Question

Compare and contrast two sociological theories on race/ethnicity

How do White ethnics, like Italian Americans and Irish Americans, express their ethnicity in optional ways

Answer 1

Meaning of Race and Ethnicity- Race means by the groups of individuals who treat other people in a different way because of their biological traits like on the basis of their hair, eye colour, skin colour, body type etc. The concept of racism is generally based on physical features of people, superiority and inferiority, the racist believe in the seperation of classes based on people's physical and social appearances. Ethnicity is basically the practice of culture, rituals, perspectives and norms that differs from one group to another of the society.

Theories of Race and Ethnicity- Two main theories on race and ehnicity are Functionalist theory and Marxist theory. According to both theories this society is based on a social structure. However, both theories have different opinions about these structures of the society.

The Functionalism theory was given by Emile Durkheim, one of the founder of sociology. According to this theory the society has a mega structure. Functionalist say that the whole should maintain the equilibirium of it. Functionalism was popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It studies society as a functioning system that does not give rise to any conflict.

Marxism, the structural conflict theory was founded by Karl Marx and is generally based on the differences present in the society. According to Marxism theory, money and power give a right to people to run the society that turns in to inequality and non harmony.

Compare and Contrast- Similarities between both theories are based on upper resemblances and do not have any relation with the ideas behind them. Both theories are considered as macro theories. Both theories study the society on a large scale. Functionalists and Marxist both use analogies for the explanation of the social structure of the society. Body is considered as analogy for describing that all parts of the body work together for proper functioning in functionlist theory. Marxism conciders economy as the base of all functions in society and the structure of the society develops with the growth of the economy. For this they use building analogy. One more similarity is that both theories were founded in Europe. Other than these factors, both theories are opposite from each other.

Functionalist theory and Marxist theory always opposite and never agree from each other. First theory by Emile Dukheim described the social values, traits and norms in a society. People learn from each other about their society norms, values and expectations. On the other hand Marxism describes about the conflicts among the people in the same society. To sum up, funtionalists talk about the individuals' behaviour towards the society while Marxists spoke about the conflict raised ina society due to inequal economic status. Functionalism believe in a slow and gradual change of the society but Marxist believe that change in the economy leads to social change. Both theories have big impact on the society. These two theories explain how people affect the society and how they are affected by the society.

Italian Americans and Irish Americans-Italian Americans are ethnic group of Americans who are fully or partially related to Italy. Italian Americans are a large ethnic group in the United States. They paly an important role in the economy of USA. They have contributed a lot in the economic growth of USA. According to the study of University of chicago, Italian Americans are among those who have low percentage of divorce, unemployment and have a high percentage of two- parent families, elderly family members living at home and families who eat together on a regular basis.

Irish Americans are also an ethnic group of America which have ancestory from Ireland.Like Italian Americans they have also contributed a lot in the development of USA. They have a great contribution in the field of film sector, politics , education etc to make America ethnically developed and rich.