Relevance: Sociology: Paper I: Major theoretical strands
- The central idea of functional analysis is that society is a whole unit, made up of interrelated parts that work together. Functional analysis (also known as functionalism and structural functionalism) is rooted in the origins of sociology. Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer viewed society as a kind of living organism. Just as a person or animal has organs that function together, they wrote, so does society. And like an organism, if society is to function smoothly, its parts must work together in harmony.
- Emile Durkheim also viewed society as being composed of many parts, each with its own function. When all the parts of society fulfill their functions, society is in a “normal” state. If they do not fulfill their functions, society is in an “abnormal” or “pathological” state. To understand society, then, functionalists say that we need to look at both structure (how the parts of a society fit together to make the whole) and function (what each part does, how it contributes to society).
- Robert Merton and Functionalism. Robert Merton (1910–2003) dismissed the organic analogy, but he did maintain the essence of functionalism—the image of society as a whole composed of parts that work together. Merton used the term functions to refer to the beneficial consequences of people’s actions: Functions help keep a group (society, social system) in balance. In contrast, dysfunctions are consequences that harm a society: They undermine a system’s equilibrium.
- Functions can be either manifest or latent. If an action is intended to help some part of a system, it is a manifest function. For example, suppose that government officials become concerned about our low rate of childbirth. Congress offers a $10,000 bonus for every child born to a married couple. The intention, or manifest function, of the bonus is to increase childbearing within the family unit. Merton pointed out that people’s actions can also have latent functions; that is, they can have unintended consequences that help a system adjust. Let’s suppose that the bonus works. As the birth rate jumps, so does the sale of diapers and baby furniture. Because the benefits to these businesses were not the intended consequences, they are latent functions of the bonus.
- Of course, human actions can also hurt a system. Because such consequences usually are unintended, Merton called them latent dysfunctions. Let’s assume that the government has failed to specify a “stopping point” with regard to its bonus system. To collect more bonuses, some people keep on having children. The more children they have, however, the more they need the next bonus to survive. Large families become common, and poverty increases. Welfare is reinstated, taxes jump, and the nation erupts in protest. Because these results were not intended and because they harmed the social system, they would be latent dysfunctions of the bonus program.
- In Sum : From the perspective of functional analysis, society is a functioning unit, with each part related to the whole. Whenever we examine a smaller part, we need to look for its functions and dysfunctions to see how it is related to the larger unit. This basic approach can be applied to any social group, whether an entire society, a college, or even a group as small as a family.
Criticisms of Functionalism
- The conflict theorists regard the functionalist approach as Utopian in nature and emphasize the need to study conflict in systems of stratification as a universal, all pervasive and an omnipresent phenomena.
- The conflict theorists say that all societies are characterized by some degree of constraint, disagreement, uncertainty, control dysfunctional and coercions that can’t be ignored.
- However, unlike the functionalists, the conflict theorists do say that, conflict leads to stability and consensus in society.
- It becomes important to study also the nature of consensus and equilibrium in a given system with conflict.