Structural Functionalism

Structural officiatealism Introduction A (Chagua hii) Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is a framework for building theory that sees rescript as a obscure system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. 1 This approach looks at society through a macro-level orientation, which is a broad cerebrate on the social structures that shape society as a whole, and believes that society has evolved want organisms. 2 This approach looks at both social structure and social functions.Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its serving elements namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions. A common analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer, presents these parts of society as organs that work toward the proper functioning of the body as a whole. 3 In the most basic terms, it simply emphasizes the effort to impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a suppos edly stable, cohesive system.For Talcott Parsons, structural-functionalism came to describe a particular point in time in the methodological development of social science, rather than a precise school of thought. 45 The structural functionalism approach is a macrosociological analysis, with a broad focus on social structures that shape society as a whole. penetration B (au chagua hii) Functionalism is a consensus perspective that sees society as based on shared values into which members are socialized. It sees society as like an organism, each part performing functions to maintain the system as a whole.For example, religion, the didactics system and the family perform socialization functions. The functionalist theory though developed from the ideas of theorists such as Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, can trace its origins as far back as the founding father of sociology, Auguste Comte. Stratification refers to the system where society ranks categories of mess in a hierarch y of classes (upper, middle and lower class) based on a criterion or a combination such as religion, color, race, age, sex, wealth, occupation, and education.It represents the merged inequality characterized by groups of people with differential access to the rewards of society because of their coitus position in the social hierarchy. SRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES The functionalist theory has much strength as well as weaknesses. One of the strengths of Functionalism is that it asserts that there are purposes for social conditions or facts. For example, under a functionalist point of view the janitor and the sewer worker all told in all contribute to the function of the entire unit.Without serving these purposes, the social structure would non function properly. Functionalists are of the assumption that the fills of society are great than the needs of individuals in order words, the heartfelt of society is greater than the good of the individual thus contributing to the maintenanc e of society. Davis and Moore argue that all societies need approximately mechanism for insuring effective role allocation and performance. One of the weaknesses of this perspective, however, is that some could arguably assert that scantiness serves a function in such a society.You can make this argument, but as Durkheim saw function, he was much more optimistic and may have argued that poverty was more a product of anomie than actually serving a function. Another, more general criticism of functionalism is the argument that it is somewhat naive in that it assumes that there is consensus that everyone in the structure holds the same norms and values that we all basically believe in and work for the same thing.Many theorists take issue with this element and argue that Western society is more accurately characterized as groups of people in a society competing for resources, wealth, and power. More importantly, these groups do not all believe the same thing (in fact, many are count er-culture) and are thus in conflict with each other. Many Conflict theorists would take the discouraged view expressed earlier that poverty serves a function in a society.