Functionalism

Key concepts:

• Structural consensus theory

• Society is shaped by social institutions that socialise its members into norms and values of society

• Society is harmonious because of a value consensus and a collectable conscience

• Society fulfils the functional pre-requisites of its individual members

Key functionalist thinkers:

• Emile Durkheim:

  • Education, crime, religion, methods

• Talcott Parsons:

  • Education, family, health, global development, stratification

• Robert K Merton:

  • Crime

Emile Durkheim:

• Advanced study of sociology as a scientific discipline through positivist methodology

• Social order is maintained through similarity in society- social cohesion

• Social institutions such as religion and education maintain society

• Social norms and values evolve to move society forwards

Talcott Parsons:

• Society is a system that has 4 functional pre-requisites

  • Goal attainment

  • Adaption

  • Integration

  • Latent functions

    • Pattern maintenance

    • Tension management

• Social changes occur in one part of the system and facilitate changes elsewhere in society

Robert K Merton:

• Criticised concept of universal functionalism- for some society is dysfunctional

• Suggested functional autonomy- sections of society are independent of each other and do not change when others do

• Suggested that social institutions can be replaced- argued against the indispensable nature of institutions such as family, education and religion

Evaluations of functionalism:

• Explain the effects of functionalism in order to justify the causes- this is referred to as teleology

• Overly deterministic- assumes human behaviour is stable and controlled by external forces- is this the case in the 21st century?

• Ignores the conflicts in society- norms and values are explained as serving the needs of society, but whose needs? Marxists and feminists would criticise this

Contributions of functionalism:

• First grand narrative- attempt to understand and observe social behaviours

• Concepts such as boundary maintenance are still relevant to contemporary society

• Advanced the study of society by introducing positivist methodologies to observe ‘social facts’

• May be outdated, but continues to influence New Right ideologies