functionalist view on family essay

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The Functionalist View of Family in Sociology

In the field of sociology, the functionalist perspective provides a unique lens through which to understand the role and significance of the family in society. Functionalism is a theoretical framework that emphasizes the importance of social institutions, such as the family, in maintaining social order and stability. This perspective views the family as a vital component of society, serving various functions that contribute to the overall well-being and functioning of individuals and the larger community.

Overview of Functionalism

Functionalism , also known as structural functionalism, is a sociological theory developed by scholars such as Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons. It posits that society is a complex system made up of interrelated parts that work together to maintain social equilibrium. According to functionalists, social institutions, including the family , have specific functions that contribute to the smooth functioning and stability of society.

The Functions of Family

The functionalist view of the family highlights several key functions that it fulfills within society:

1. Reproduction and Socialization

One of the primary functions of the family is to reproduce and socialize new members of society. Through the institution of marriage, families provide a socially accepted framework for procreation. Additionally, parents play a crucial role in socializing children, teaching them the norms , values, and behaviors necessary for their integration into society.

2. Economic Support

The family serves as an economic unit, providing financial support and resources to its members. Within the family, individuals contribute to the overall economic well-being through their work and income. This economic support ensures the fulfillment of basic needs, such as food, shelter, and clothing, and contributes to the overall stability of society.

3. Emotional Support

The family is a primary source of emotional support and nurturance for its members. This support system helps individuals cope with challenges, provides a sense of belonging and identity, and fosters emotional well-being. The emotional support within families contributes to the overall mental health and stability of individuals and society as a whole.

4. Social Control

The family plays a crucial role in maintaining social control and regulating behavior. Through socialization and the internalization of norms and values , families instill a sense of discipline and moral guidance in their members. This social control helps individuals conform to societal expectations, contributing to the overall order and stability of society.

5. Status Placement

The family also plays a role in determining an individual’s social status and position within society. Inheritance of social and economic resources, as well as social connections and networks, are often influenced by family ties. The family’s role in status placement contributes to the social stratification and hierarchy within society.

Critiques of the Functionalist View

While the functionalist view of the family provides valuable insights into its functions within society, it has also faced criticism. Critics argue that functionalism tends to idealize the family as a harmonious and stable institution, overlooking issues such as domestic violence, inequality, and the changing dynamics of modern families. Moreover, functionalism may neglect the agency and diversity of individuals and families, assuming a one-size-fits-all approach.

In conclusion, the functionalist view of the family provides a comprehensive understanding of its functions within society . From reproduction and socialization to economic and emotional support, the family plays a vital role in maintaining social order and stability. However, it is essential to recognize the limitations of this perspective and acknowledge the complexities and diversity of family structures and dynamics in contemporary society.

Mr Edwards has a PhD in sociology and 10 years of experience in sociological knowledge

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Functionalist Perspective Family & Households – Essay

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Note: I have constructed this plan as if it was for 20 marks. For 30 marks I would add a minimum of two more paragraphs with contrasting perspectives. For example, between p2 and p3, I would include an evaluative paragraph on the feminist perspective, and between p3 and the conclusion, I would add a contrasting paragraph with the Marxist perspective. You need to include a greater amount of evaluation/analysis for 30 marks.

 Tip: The two generalised Marxist/Feminist criticisms are useful to note down. For a 30 mark essay question, by outlining which other perspectives criticise the functionalist view at the beginning of the essay but not going into detail of it, examiners get an idea of which other critical perspectives you are going to consider throughout the essay. Remember, for 30 marks, you are going to want to write a paragraph on AT LEAST one other perspective, contrasting it to that of functionalists. I tend to prefer to write a paragraph on functionalism, then a contrasting section on ie. Marxism, who argue that this functionalist idea is flawed, then go onto another paragraph functionalism followed by another on a perspective and so on… Find whichever method is best for you as long as you Evaluate. After all, the word evaluate is usually found in the title of the essay…

•   The primary socialisation of children:   equipping them with basic skills and society’s values to begin to integrate them into society,
• The stabilisation of adult personalities:   the family is where an adult can release tensions, in order to return to the workplace ready to meet demands, which is very functional for the efficiency of the economy.

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Families: Functionalism

Last updated 15 Sept 2022

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Functionalists argue that all institutions in society have important roles to play in the smooth and functional running of society, and the family is no different. They argue that the family has important functions both for society and for individuals.

George Murdock on Families

The classic functionalist statement on the roles of the family comes from George Murdock (1949) who looked at families across the world and found four functions that were common to all of them:

• Educational : children are taught the norms and values of society (also known as primary socialisation)
• Economic : the family provides an economic function to all its members by pooling resources and ensuring all have what they need.
• Reproductive: produces the next generation of the society.
• Sexual : ensures that adults’ sexual relationships are controlled and stable.

Talcott Parsons on Families

Talcott Parsons (1951) updated Murdock’s theory. He argued that in modern, Western societies, the state provided education and could perform an economic function (through welfare provisions) but that the family still had two irreducible functions:

Primary socialisation

Similar to Murdock’s educational role, Parsons agreed that families taught children social norms and values. However, he argued that it specifically taught children the norms and values associated with their family and/or community, while other institutions, such as schools, the media, religion, etc. taught children the universal norms and values of wider society. Parsons called this first process primary socialisation and the latter secondary socialisation .

Stabilisation of adult personalities

Parsons also argued that families helped to prevent adults from behaving in disruptive or dysfunctional ways, instead encouraging them to conform to social norms, especially at times of stress. The family provides emotional support to its members.

Parsons famously described this in his warm bath theory . This was the idea that when a man came home from a hard day at work, he could relax into is family like a warm bath and it would take away the stress and refresh him for the next day’s work.

Evaluating functionalist views of the functions of families and households

A standard criticism of functionalist views of the role of the family comes from conflict theorists like Marxists and feminists who argue that this paints too rosy and idealistic a picture of family life. Families are certainly not like that for everyone. Many people have negative experiences of family life, and indeed they can cause stress as well as relieve it.

Conflict theorists also question whether the roles families perform really benefit the whole of society or really just benefit powerful groups within it. In particular, feminists argue that families exist largely for the benefit of men.

The Marxist-feminist Fran Ansley offers a different perspective on Parsons’ warm bath theory when she describes women in the family as takers of shit. By this she means that men coming home from work may have their stress relieved by the family, but only by dumping it on their wives.

Furthermore, these theories are outdated and suggest families are all traditional nuclear families with men going to work and women in domestic roles. We will revisit this part of the discussion in a later section.

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1.3B: The Functionalist Perspective

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The functionalist perspective attempts to explain social institutions as collective means to meet individual and social needs.

Learning Objectives

• Apply the functionalist perspective to issues in the contemporary world
• In the functionalist perspective, societies are thought to function like organisms, with various social institutions working together like organs to maintain and reproduce societies.
• According to functionalist theories, institutions come about and persist because they play a function in society, promoting stability and integration.
• Functionalism has been criticized for its failure to account for social change and individual agency; some consider it conservatively biased.
• Functionalism has been criticized for attributing human-like needs to society.
• Emile Durkheim ‘s work is considered the foundation of functionalist theory in sociology.
• Merton observed that institutions could have both manifest and latent functions.
• functionalism : Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.
• manifest function : the element of a behavior that is conscious and deliberate
• social institutions : In the social sciences, institutions are the structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human collectivity. Institutions include the family, religion, peer group, economic systems, legal systems, penal systems, language, and the media.
• latent function : the element of a behavior that is not explicitly stated, recognized, or intended, and is thereby hidden

Functionalism

The functionalist perspective attempts to explain social institutions as collective means to meet individual and social needs. It is sometimes called structural-functionalism because it often focuses on the ways social structures (e.g., social institutions) meet social needs.

Functionalism draws its inspiration from the ideas of Emile Durkheim. Durkheim was concerned with the question of how societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. He sought to explain social stability through the concept of solidarity, and differentiated between the mechanical solidarity of primitive societies and the organic solidarity of complex modern societies. According to Durkheim, more primitive or traditional societies were held together by mechanical solidarity; members of society lived in relatively small and undifferentiated groups, where they shared strong family ties and performed similar daily tasks. Such societies were held together by shared values and common symbols. By contrast, he observed that, in modern societies, traditional family bonds are weaker; modern societies also exhibit a complex division of labor, where members perform very different daily tasks. Durkheim argued that modern industrial society would destroy the traditional mechanical solidarity that held primitive societies together. Modern societies however, do not fall apart. Instead, modern societies rely on organic solidarity; because of the extensive division of labor, members of society are forced to interact and exchange with one another to provide the things they need.

The functionalist perspective continues to try and explain how societies maintained the stability and internal cohesion necessary to ensure their continued existence over time. In the functionalist perspective, societies are thought to function like organisms, with various social institutions working together like organs to maintain and reproduce them. The various parts of society are assumed to work together naturally and automatically to maintain overall social equilibrium. Because social institutions are functionally integrated to form a stable system, a change in one institution will precipitate a change in other institutions. Dysfunctional institutions, which do not contribute to the overall maintenance of a society, will cease to exist.

In the 1950s, Robert Merton elaborated the functionalist perspective by proposing a distinction between manifest and latent functions. Manifest functions are the intended functions of an institution or a phenomenon in a social system. Latent functions are its unintended functions. Latent functions may be undesirable, but unintended consequences, or manifestly dysfunctional institutions may have latent functions that explain their persistence. For example, crime seems difficult to explain from the functionalist perspective; it seems to play little role in maintaining social stability. Crime, however, may have the latent function of providing examples that demonstrate the boundaries of acceptable behavior and the function of these boundaries to maintain social norms.

Social Institutions

Functionalists analyze social institutions in terms of the function they play. In other words, to understand a component of society, one must ask, “What is the function of this institution? How does it contribute to social stability? ” Thus, one can ask of education, “What is the function of education for society? ” A complete answer would be quite complex and require a detailed analysis of the history of education, but one obvious answer is that education prepares individuals to enter the workforce and, therefore, maintains a functioning economy. By delineating the functions of elements of society, of the social structure, we can better understand social life.

Criticism of Functionalism

Functionalism has been criticized for downplaying the role of individual action, and for being unable to account for social change. In the functionalist perspective, society and its institutions are the primary units of analysis. Individuals are significant only in terms of their places within social systems (i.e., social status and position in patterns of social relations). Some critics also take issue with functionalism’s tendency to attribute needs to society. They point out that, unlike human beings, society does not have needs; society is only alive in the sense that it is made up of living individuals. By downplaying the role of individuals, functionalism is less likely to recognize how individual actions may alter social institutions.

Critics also argue that functionalism is unable to explain social change because it focuses so intently on social order and equilibrium in society. Following functionalist logic, if a social institution exists, it must serve a function. Institutions, however, change over time; some disappear and others come into being. The focus of functionalism on elements of social life in relation to their present function, and not their past functions, makes it difficult to use functionalism to explain why a function of some element of society might change, or how such change occurs.

Functionalist Perspective & Theory in Sociology

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On This Page:

Functional theories in sociology see society as a system of interconnected parts that work together to maintain stability and order. Each part (like family, education, or religion) serves a function to benefit society as a whole.

Key Takeaways

• The functionalism perspective is a paradigm influenced by American sociology from roughly the 1930s to the 1960s, although its origins lay in the work of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, writing at the end of the 19th century.
• Functionalism is a structural theory and posits that the social institutions and organization of society influence the running of society and individuals’ behaviors.
• Talcott Parsons expanded upon Durkheim”s idea of the society as a moral regulator to create a “grand” theory of sociology intended to explain all of human behavior in relation to institutions.
• According to both Parsons and Durkheim, societies undergo an evolution, and large, formalized structures (such as the family or education) evolve to serve the purpose that small communities once had. People become more interdependent.
• Functionalism has been heavily criticized by a number of schools of thought, but has been revised beginning in the 1970s by American Sociologists. Functionalist theories largely argue that social problems and phenomena are, rather than a symptom of a societal flaw, in some way beneficial to society.

What is a Functionalist Theory in Sociology?

Functionalism examines how the social institutions that make up society, such as the economy, education, family, religion, and media, all perform a useful purpose, and also influence members of society.

Functionalism is a theory that views society as a complex but orderly and stable system with interconnected structures and social patterns that operate to meet the needs of individuals’ needs.

The main ideas of the Functionalist perspective are that:

• There is a social structure that exists independently of individuals. This social structure consists of norms and values passed on through institutions that shape the individual.
• Sociologists should study society scientifically in a way that looks for the general laws explaining human action on a macro level.
• Socialization is important because individuals need to be regulated for everyone’s benefit. Thus, the integration and regulation of individuals are good.
• Sociologists should analyze society as a system by looking at each social phenomenon and the contribution it makes to the whole of society. Talcott Parsons believed that society acts in a similar way to the human body, as social institutions interact in the same way as human organs. Both are interconnected and interdependent parts that function for the good of the whole.
• Social institutions usually perform positive functions — such as creating value consensus, social integration, social regulation, preventing anomie, etc. Functionalism is a consensus theory that assumes that the institutions of society are working together to maintain social cohesion and stability.

Functionalism originated in British anthropology. In particular, the Polish-British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1943) proposed functional analysis as a solution for sociologists to interpret social situations through intuition rather than observation.

According to Malinowski, this functional analysis brings scientific attention to the study of cultures different from those of the ones observing it. Thus, before analyzing a social phenomenon typical of a given culture — say, an institution, material object, or idea — people first must think about what function that social phenomenon has within this culture.

The essential assumption of Malinowski”s functionalism is that in every single civilization, every custom, material object, idea, and opinion fulfills some vital function, helping to both express and maintain it.

This expression and maintenance of culture through phenomena that take place within it is called integration.

Examples of Functionalism

An example of functionalism would be the family . According to functionalism, the family is a societal structure that provides for the reproduction and protection of children.

Families serve as a primary agent of socialization, fostering an understanding of expected behaviors, norms, and values.

By meeting the emotional needs of its members, stable families underpin social order and economic stability. Social Problems Mid-twentieth-century sociologists were often concerned with policy and, correspondingly, social problems (Tumin, 1965).

Crime and Deviance

Crime serves a function in society to reinforce what is acceptable behavior, as the public nature of the punishments shows people what will happen for breaking the rules. Very serious crimes can also lead to society coming together to condemn the perpetrators.

Deviance refers to actions that go against the norms and values of a society. These may not be against the law but are frowned upon by most in society.

The Education System

An example of functionalism would be the education system. Durkheim and Parsons argued that schools are a ‘society in miniature’ that teach universalistic values.

For functionalists, education is central in passing on the mainstream norms and values that keep society together, through the process of secondary socialization. This is achieved hidden curriculum and PSHE lessons

The education system also allows young people to specialize and train for specific jobs based on their abilities. This allows students to move from the ascribed status and particularistic values of the home to an achieved status within society.

Disengagement Theory of Aging

Functionalism underlines perhaps the oldest theory of aging — disengagement theory.

Disengagement theory suggests that withdrawal from society and social relationships is a natural part of becoming old. The theory, developed by Elaine Cumming and Warren Earl Henry in their 1961 book, “Growing Old,” has largely been disproven.

Nonetheless, disengagement theory has several key postulates, each of which suggests that the process of losing social ties as one ages is normal and even beneficial to society.

These are (Cumming & Henry, 1961):

• Everyone expects death, and one”s abilities deteriorate over time. Thus, people will lose ties to those they cannot benefit from.
• Individuals will become more freed from the norms imposed by interaction with others in society.
• Because of men and women”s different roles in society, they will disengage differently.
• Aging causes knowledge and skill to deteriorate. However, success in industrialized society demands knowledge and skill. Aging is functional in that it ensures that the young possess sufficient knowledge and skill to assume authority while the old retire before they lose skills.
• Complete disengagement results when both the individual and society are ready for disengagement.
• The loss of one”s functional role in society will cause crisis and demoralization until they assume the role of disengagement.
• individuals become ready to disengage when they become aware of their mortality. Each level of society grants aging individuals permission to disengage based on their dwindling contribution to societal institutions.
• Disengagement leads to relationships in one”s remaining roles changing.
• Disengagement theory is independent of culture.

Durkheim and Functionalism

Emile Durkheim is widely considered to be the father of sociology. Durkheim believed that individuals are inherently selfish and social structure and social order are important in that they constrain their selfishness.

However, Durkheim also believed that, as societies evolved in a way that made people more individualistic, maintaining social order became an increasingly difficult problem for society (Pope, 1975).

Durkheim’s Key Ideas

Durkheim believed that there is a social structure made up of norms and values.

He believed that this structure existed above individuals because individuals are born into a society with norms and values.

People”s behaviors, according to Durkheim, were shaped by a social structure, consisting of social facts, such as norms and values, and institutions, which exist external to the individual and constrain the individuals’ behavior.

Secondly, Durkheim emphasized that sociologists should use scientific methods to uncover the basic laws that govern human behavior.

Durkheim’s work was largely aimed at demonstrating the importance of organic solidarity as well as trying to find out what societies must do in order to achieve this organic solidarity (Pope, 1975).

Thirdly, Durkheim believed that individuals have an inborn tendency to be selfish and that it was the goal of society to regulate these selfish desires. This means that Durkheim considered too much freedom to be bad for both the individual and society.

He thought that greater levels of human happiness and “progress” could be achieved if people cooperated together, rather than competing in a war of all against all for scarce resources.

Durkheim and Social Solidarity

Social solidarity and cohesion is achieved and maintained through socialization process and learning of norms and values of society.

To restrain naturally selfish tendencies, Durkheim believed that societies need to create a sense of social solidarity — making individuals feel as if they are part of something bigger and teaching them the standards of acceptable behavior.

This is what Durkheim called moral regulation. Both social solidarity and moral regulation rely on effectively socializing individuals into wider society (Pope, 1975).

While Durkheim believed that solidarity and moral regulation were achieved in different ways in primitive and advanced industrial societies, these goals were far harder to achieve in industrialized ones.

For example, in “primitive” societies such as Feudal Europe, social regulation worked on a small scale and was locally based, and people lived in the same area their entire lives. There was very little role differentiation and no complex division of labor.

That is to say, people generally had the shared experiences of living in the same village, carrying out the same activities, and living with the same people their entire lives.

Durkheim believed that, because the people in societies such as Feudal Britain shared the same reality, the same goals, and even the same religion, they are closely reliant on one another, meaning that moral regulation and social solidarity are easily achieved. Durkheim called this situation mechanical solidarity : solidarity based on similarity (Pope, 1975).

Meanwhile, during the Industrial Revolution, the number of specialized tasks increased. The division of labor , as a result, also became more complex.

Individuals, despite shifting more toward individualism, became more interdependent — trading self-sufficiency for dependence on a large number of people that they did not know.

As a result, the ability of large social institutions — like religion — to provide universal morals declined. As people within a society ceased to live the same lives, a need to find solidarity grounded in something other than similarity arose.

Durkheim called this organic solidarity , a social cohesion that results from the interdependence of people in a society.

Durkheim and Anomie

Without a sense of social solidarity society can fall into anomie , a normlessness where a person doesn’t know what it means to be normal within society.

Durkheim (1897) believed that the vast differences between individuals in industrialized societies created a crisis of moral regulation. Durkheim calls this condition anomie.

He argued that the question of how modern societies could achieve moral regulation and keep individuals compliant was the primary problem of contemporary civilization.

He called this moral regulation organic solidarity: social solidarity based on difference (Pope, 1975).

Durkheim believed that labor organizations and education would provide society with necessary moral regulation because education could simultaneously teach people the diverse skills required for an advanced specialization of labor and provide them with shared norms and values through teaching subjects such as history.

Talcott Parsons’ Functionalism

While functionalism before Parsons attempted to produce explanations of everything that exists and happens in a particular time, Parsons aimed to use functionalism to create a general theory of how all social systems work.

Parsons melded together the theories and key issues of several other sociologists — Durkheim, Marshall and Pereto, and Weber — to create his grand theory.

The Organic Analogy

Talcott Parsons believed that society acts in a similar way to the human body, as social institutions interact in the same way as human organs.

Both are interconnected and interdependent parts that function for the good of the whole. This is called the organic analogy.

Organisms like the human body have needs that need to be met and so does society. Social institutions have evolved to meet society’s needs, such as value consensus and social order.

Parsons believed that one of the most important functions of social institutions is the creation of value consensus: an agreement around shared values. This commitment to common values was, for Parsons, the basis for order in society.

Value Consensus

Value consensus means that a majority of society agree with the goals that society sets to show success. These included values such as a belief in work ethic and meritocracy.

Parsons argued that work ethic ensures that people value working rather than leisure. This helps create more goods that can help society function, and a belief in meritocracy , that people believe that hard work should be rewarded, thus incentivizing people to work harder.

Value consensus and social order are maintained through institutions of formal social control, such as the police, and informal social groups, such as families and schools, who socialize children into social values and norms shared by the majority of society.

Parsons believed that the family is responsible for passing on society’s basic norms and values by providing early socialization, the stabilization of adult personalities, and a place for people to escape from the pressures of modern life.

Education integrates individuals into wider society, promoting a sense of belonging and identity. Parsons believed that education does this through teaching students a shared history and language.

Finally, other institutions can regulate individual behavior through social sanctions. This can prevent crime and deviance from becoming unmanageable.

Functional Prerequisites

Parsons also believed that societies have certain functional prerequisites — things that societies need in order to survive. For example, a society must produce and distribute food and shelter, organize and resolve conflicts, and socialize young people.

Parsons believed that social systems have four needs that must be met for continued survival: adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency.

The Four Basic needs of society

• Goal Attainment (Political Function): Parsons believed that a society is only possible when there are common standards: the society must have a collective goal, and acceptable means for achieving it.
• Adaption (Economic Function) – Every society has to provide for the needs of its members in order for the society to survive.
• Integration (Social Harmony) – Specialist institutions develop to reduce conflict in society. For example, education and media create a sense of belonging.
• Latency : The unstated consequences of actions – there are 2 types of latency: Pattern Maintenance: Maintaining value consensus through socialization and Tension Management. Opportunities to release tension in a safe way.

Parsons also viewed social change as a process of social evolution.

That is to say; he thought that human societies underwent a progression from hunter-gatherers to complex industrial ones and that more complex societies were inherently better because they are more adaptive — able to respond to changes in the environment, more innovative, and more capable of utilizing the talents of a wider range of people.

As a result, in a conclusion echoing Darwinism, these advanced societies are better able to survive.

Parsons believed that several factors bolster societal progress. While economic and technological changes lead to societies evolving, he argued that values increasingly become the driver of social progress in advanced societies.

To Parsons, the values of advanced industrialized societies are superior to those of traditional societies because modern values allow society to be more adaptive.

Parsons believed that the collapse of major social institutions — family, education, and so forth, could cause regression into a more primitive form of social organization.

The Social System

Parsons was influenced by many European scholars, such as Malinowski and Weber. Some have argued that Parson’s sociology addresses American society in particular, and that it is, rather than an ideological justification of the state of America contemporary to him, an attempt to identify the minimum requirements of integration in a society composed of different ethnic groups with different traditions and cultures.

This means that an action is only a social action when social purposes and standards are identified in the context of interactions that consider their finalities and rules an integral part of the social situation.

Parsons (1951) introduced the idea of a system to address the problem of integration. Parsons said that since people perform actions according to defined principles, rather than in a random way, they have a “personality system.”

Here, a system is the set of symbols that make the interaction possible and the network of relationships between people that do not act in an uncoordinated way but according to the positions assigned to them in this network of relations.

Parsons believed that the cultural, personality, and society systems all had to be the same as each other. The culture helps people to create their personality through internalizing the rules and values of a society (Parsons, 1951).

Meanwhile, the internalization of these cultural models gives order and stability to society because all of the people in a society tend to behave in a way that conforms to society”s expectations.

There are three parts of every action, according to Parsons:

• the finality — the goal to reach and negative consequences to avoid (the “cathetic” element);
• the knowledge of a situation necessary to complete an action — the knowledge element; and, finally, the ability to pick out among many possible choices —
• the “evaluation” element.

Parson believed that personality can only arise in the context of social relations, which can create a system of common signs and symbols for navigating symbols.

These social relations take place in mutual relations among people who act according to their status and roles. While status defines the position that a person occupies in a system of relations considered to be a structure regardless of personality, roles relate to what someone does in relation to others, and what is typical of a certain status.

Criticisms of Functionalism

Although Parson”s first attempts at creating a grand theory of sociology were well-regarded in the 1950s, Neo-Marxists, conflict theorists, and symbolic interactionists criticized him heavily.

Eventually, American sociologists attempted to revive the grand theory.

There are a number of criticisms of the functionalist perspective (Holmwood, 2005). Among the most notable include:

• Criticism of whether there is really a societal “structure” that exists outside of individuals.

Because institutions cannot be isolated in controlled experiments, this task is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

If everyone, for example, believed in the value of achievement in meritocracy, then disorder might result because not everyone can reach the highest levels of achievement.

Thus, Mann believed (1970), social stability is more likely if those at the bottom of society do not follow the society”s principle values, which they are less likely to achieve.

• Criticism of functionalism being a deterministic theory: some have criticized functionalism for portraying human behavior as if it is programmable in a precise way by social institutions.
• Functionalism ignores class conflict and coercion: Marxists argue that mainstream social values are actually the values of elite groups, and that conflict arises from a small group of elite actors imposing social order on the majority.
• Criticism that functionalism is ideological: In arguing that certain institutions are necessary, some have argued that functionalism justifies the existence of the social order. Micheal Mann (1970), for instance, argued that social stability might occur because of a lack of consensus rather than because of it. Not all social institutions are functionally indispensable, and there are functional alternatives. For example, the family is not the only institution that can perform primary socialization.
• Not all the institutions of society perform a positive function for society, instead for some people they are dysfunctional. For example, domestic abuse makes the family dysfunctional for its members.

For that reason, gradual social reform should be all that is needed to address a social problem. Functionalism even suggests that social problems are functional in some ways for society because, otherwise, these problems would not continue.

For example, while crime is a major social problem, it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in law enforcement, courts and corrections, home security, and the informal economy, where people engage or deal with crime.

Similarly, poverty, while a major social problem, coerces poor people to do jobs that people would otherwise not want to do (Gans, 1972). Poverty also provides employment, such as for those who work in social services that help the poor.

Bales, R. F., & Parsons, T. (2014). Family: Socialization and interaction process . Routledge.

Cumming, E., & Henry, W. E. (1961). Growing old, the process of disengagement . Basic books.

De Nardis, P. (2007). Function. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology , 1-2.

Durkheim, E. (1892). The division of labor in society . Free Pr.

Durkheim, E. (1951). Suicide [1897]. na.

Holmwood, J. (2005). Functionalism and its Critics . Modern social theory: An introduction , 87-109.

Murdock, G. P. (1943). Bronislaw Malinowski .

Parsons T. (1937,1968]). The Structure of Social Action . New York: Free Press.

Parsons, T. (1939). The professions and social structure . Social forces, 17 (4), 457-467.

Parsons T. (1951). The Social System . London: Routledge.

Parsons T. (1964). Essays in Sociological Theory. Revised Edition . New York: The Free Press.

Parsons T. (1978). Action Theory and the Human Condition . New York: The Free Press.

Parsons, T. (1970). On building social system theory: A personal history. Daedalus , 826-881.

Parsons, T., & Shils, E. A. (2017). The social system (pp. 190-233). Routledge.

Parsons, T. E., & Shils, E. A. (1951). Toward a general theory of action .

Parsons, T. (1971). The system of modern societies (p. 12). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Pope, W. (1975). Durkheim as a Functionalist . Sociological Quarterly, 16 (3), 361-379.

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Functionalist View On Family

This sample essay on Functionalist View On Family provides important aspects of the issue and arguments for and against as well as the needed facts. Read on this essay’s introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Outline and evaluate the functionalist view of the role of the family in society. 33 marks – 25 minutes. A family is a kinship – people related by blood or marriage. Functionalism is a macro theory which means it looks at a wider sociological view. It focuses on the importance of the nuclear family (mother and father married with children), the universality of the family, changing roles and how the nuclear family “fits” into modern society.

The theory of “fit” is argued by Parsons, where he believes that the dominant structure of the family best suits the needs of the economy at the time.This means that the nuclear family “fits” into an industrial economy because they are geographically mobile and not reliant on wider kin. By this Parsons means that family members can easily move to new centres of production.

Parson concludes that only the nuclear family could provide the achievement orientated 2quired by modern economies. However according to Wilmott and Young, the pre-industrial family tended to be nuclear, not extended as claimed by Parsons with parents and children working together in cottage industries such as weaving.They also argue that the hardship of these early industrialised periods gave rise to the mother centred working class extended family, based on ties between mothers and their married daughters who relied on each other for financial, practical and emotional support.

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Similarly, Hareven concludes that the extended family, not the nuclear family as Parsons said, was the structure best equipped to meet the needs of early industrial society. Her research showed how extended migrant families in America in the 19th Century acted as a source of support and mutual aid, as well as promoting geographical mobility by helping newcomers to find work.This outlines the functionalist view of the role of family in society and is evaluated by the views of other sociologists. Functionalist theories are based on how the nuclear family performs positive function for individuals and society which is why functionalist sociologists paint a harmonious picture of the family functioning with other institutions to serve the needs of society and its members. This is agreed by Murdock as he argues that the family is a universal institution (it exists everywhere) which is supported by when he studied 250 societies and found some sort of family in all of them.This suggests that families are necessary in some way either for societies to survive or for individual well-being. However, Murdock views of the family is somewhat flawed due to the different type of families that exist in today’s society such as single parent, beanpole and extended families. Also, Murdock believes that families perform four main functions – this theory is based on organic analogy which means family and its members function to keep society alive.One of the functions of family in which Murdock believes in is that family is there for stable satisfaction of the sex drive with the same partner to prevent the social disruption caused by sexual “free to all”. Another function in his theory is that family is there to reproduce the next generation because without this society will not be able to continue. Also, family are there to socialise the young by teaching the norms and values of society and they are there to provide economic needs such as shelter and food. This outlines and evaluates functionalist view of the role of the family in society.On the other hand, other sociologists have criticised Murdock’s functionalist approach because Murdock’s view on the universality of the family is too narrow because it excludes many family forms. For example the single parent family is a distinct and viable family type as O’ Donnell states “one in five families with dependant children in Britain in 1994 was headed by a single parent”. This is shown by Bourne who says that single parent family are the most common in western society and that in 1996 11 per sent of people in Britain lived in this type of family- today it has doubled.Also, as society became more industrialised traditional roles were increasingly taken over by the state. For example, children had to go to school rather than being taught by family members; therefore the family has lost its educational function. In response to Murdock’s theory, Parson says that in modern industrial societies the role of the family has become specialised. Parson believes that every family in every society has two “basic and irreducible” functions.For instance, primary socialisation – passing on of norms and values and appropriate gender roles, girls would be taught how to behave feminine and boys would be taught how to portray themselves as masculine. This is where the mother would provide an instrumental and expressive role and the father would be the breadwinner of the family. During this period the child learns the basic elements of the culture into which she/he has been born into. However, Parsons view of the socialisation process is criticised for being too deterministic, with children being pumped full of culture and their personalities being moulded by all powerful adults.Parson ignores the possibility of socialisation being a two way process in which roles are negotiated or that attempts of socialisation can be resisted by children. The second basic and irreducible function of the role of family in society is to provide stabilisation of adult personalities- being supportive to adult family members. The family gives the individual adult a “safety waive”, a place where she/he can escape the stresses and strain of the society and relax, this is known as the “warn bath” theory.However, a Marxist sociologist Zaretsky argues that the family only provides this emotional support in order to encourage its members to continue to work another day under the harsh realities of Capitalism. Therefore, the family is a servant of a capitalist state which looks after the needs of exploited workers at no cost to employers. Some sociologists argue against Murdock and Parsons theories, by saying that many of the functions they have identified can be provided by other sources and institutions and individuals do not require the family for financial support which means families can be dysfunctional.Marxists and feminists reject Murdock’s “rose-tinted” consensus view that family meets the needs of both its members and society. They argue that functionalism neglects conflict, exploitation and the dark side of the family where many families are in places of disruption. Functionalists stress the positive aspects of the family same as how the New Right sociologists believe that family is the cornerstone of society. Whereas, Marxist views on family are that it is a part of the ideological state apparatus as an agent of social control and it rovides important functions for capitalism. Another view which differs from functionalism is the feminist view, they think family reinforce inequality and patriarchy. Many sociologists have studied ‘the dark side of family’ where members feel abused and where they are unable to live the life they desire. For example, feminists see the family as serving the needs of men and oppressing women. Similarly, Marxists argue that it meets the needs of capitalism, not its members or society. This outlines and evaluates the functionalist view of the role of family in society.To conclude, functionalist analyses of the nuclear family tend to be based on the middle class and American versions of family and they consequently neglect other influences such as ethnicity, social class or religion. For example, Parsons does not consider the fact that wealth or poverty may determine whether women stay at home to look at children or not. Since parsons wrote his theory in the 1950’s, many western societies in the UK have now become multicultural and more ethnicities, sub cultures and religions are present due to migration which is why Parsons view of the role of the family in society is not valid in the contemporary UK.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Marriage and Family — Structural-Functionalist Perspective On Marriage And Family

Structural-functionalist Perspective on Marriage and Family

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Marriage and Family from a Structural-Functionalist Perspective

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A level sociology revision – education, families, research methods, crime and deviance and more!

Evaluate the Functionalist View of the Role of Education in Society (30) #LONG VERSION

Essay practice for A-level sociology!

Table of Contents

Last Updated on September 17, 2021 by Karl Thompson

An A-level sociology essay written for the AQA’s 7192 (1) specification, exam paper 1. This is the long, ‘overkill’ version of the essay, written using the PEAC system (Point – Explain – Analyse – Criticise)

An obvious starting point before reading this essay would be to read my post on the Functionalist Perspective on Education .

NB – At time of posting, it’s half an essay, more to follow!

Introduction

Functionalism is a somewhat dated structural theory popular in 19 th century France (Durkheim) and mid-20 th century America (Parsons). Functionalist theorists adopted a ‘top-down’ approach to analysing the role which institutions, such as schools play in relation to other institutions, such as work, and generally believe that schools form an important part of a society’s structure. Functionalism is also a consensus theory: functionalists generally emphasise the positive functions which schools perform for individuals and society, arguing that schools tend to promote social harmony and social order, which they see as a good thing.

Below I will analyse and evaluate four specific ‘functions’ or roles which schools perform according to Functionalist theory, ultimately arguing that it obscures more than it enlightens our understanding of the role of education in society.

Education and Social Solidarity

POINT 1: According to Emile Durkheim (1890s), the founder of modern Functionalism, the first role of education was to create a sense of social solidarity which in turn promoted value consensus.

EXPLANATION : Social Solidarity is where the individual members of society feel themselves to be a part of a single ‘body’ or community and work together towards shared goals. According to Durkhiem schools achieved social solidarity through children learning subjects such as history and English which gave them a shared sense of national identity, which in turn promoted value consensus, or agreement on shared values at the societal level.

Analysis: Durkheim thought schools were one of the few institutions which could promote solidarity at a national level – he may have a point. It is difficult to imagine any other institution which governments could use to socialise individuals in to a sense of national identity.

Evaluation: To evaluate this point, there do seem to be examples of where schools attempt to promote a sense of social solidarity. Writing in the 1950s, Talcott Parsons pointed to how, in American schools, children pledge allegiance to the flag; while today British schools and colleges are obliged to promote ‘British Values’ (woohoo!)

However, it is debatable whether schools are successful in instilling a genuine sense of social solidarity into most, let alone all students. A minority of students are excluded from schools, and around 5% are persistent absentees – if students are not in mainstream education, then schools cannot promote a sense of belonging; while for those students who are at school, many are there ‘in body, but not necessarily in spirit. Finally there is the fact there is such a huge diversity of schools (faith schools, private schools, home education) that surely education is too fragmented and divided for it to promote true solidarity at the national level – to the extent that postmodernists suggested there is no such thing as a unified culture anymore.

Education teaches Skills for Work

POINT 2: A second function of education, again according to Durkhiem, is that schools teach individuals the specialist skills for work, which is crucial in a complex, modern industrial economy. (Schools thus have an important economic function).

Durkhiem argued that school was an efficient way of teaching individuals these diverse skills while at the same time teaching them to co-operate with each-other – schools thus instilled a sense of organic solidarity, or solidarity based on difference and interdependency, with school being one of the only institutions which could do both of these functions simultaneously within the context of a national economy.

The idea that schools have an economic function certainly seems to be true – basic literacy and numeracy are certainly important for any job today, and ever since the New Right, Vocational education has expanded, right up to the present day in the form of Modern Apprenticeships, and today. There is also a relationship between government expenditure on education and economic growth – more developed countries tend to have stronger economies.

However, it is debatable whether schools prepare children adequately for work – for example, there is a shortage of STEM graduates, and many doctors come to Britain from abroad, so maybe the education system today focuses on the wrong subjects, not the subjects the economy actually needs to grow effectively? There is also a Postmodern critique from Ken Robinson that suggests that ‘schools kill creativity’ – a system obsessed with standardised testing hardly prepares people to go into the creative industries or become entrepreneurs, both of which are growth areas in the current UK economy.

More to follow…!

Short version of this essay

• Point – Simply state something Functionalists say about education
• Explain – Explain what is meant by the ‘Function’ of education mentioned previously
• Expand – this could mean giving examples, evidence, or explaining in more depth
• Criticise – criticise with evidence against or limitations

(P1) Secondary Socialisation and Value consensus       

• The teaching of norms and values after the family – leading to agreement around these norms and values
• Formal Curriculum – Shared history/ Shared language/ Shared religion
• Team sports – working together shared aim
• Ethnocentric Curriculum
• Sub cultures
• More school types – more diversity, surely = less value consensus?

(P2) Teaching skills for work – economic function          

• Diverse subjects,
• Punctuality
• Vocationalism and apprenticeships have expanded
• Are apprenticeships useful?
• Tea servers

(P3) Bridge between home and school  

• School prepares us for the world outside the family – it acts like a society in miniature
• Particularistic/ Universalistic Standards
• Doesn’t apply to everyone – Home schooling

R(P4) Role Allocation  

• Different qualifications sift people into appropriate jobs
• Does this through exams – sifting and sorting
• Meritocracy (since 1944)
• Marxism – not meritocratic – myth of meritocracy,
• Private schools
• Feminism – gender stereotyping and subject choice

Evaluate using other perspectives –

• Marxism – Agrees with Functionalists that school socialises us into shared values, but these values are the values benefit the ruling class (we get taught that inequality is natural and inevitable, we believe in the myth of meritocracy and so end up passively accepting society as it is.
• Feminism – Functionalism ignores the gender divide in school
• Interactionism – Argues Functionalism is too deterministic – it sees individuals as passive, but there is a lot more evidence that pupils are active and aren’t just moulded by the school system

Conclusion – You must point out that this perspective is too optimistic and overgeneralises!

Signposting

This essay plan is based on these class notes on the Functionalist perspective on education .

For more essays, please see my main post on exam advice, short answer questions and essays .

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