Theories of Park, Pareto, Sorokin and Mannheim
Introduction
Sociologists are coming up with theories that are explaining social phenomena. Theories are basically proposed relationships that are occurring between couples of concepts. Theories tend to give explanations as to why a certain phenomenon occurs. In most cases, these theories are specific on particular context and specific to given situations. This text is going to explore some theorists who include Park, Pareto, Sorokin and Mannheim and then come with comparisons between the theories they propose.
Robert E. Park
The first theorist that this paper looks at is Park who came up with human ecology. Human ecology borrowed concepts from symbiosis, incursion, progression, domination, slope growth, super ordination as well as subordination from the science of natural ecology. Park is responsible for having come up with the name and also laying out the patterns and offering the first exhibits of ecological concepts. Park went ahead to define the main processes of ecology as well as stimulating the more advanced students so that they cultivated the fields of research in ecology as compared to the most other sociologists put together.
Park same up with the program of urban research in the sociology department. Park proposed that, in a subsequent theory called urban ecology, cities are environments just like those that are found in nature (Sollors, 1996). He suggested that even the cities are governed by similar forces like listed by Darwinian evolution that exists in ecosystems.
Pitirim Sorokin
Sorokin is the next theorist that the paper looks at. He is known for the theory of Social Change. It is Sorokin who attempted to systematize the entire problem of social change. The prime principles of socio cultural change according to Sorokin included immanent dynamism and limits. Sorokin studies at length the history of the previous theories basing on his principles in varied forms. Basing on his said researches, Sorokin represented his own that stated that immanency of change is the unexceptional, ever-present, permanent, universal and necessary reason of the individuals socio cultural systems of change. The other statement that he came up with was that large numbers of socio cultural systems and processes are having limited range of possibilities in the variations that they have in the development of newer fundamental forms.
Put in another way, the nature of society as well as all its parts is to change. Even though there are limits on every system, change finally gets to alter its direction. Indistinguishably intermittent socio cultural procedures are impossible. Eternally direct socio cultural procedures are likewise impossible. But a straight pattern constrained in time whose length is distinctive for various frameworks and procedures is normal and is really found in every single socio cultural procedure (Sorokin, 2010). In some it keeps going just a couple of minutes or hours or days or months; in others numerous decades and even hundreds of years, yet taking all things together, it is constrained in time and is shorter than the season of the entire presence of the framework.
Karl Mannheim
Moving on to the next theorist, Mannheim, he came up with the Theory of Generations states that; generations get to change though swiftly and in response to given events. He focuses on the influence of history and the influence of past generations as they are having a cause-effect basis. This theory assists in explaining how generations emerge and then become defined by the presiding historical background and previous generations.
Mannheim recognizes that late adolescence is a vital period where the formation of social and political outlooks takes place. As per his account, contemporaneous people are further interally stratified by their geological as well as cultural locality by their geological and cultural location; by their actual as divergent to potential partaking in the social and intellectual contemporary of the time they lived and the place (Michael, 2000). Mannheim goes ahead to suggest that generations were conceptualized as one of the governing motives of societal change and succession.
Vilfredo Pareto
The final theorist is Pareto who came up with the Pareto principle, also known as the principle of factor sparsity which states that for several events, majority of the effects, 80% are coming from 20% of the causes (Reh, 2005). In other words, the Pareto principle is known as the 80/20 rule maintains that 80 percent of the output from a certain circumstance or system is determined by 20 percent of the input.
Comparison of the Theories
The four theorists came up with sociology theories. The theories that they came up with are not all on the same front as each scholar was attempting to react to their individual researches and as thus the theories were only done according to their opinions without leaning to the views of others.
Park’s urban ecology and Mannheim’s theory of generations concur in that the theory of generations suggests that generations were conceptualized as one of the forces of power of the societal changes and succession and the urban ecology attempts to associate the cities, as communities to the Darwinian evolution theory, in that the cities are governed by similar forces just as brought out by Darwinian evolution that exists in ecosystems. Darwin suggested that member of a particular species would compete with one another for the available resources and that the individuals that would be well adapted to their lifestyle would have higher chances of surviving.
Being that Mannheim elaborates that that generations were brought about as one of the forces of power, this would mean that they are of a particular species that is well adapted and as thus has thrived. Park with his urban ecology insinuates that cities are similar to the communities that the species live in where individuals are always fighting to adapt to the lifestyle lest they are eliminated. Adapting to city life entails getting used to the noise and hooting, the rush and the queues for services just to name a few. Without adapting to these, one finds city life quite hectic and they might stand considering other options other than staying in the city.
Sorokin suggests that the entire nature of the society is subjected to change and when change comes, it changes the direction. Sorokin goes ahead to elaborate that the changes depend on the individuals when it comes to duration and that it is constrained in time. Pareto on the other hand comes up with an all the way different principle that 80 percent of the output is determined by 20 percent of the input. Tying to link the perspectives of these two theorists would mean that it is only the 20 of the society that determines the direction to which the society changes to and that it will take only a shorter time to experience a huge change when it comes to nature of society.
Conclusion
Theorist Park proposed that cities are environments just like those that are found in nature. He suggested that even the cities are governed by similar forces, like listed by Darwinian evolution theory, which exists in ecosystems. Mannheim’s theory of generations suggests that generations were conceptualized as one of the forces of power of the societal changes and succession whereas Sorokin suggests that the entire nature of the society is subjected to change and when change comes, it changes the direction of flow. Pareto on the other hand asserts that 80 percent of the output is determined by 20 percent of the input. The four theorists came up with theories that have explained more on societies and social behavior. The theorists contributed tremendously to the understanding of the society and social behavior as learning about their theories gives a deeper and richer understanding of the past of sociology, present as well as future.
References;
- Michael, M. (2000). Reconnecting culture, technology and nature: From society to heterogeneity. Taylor & Francis.
- Reh, F. J. (2005). Pareto’s principle-The 80-20 rule. BUSINESS CREDIT-NEW YORK THEN COLUMBIA MD-, 107(7), 76.
- Sollors, W. (Ed.). (1996). Theories of ethnicity: A classical reader. NYU Press.
- Sorokin, P. A. (2010). Man and society in calamity. Transaction Publishers.