Structuralism, Theories of

Abstract

Structuralism is an intellectual tendency that seeks to understand and explain social reality in terms of social structures. Structures are defined as the patterns and forms of social relations and combinations among a set of constituent social elements or component parts such as positions, units, levels, regions and locations, and social formations. Structuralism tends to proceed on two different analytic levels, as a method of analysis or procedure of knowing (epistemology), and as an ontology or metaphysical design of social reality. It also tends to approach its subject matter under the auspices of two different meta-theoretical perspectives on social reality: social structure as an empirical and historical reality, and social structure as a model or representation of reality. The conceptual property space generated by these analytic dimensions accommodates the major theories of structuralism existing today, viz. sociological structuralism, symbolic structuralism, historical structuralism, and orthodox structuralism. Major figures relevant to understanding structuralism are Marx, Durkheim, Saussure, Piaget, Lévi-Strauss, and Althusser.