Goffman, Mead, Parsons and Durkheim About Way

¶ … Goffman, Mead, Parsons and Durkheim about way people behave in society. It has 2 sources. During the 19th century and the 20th century, the emergence of the industrialization has introduced a new breed of family structure that we have come to know as the nuclear family. Social theorists like Talcott Parsons, GH Mead and Goffman all attempt to define the roles of women and men in this new society by redefining their roles.

According to Parsons, the industrialized nations have given rise to the nuclear family in which men and women have equal roles in their family. The women have an expressive leadership role while the men have instrumental leadership roles. Yet these designated roles did not come about easily. Erving Goffman for example explains that social roles come with individual perceptions. People have certain ideologies for behaving the way they do. These are communicated through body language as well as verbal communication.

Two people on a first date would expect the other to act certain ways because they have each designated personal performances to the male and female roles. Thus the concept of masculinity and femininity stems from this idealization. Mead further enumerates on this issue by explaining the fact that these designated roles are the results of choice. Each of us has this concept of right and wrong and tends to slot these roles to the individuals' social performances accordingly.

Thus although it is not wrong for any of us to open the door for a woman or a man or change tires nevertheless we expect that these tasks are carried out by men because we feel it is right. It is in our perception that men have separate roles and women have separate ones when inherently we are all the same with the same kinds of tendencies to think, perceive and act or react.

According to Emile Durkheim people's behaviors are governed by the community they inhabit as these dictate their life preferences as well as the way they perceive things according to the structure that the society has constructed. According to him there are two levels to the society. Durkheim calls these external and internal social fact concepts. Internal social facts are those which we learn and become a part of our thinking and perception while external concepts are those which the internal has the ability to influence on.

Internal social fact influences the external behavior. One example is the influence of religious teachings that has on the external.