Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice is a paradigm of social theory that explains social order as the result of everyday practices. Society does not emerge solely through objective structures nor purely through conscious action, but through the interplay of embodied dispositions (habitus), available resources (capital), and the social arenas in which actors struggle for positions
Poststructuralism is a paradigm of social theory that understands social reality as a historically contingent web of power-knowledge relations. Society does not emerge through stable structures or universal truths, but through discursive practices that define what counts as true, normal, and legitimate. At the center lies the guiding question: How are truth, identity, and social
Structuralism in sociology refers to a macro- and cultural-theoretical paradigm that understands social reality as the expression of underlying, often unconscious structural patterns. Society does not primarily emerge through individual meaning-making or functional system performance, but through supra-individual ordering principles—linguistic, symbolic, or cultural structures—that shape individual action. At the center lies the guiding question: How
Critical theory is a major paradigm in sociology that understands social reality as a historically developed order of domination. Society does not primarily emerge through functional integration or communicative self-reference, but through power relations, economic structures, and ideological mediation. At the center lies the guiding question: How are relations of domination socially stabilized—and how is
Systems theory in sociology does not understand society as a collection of individuals, but as an autonomous system of communication. Actions, actors, and institutions are not the primary units of analysis—instead, communication itself is the central, self-referential process. With this shift, systems theory departs from both action-oriented and normative-integrative approaches. Society is not explained through
Symbolic interactionism is a micro-sociological paradigm that understands social reality as the outcome of symbolically mediated processes of interaction. Society does not primarily emerge from supra-individual structures or functional systems, but from the meaning-making activities of actors in everyday life. At the center lies the guiding question: How does social reality emerge through interaction? The