functionalism

• Functionalism


  Structural, consensus approach
• Emile Durkheim


  • One of the founding fathers of sociology
  • Lived during a time of social change: industrialisation and urbanisation
  • Proposed that society was held together by social solidarity - a feeling of unity, cohesion, or togetherness between its members
  • Thought this helped to keep society stable during social change, and stop it from collapsing altogether
• Talcott Parsons


  • Built upon Durkheim's ideas while studying society in the USA in the 1950s and 60s
  • Functionalist ideas gained a lot of popularity at this time, due to a rise in conservative values in American society
  • Associated with many key concepts that you will come across over the duration of the course
• Organic analogy


  Functionalists see society as working similarly to a human body
• How functionalists view society


  Different social institutions all work together in order to fulfil the functional pre-requisites (needs) of society and its' members
• Social institutions


  • Perform vital functions that allow society to function harmoniously
  • For example, the family: socialises children into norms and values, reproduces the next generation, supports the economy
• Socialisation


  Helps to establish value consensus
• Value consensus


  Helps to increase social solidarity, and keeps society stable
• Functionalism is a useful theory of society because it was one of the first sociological theories to try and understand society as a whole, and the organic analogy can demonstrate how different institutions work together to maintain value consensus and keep society functioning harmoniously
• A criticism of functionalism is that it takes an overly positive or 'rose-tinted' view of society, fails to consider individual differences in values and the conflict that may arise from this, and assumes everyone in society has more or less equal power, which may not be true
• A criticism of functionalism is that it is deterministic, ignoring the role of free will in society, and assumes people will accept socialisation and value consensus willingly, without having the choice to choose their own values and behaviour