Three New Perspectives

This week in class we were introduced to three new theories in which to study human interactions.  They are Structural Functionalism, Conflict, and Symbolic Interactionism.  I use the Structural Functionalism perspective to look at my days at high school.  Our school is considered one big society and within it our many factions.  There are different factions that play different parts in creating this school to be unified.  I see teachers, students, counselors, coaches, and many more other groups as manifest functions to this school. These groups are intended functions because they are how we learn and grow from our peers.  There are some unintended, latent, functions such as nerds, geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, but all of these stereotypes are prevalent in all schools while looking at them through this perspective.  You can look at high school through a conflict perspective as well because there are many groups in this school competing for power at large.  The teachers and the principals have the power over the students because they are superior to us in ranking, which makes us feel inferior to them.  Mostly everyone in this school is aware of their status as either a student or a faculty member, and this is an example of class consciousness.  Not many people deny their rankings which would be an example of false consciousness, but in high schools their are always those students who deny that they are inferior to their teachers. The last perspective you can look at my school from is the symbolic interactionism perspective. There are countless symbols seen in the hallways everyday that are vital for this school to function and create relationships.  These symbols are produced through interactions within the people at this school such as a smile, a wave, a kiss, an eyebrow raise, the list goes on and on.  One thing about this perspective is that peoples interpretations of these symbols may vary so people have to be careful whether they smile, or wave sometimes.  Through learning about these different perspectives I now have a completley new way of seeing how people interact with each other and I now have more knowledge on how to analyze the ongoing power struggle between teachers and their students.