GEORGE RITZER'S INTEGRATION THEORY OF SOCIAL ANALYSIS

                GEORGE RITZER'S INTEGRATION THEORY OF SOCIAL ANALYSIS

According to George Ritzer, there is a shift in social phenomena, namely.

1.     SOCIAL FACTS PARADIGM: Drives from the work of Emile Durkheim, the focus of social facts paradigm surrounds the large scale of the society and the methods of enquiry used in this paradigm are questionnaires and the historical comparative.

2.     SOCIAL DEFINITION PARADIGM: This is associated with the work of Max Weber, the social definition paradigm is concerns with the way actors defines their social situation and the effects this have on ensuring further actions and interaction. The method of this particular paradigm is observation.

3.     THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR PARADIGM: This is associated with the work of B.F Skinner; this paradigm is concern with reward and punishment that inhibit undesirable behaviour. The distinct method of the paradigm is the experiment method.

The assumption towards the integrated paradigm revolves around that these multiples paradigms that this three (3) Social fact, Social definition and social behaviour tends to focus only on one aspect of social reality thereby, paying little or no attention to the other forms of social realities. According to Ritzer, the social facts paradigms is concerned with the MACROSTRUCTURES, the Social definitionist is interested in ACTION and the social behaviorist focuses on BEHAVIOUR REFLECTED THESE BIASNESS of the multiple paradigms science. Ritzer therefore, suggested that a conceptual skinner is evidently needed in an effort to deal with social phenomena of the world.

            Therefore, Ritzer expanded on the idea of social interaction and change as a figure of social phenomena. In doing this, Ritzer postulated that the key to an integrated paradigm rest in the level of social reality. The perspective in this case is that there are too many forms of social reality that ranges in various circumstances which makes it difficult to uncover the meaning of social phenomena of such a wide range. According to Ritzer, the levels of social reality are bases on two distinctions, namely;

a)     The Microscopic Continuum and;

b)    The Macroscopic Continuum

   Fig. 1: George Ritzer’s Integrated Level of Social Analysis

Both the above distinctions are associated with the objective view; the macroscopic field is concerned with the large scale material phenomena such as the educational parts of the society and how education can be effective in a positive way.

On the other hand, the microscopic field is associated with the small scale none-material phenomena, example; this will includes patterns of behavior and interaction, in this case, one can identify the micro level with individual’s subjective components influenced by the actor and the objective patterns of actions in which the actor partakes.