Article
Одиннадцать заповедей функционализма Роберта Мертона
The article considers historical and intellectual circumstances of the publication of C. Whight Mills' paper "Professional Ideology of Social Pathologists". It shows that this paper is of obvious historical interest because it allows to trace the evolution of Mills' own ideas as well as the development of the American sociology in 1930-40s. It also shows that this paper is one of the first attempts in reflective sociology, and therefore it can be used by today sociologists in the analysis of the foundations of sociological knowledge.
Several approaches to the concept of fatherhood present in Western sociological tradition are analyzed and compared: biological determinism, social constructivism and biosocial theory. The problematics of fatherhood and men’s parental practices is marginalized in modern Russian social research devoted to family and this fact makes the traditional inequality in family relations, when the father’s role is considered secondary compared to that of mother, even stronger. However, in Western critical men’s studies several stages can be outlined: the development of “sex roles” paradigm (biological determinism), the emergence of the hegemonic masculinity concept, inter-disciplinary stage (biosocial theory). According to the approach of biological determinism, the role of a father is that of the patriarch, he continues the family line and serves as a model for his ascendants. Social constructivism looks into man’s functions in the family from the point of view of masculine pressure and establishing hegemony over a woman and children. Biosocial theory aims to unite the biological determinacy of fatherhood with social, cultural and personal context. It is shown that these approaches are directly connected with the level of the society development, marriage and family perceptions, the level of egality of gender order.