the nuclear family, where families are more independent and there is less contact with kins. Nowadays, another form of family which is becoming very popular with the rising rate of divorce is the single-parent family. The past two- decades have brought a great increase in the number of families with responsibilities both at work and at home. Nowadays, single-parents, working women and dual-earner couples are heavily involved in parenting (Carnier et al., 2004). Therefore, today families are stressed by the pressure of work, family and community demands.

It is argued that the family in industrial society is losing many of its functions. Sociologist like Fletcher (2000) claims that, the family’s functions have increased in ‘detail and importance’. The role of the family has changed from a producer to a consumer. Goods and services are increasingly being bought and consumed – houses, cars, furniture and education. Hence, the highly materialistic world demands that both husband and wife go out to work. The controversy is that women would then contribute to the family budget while men would not contribute to the household work.

The result is that less time is spent in the family. At times, children are unattended and social problems crop up leading to instability and turbulence in the family.

1.4 Changing status of women across times

The main thing today is that there has been a gradual improvement in the status of women. They have indeed achieved more political equality with men and they have equal rights in education. Most types of job are suitable for women today. Equal opportunity act has helped discard discrimination.

The ‘Economic Miracle’ of Mauritius is largely dependent on the growth of the manufacturing sector which was introduced in 1970s. It has been the main engine of economic development in Mauritius and has absorbed large numbers of unemployed labour. The traditional women who were uneducated represented a fundamental pool of labour for the industrialists. The new ‘economic leverage’ has welcomed the earning of second salary amidst the family.

Everyone at all levels of society is becoming aware of the stress families face these days so as to struggle to balance their responsibilities at home and at work. This is evidenced from the fact that too often families have to choose between the demands of work and family, elderly parents and relatives. In Mauritius the two demographic trends in the increase participation rates for working mothers and dual-career couples have a profound effect on the spheres of work and family. It is generally recognized that the extensive pressure arising from work environment and from family environment can produce high-levels of work-family conflict for many employees.

In brief, development is good for any country but at the same time it has added extra burden on women particularly balancing the conflicting demands of family life and career.

1.5 Functionalist perspectives on work and family

According to functionalist, families are living in a post modern way of living which is very good for the society as they prefer not to have children because of their career and some prefer to stay-single and they are going according to the needs of the society. P and B Bergers argue that the bourgeois family already teaches children what the society want for instance, strict moral values and value economic success. E.Leach (1996) argues that the Nuclear family is stressed. They are exploited by the capitalist and they are alienated; they work because they have no choice. Family are nowadays privatized, they do not want people to know what is happening in their yard.

1.6 Problem statement

It is principally through the family that social values and knowledge are transmitted from generation to generation and hence this reinforces the social fabrics. Like any other country, the Mauritian’s Government is playing a fundamental role in trying to maintain the balance between work and family life. If the family is stable, this will have a direct impact on the society and hence on the country.

On one hand, the family life in Mauritius is being eroded in the face of the demands of work and increasingly long hours in at work. Practically, many members of the Mauritian family return home after work at different times and the traditional family meals that were customary in the past, are now reserved for weekends. Many parents strive to find time to spend with their children during the working week. The twin pressures of work and family life are raising stress levels within the home and creating much pressure. Parents are struggling to fit all their chores into shorter time frames because of lack of time. Due, to the constraint of time imposed by work schedule, various social problems have cropped up. Infact there is increasing divorce rate (0.47 per 1000 people) and going by this, it is assumed that children are having recourse to drug, alcohol and cigarette smoking.

On the other hand, despite the so called equality of sexes advocated by feminists, it is seen that the responsibility of looking after the family relies mostly on women. Hence, housework and looking after children remain predominantly “women’s work”. Women’s works have been marginalised throughout the history. Women are more likely to concentrate on their work than family. Therefore, family being a basic institution it is very necessary to know what is causing the breakdown of the family, how children are able cope with it and its negative effects on children especially adolescents.

1.7 Aim

This project aims to make an assessment on the impact of the relationship between work and the situation of children within the modern family.

1.8 Objectives

To probe into different occupational sectors in Mauritius to measure the impact of work on family life balance;
To see whether women are able to handle their triple role within the modern family;
To see whether the notion of family being functional in the society as advocated by functionalist really stand in the Mauritian society,
To see whether children belonging to single-parent families more affected than other children;
Find out respondents views on does social problems like Juvenile Delinquencies are occurring due to lack of supervision of parents in the modern family; and
Propose findings and solutions.