Structural Functionalism

Structural Functionalism

 Structure-means “Institutions”
 Functionalism- means “function”
Structural Functionalism (SF)

 Social institutions are functionally

integrated to form a stable system
 SF develops from this to hold that
society consists of various institutions
each of which has its own function.
SF
 Government
 Education
 Religion
 Family
 Media
William James
 Father of Functionalism
Government

 Form a more perfect Union... States working together

 Establish Justice... Make and enforce laws
 Ensure Domestic Tranquility... Peace in our country
 Provide for the Common Defense... Keep country safe from an
attack
 Promote the General Welfare... Contribute and promote
happiness
 Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and our
Posterity... Make sure we stay free and keep our rights today
Education

  Social change and control:

It is the social environment where the personality of the child can be
developed. Education helps to walk with the development of science and
technology.
 Reconstruction of experiences:\
 Education is life-long process. Life is education and education is life. Life
is full of experiences. One cannot live with his past experiences which are
unable to adjust in the society. So education helps the individual to
reconstruct the experience and adjust with the environment.
Education

 Development of social and moral value:

 Education teaches the moral value and social value like co-
operation, tolerance, sympathy, fellow feelings, love affection,
respect towards elder, helping the poor and needy persons.
 Providing opportunity or equality:
 Indian Constitution has introduced the term ‘equality’ because we
are not getting equal opportunities in all aspects. Education
teaches us to give equal opportunities in all aspects irrespective of
caste, color, sex and religion.
Family
Stable Satisfaction of Sex need:
Sex instinct is the natural urge of human being. The satisfaction of
this need requires that both male and female should live together as

life partners. It is the family where the husband and wife can satisfy
their sex instincts easily and comfortably A family not only satisfies
but also provides the appropriate mechanism through marriage to
regulate sexual behavior of husband and wife.
(2) Reproduction or procreation:
Reproduction or procreation is another essential function of family.
This function of family contributes to the continuity of family and
ultimately perpetuates the human race as a whole.
(3) Protection and care of the young:
It is true that no other institution can take required care of the child
like family. The child at birth is complete helpless and cannot
survive at all without the help of the family. It is the family which
provides care, protection, security (Physical, mental) and fulfills all
other needs to make him fit in the society.
(4) Socializing Functions:
Family is one of the primary agents of socialization. Family
members teach the child the norms, value morals, beliefs and
I
deals of society. In the family the children first learn what is
good and bad, what is right and wrong. They develop specific
habits, traits of character, attitudes and values. The senior
members of the family pass the family culture to the new
generation thought socialization process.
(5) Provision of a home:
It is a place of multifarious activities. All the members of the
family depend on home for comfort, protection and peace. It
is that institution which provides the mental or the emotional
satisfaction. Members of the family exchange their love,
sympathy and affection among themselves.
Religion

•It provides social cohesion to help maintain

social solidarity through shared rituals and
beliefs, social control to enforce religious-
based morals and norms
•To help maintain conformity and control in
society
• It offers meaning and purpose to answer
any existential questions.
Media

•One of the most powerful tools of communication

in today’s generation 
•It educate individuals about day to day news
•Creates Globalization
•Mass media can have both positive and negative
impact on the lives and on the minds of the
people. 
Integration 4 – Cultural System

System or Level Aspect of Experience

The cultural system - human Education a bridge between the
interaction over time creates a Family and wider society
store of knowledge & tradition Preparing us for our adult roles in
society.
The cultural system contains
the core values and beliefs of a Education is the main secondary
agent of socialisation.
given society, and enables these
values to be passed down. In advanced industrial society we are
judged in terms of achieved status
ls how a society reproduces
and universalistic values
itself culturally.
Integration 4 – Cultural System (2)
 Schools are examples of the meritocratic principles of
society
 This means that everyone is treated in the same way
and that everyone has the same chances to succeed.
 Therefore those that achieve the most in school do so on
merit.
 Talent will naturally rise to the top: Ability + Effort = Merit.
 Schools ensure that the best people will perform the most
important jobs - and this will benefit society as a whole.
Universalistic values
 a) The value of achievement by rewarding those who
achieve through exam success.
 b) The value of equality of opportunity by offering
everyone an equal chance to succeed.
 c) role allocation by testing and evaluating students,
schools match the students' talents and capacities to
the jobs they are best suited for.
 Does your school or college actually do this in
practise? Does this happen in the world of work - the
economy?
Structural Functionalism 2

Talcott Parsons
Roles and Norms
 P interested in the external forces that shaped individual
motivations and interests
 individuals adapted their choices they made (roles) to the 'norms'
of society
 There is a correspondence between the roles taken by individuals
in society and the prevailing norms of a society
 Meritocracy was a successful way of allocating roles in ways that
ensured the ultimate wellbeing or stability of the social system.
 Social stratification, he suggested was an outcome of the role
allocation which created the "differential ranking of human individuals who
compose a given social system and their treatment as superior or inferior
relative to one another in certain socially important respects" (Parsons,
Analytical Approach to Social Stratification, 69)
Fundamental Axes of Stratification:
 Ascription vs. Achievement - Ascribed Status and Achieved
status
 Moral Evaluation defined by:
1. Membership in kinship unit (by birth, marriage)
2. Personal qualities (sex, age, personal beauty, intelligence strength)
3. Achievements (result of individual's actions)
4. Possessions (material & non-material things belonging to an
individual and transferable)
5. Authority ("institutionally recognized right to influence actions of
others", p. 76; resides in position or office)
6. Power (ability to influence others and secure possessions)
Stratification (class or status
differences)
 "the class status of an individual is that rank in the system of stratification
which can be ascribed to him (sic) by virtue of those of his (sic) kinship
ties which bind him to a unit in the class structure" (Parsons Analytical
Approach to Social Stratification, 77-8)
 Stratification (in USA):
 Occupation: universalistic criteria; achieved status; not determined at
birth; equality of opportunity
 Kinship: ascribed status determined at birth
 Contradictions women not allowed to compete on an equal footing for the
jobs of men otherwise, this would threaten the stability of the family, and
hence of society.
Stratification and gender roles
 Separation of sex roles to prevent competition:
 Exclusion of Women's Independent Status
 "The separation of the sex roles in our society is such as, for the
most part, to remove women from the kind of occupational status
which is important for the determination of the status of a family"
(Parson, 80)
 Instrumental Roles = men = outside family; occupational world;
adaptation of society
 Expressive Roles = women = inside family; tension management in
family; socialization of children
 Q: In the light of this account, is stratification and the social
organisation of gender roles a social fact? Or a social construct?
Pattern variables & the social system

 P retained an idea of ‘voluntarism', i.e. that we exercise

some degree of freedom or agency in taking different
courses of action.
 He also argued that individuals confronted a range of
options or choices (PVs)
 refer to the concrete opportunities in which we make
decision which reflect general social parameters of social
behaviour.
 While we have freedom to make choices, the choices and
decisions we do make are generally shaped by existing
social values and conventions.
Pattern Variables –influences on our
choices/agency
 Particularism vs universalism. In some contexts we related to people
according to the rules or standards that we apply generally (universalism), in
other cases we apply qualifications or exceptions so that we favour or
discriminate against them (particularism).
 Performance vs quality; related to the scenario above, whereby we alter our
attitudes or treatment of others according to who they are rather than what
they might achieve (e.g Black boys in the education system)
  Affective neutrality vs affectivity: refers to the degree of investment we have in
engaging with different groups. We distinguish between certain intimate or
open relations (affectivity) vs more 'business-like' or transactional relations
(aff. Neutrality).
  Specificity vs neutrality: some interactions are very basic/instrumental or
transactive (i.e. buying an item/booking a hotel room), others are more
complex and involve different layers of common interests, so diffuse
(relationship with partner).
Social system in fulfilling the
functional needs of society
 A successful society must meet the needs of its members in order
to reproduce itself
 Through meeting these needs societies establish an equilibrium
 Allocation of resources - material, human, cultural (money and
distribution systems).
 Defining and sustaining the pursuit of certain fundamental goals
(political and decision-making or executive systems)
 Maintaining solidarity (the management of conflict.
 Sustaining the motivations of its actors (socialisation, reproduction
of values and norms).
Adaptation/ Goal Attainment/
Integretion/ Latency
 Parsons - the relationship between people and society is a
mutual one because certain human responses or adaptations are
required in order to ensure that the four 'needs' of the system are
met. These are:
 Adaptation - both agents and structures need to relate
appropriately or adapt to the environment and resources available
 Goal attainment - the decision-making or political systems and
structures must appropriately motivate social actors
 Integration - appropriate structures and mechanisms must be
constructed in order to maintain order
 Latency – the maintenance of the cultural and socialising
structures and mechanisms.
Critiques of Parsonianism
 Cold War ideological and political concern
 propagates the superiority of capitalism and western
liberal democracy.
 Universalistic - assumes a normative model of human
relations, uniform cultural and social values
 Individual vs society - little or no sense of mediating
group structures such as classes, regional or national
or ethnic categories
 Mechanistic view of socialisation (4 levels)
Critiques of Parsonianism (2)
 Assumes normative values - no sense of resistance to
'mainstream' values, or of difference or dissent, or of
the marginalisation or suppression
 Insufficient attention paid to social conflict.
 No sense of power; assumes that all actors have equal
access to social goods and services
 As with any other sociological theorist, he cannot
establish a precise correspondence between action
theory (agency) and system theory (structure), so the
dilemma persists.
 Merton’s Functional theory
 Robert Merton

 A student of Parsons

 But critical of some elements

 Tried to bring Marx back in

 Opposed to grand theory

 Theory of the Middle Range

 Criticisms

 opposed functional unity.

 Need not be functional for all parts of society

 opposed universal functionalism.

 Not all elements of a society are functional

 opposed indispensability.
 Different societies have different functions.

 Structures work differently in different settings

 Merton’s theory
 focus on groups, organizations, societies, and culture
 standard patterns of behavior and society

 functions
 observed consequences that make for adaptation or
adjustment of a system.

 dysfunctions—negative consequences

 nonfunctional—none of the above

 levels of analysis—functional for one and not for another

 manifest—planned functions

 latent functions—unplanned unanticipated consequences

 Merton and anomie

 A good example of middle range theory

 A theory of deviance

 We agree on the values—the American dream

 We don’t all have access to the means—structural

barriers

 We create new means—deviance

 Davis and Moore

 The functional theory of stratification

 What is the function of inequality?

 It gets people into positions that are needed

 Important positions
Criticisms of structural-functionalism

 It is ahistorical.

 Could not deal with change

 Conservative bias

 Vague terms

 Teleology
 explain by consequences a logical problem