A functionalist perspective, also called functionalism, is one of the main theoretical perspectives in sociology. It originates in the works of Emil Durkheim, who was especially interested in how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable.
Thus, it is a theory that focuses on the macro level of social structure, and not on the micro level of everyday life. Notable theorists are Herbert Spencer, Talcott Parsons, and Robert C. Merton.
Brief point
The theory of structural functionalism interprets every part of society in terms of how it contributes to its stability. Society is more than the sum of certain parts. Rather, each part of it functions for the stability of the whole. Durkheim actually represented society as an organism, where each component plays the necessary role, but no one can function alone, survive the crisis or fail.
What is functionalism? Explanation
In the framework of the theory of functionalism, various parts of society mainly consist of social institutions, each of which is designed to meet different needs, and each of them has special consequences for the form of society. All parts depend on each other. The main institutions defined by sociology and which are important for understanding this theory include family, government, economics, the media, education, and religion.
According to functionalism, an institution exists only because it plays a vital role in the functioning of society. If he no longer fulfills the role, the institution will die. When new needs develop or emerge, new institutions will be created to meet them.
Institutes
Let's look at the relationships and functions of some of the main institutions. In most societies, the government or state provides education for the children of the family, which in turn pays taxes. These payments determine how the state will work. The family depends on the school, which can help children grow up, have a good job, so that they can raise and support their families. In this process, children become law-abiding, tax-paying citizens, who, in turn, support the state. From the point of view of the idea of functionalism, if everything goes well, parts of society produce order, stability and productivity. If things are not going so well, then parts of society must adapt to new forms of order, stability and productivity.
Political aspect
Modern functionalism emphasizes the consensus and order existing in society, with particular emphasis on social stability and shared social values. From this point of view, disorganization in the system, such as deviant behavior, leads to change, because social components must adapt to stability. When one part of the system is not working or dysfunctional, it affects all other parts and creates social problems, which leads to social changes.
History
The functionalist perspective reached its greatest popularity among American sociologists in the 1940s and 1950s. While European functionalists initially focused on explaining the internal workings of public order, Americans focused on identifying the functions of human behavior. Among these sociologists is Robert C. Merton, who divides human functions into two types: manifest, which are intentional and obvious, and hidden, which are unintentional and non-obvious. For example, the manifest function of attending a church or synagogue is to worship a deity, but its hidden function may be to help members learn to distinguish a person from institutional values. For people with common sense, the obvious functions become obvious. However, this is not necessary for hidden functions, which often require the disclosure of a sociological approach.
Academic criticism
Many sociologists have criticized the principles of functionalism for neglecting the often negative consequences of public order. Some critics, like the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, argue that this perspective justifies the status quo and the process of cultural hegemony that supports it.
Functionalism is a theory that does not encourage people to play an active role in changing their social environment, even if it can benefit them. Instead, she suggests that campaigning for social change is undesirable because various parts of society will naturally compensate for any problems that arise.
Broad interconnection and social consensus
According to the functionalistic perspective of sociology, every aspect of society is interdependent and contributes to the stability and functioning of society as a whole. The example of the relationship between the institution of the family, state, and school has already been given above. Each institution cannot operate independently and separately.
If everything goes well, parts of society produce order, stability and productivity. If things are not going so well, then parts of society must adapt to the return of a new order, stability and productivity. For example, during a financial downturn with high rates of unemployment and inflation, social programs are cut or cut. Schools offer fewer programs. Families tighten their budgets. A new social order arises, stability and productivity.
Functionalists believe that society is held together by a social consensus in which all members agree and work together to achieve what is best for society as a whole. This stands out against two other main sociological perspectives: symbolic interactionism, which focuses on how people act in accordance with their interpretation of the meaning of their world, and conflict theory, which focuses on the negative, contradictory, ever-changing nature of society.
Criticism from the liberals
Functionalism is an ambiguous theory. He was often criticized by liberals for underestimating the role of conflicts and their exclusion. Critics also argue that this perspective justifies complacency from members of society. Functionalism in sociology does not have development, evolution, since it does not prompt people to take action. Moreover, theory limits the functions of social subsystems to four, which, according to Parsons, was enough for the survival of the system as a whole. Critics have a fairly fair question about the need for other functions inherent in society and in one way or another affect its life.
Consistency, solidarity and stability
Structural functionalism in sociology is a big theory that considers society as a single organism, a single harmonious system. This approach considers society through a macro-level orientation, which largely focuses on the social structures that shape society as a whole, and believes that society has developed like a living organism. Functionalism is a concept that relates to society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements, namely, norms, customs, traditions and institutions.
In the most basic terms, the theory simply emphasizes the desire to as accurately as possible attribute each feature, custom or practice, its influence on the functioning of a stable, cohesive system. For Talcott Parsons, functionalism came down to a description of a certain stage in the methodological development of social science, and not to a specific school of thought.
Other theory features
Functionalism draws closer attention to those institutions that are unique to an industrialized capitalist society (or modernity). Functionalism also has an anthropological basis in the work of theorists such as Marcel Moss, Bronislaw Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown. It was in the specific use of Radcliffe-Brown that the prefix “structural” appeared. Radcliffe-Brown suggested that most “primitive” stateless societies, deprived of strong centralized institutions, are based on the unification of groups of corporate origin. Structural functionalism also accepted Malinowski’s argument that the core building block of society is the nuclear family, and the clan is growth, and not vice versa.
Durkheim concept
Emil Durkheim noted that stable societies were usually segmented, with equivalent parts united by common values, common symbols or, as his nephew Marcel Moss considered, exchange systems. Durkheim admired societies whose members perform very different tasks, which leads to strong interdependence. Based on a metaphor (a comparison with an organism in which many parts function together to support the whole), Durkheim argued that complex societies are united by organic solidarity.
These views were supported by Durkheim, who after Auguste Comte believed that society is a separate “level” of reality, different from biological and inorganic matter. Therefore, explanations of social phenomena should have been built at this level, and individuals were simply temporary residents of relatively stable social roles. The central issue of structural functionalism is the continuation of the Durkheim task of explaining the apparent stability and internal cohesion that society needs for tolerance over time. Societies are considered as coherent, limited, and fundamentally relational constructions that function as organisms, and their various (or social institutions) work in an unconscious, quasi-automatic order to achieve a general social equilibrium.
Thus, all social and cultural phenomena are considered as functional in the sense of teamwork and are believed to have their own “lives”. First of all, they are analyzed in terms of this function. A person is significant not in itself, but rather in terms of his status, his position in models of social relations and behavior associated with his modality. Therefore, a social structure is a network of statuses associated with certain roles.
The easiest way to equate the point of view with political conservatism. However, the tendency to emphasize “connected systems” leads to the fact that the lines of functionalism are opposed to “theories of conflict”, which instead emphasize social problems and inequalities.
Spencer concept
Herbert Spencer was a British philosopher known for applying the theory of natural selection to society. In many ways, he was the first authentic representative of this school in sociology. Despite the fact that Durkheim is often considered the most important functionalist among positivist theorists, it is known that most of his analysis was rejected from reading Spencer's work, especially his Principles of Sociology. In the description of society, Spencer refers to the analogy of the human body. Just as parts of the human body function independently to help the body survive, social structures work together to preserve society. Many believe that this view of society underlies the collectivist (totalitarian) ideologies of the twentieth century, such as fascism, national socialism and Bolshevism.
Parsons concept
Talcott Parsons began writing in the 1930s and contributed to sociology, political science, anthropology and psychology. Parsons' structural functionalism has received much criticism. Numerous censure experts have pointed out the underestimation of Parsons’s political and monetary struggle - the basis of social change and, in fact, “manipulating” behavior that is not regulated by qualities and standards. Structural functionalism and much of Parsons' work are apparently inadequate in their definitions of the relationship between institutionalized and non-institutional behavior and the procedures in which institutionalization occurs.
Parsons was influenced by Durkheim and Max Weber, synthesizing most of the work in his theory of action, which he based on a system-theoretical concept. He believed that a large and unified social system consists of the actions of individuals. Its starting point, respectively, is the interaction between two people who are faced with different options for choosing how they can act, options that affect and are limited by a number of physical and social factors.
Davis and Moore
Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore argued for social stratification based on the idea of “functional necessity” (also known as the Davis-Moore hypothesis). They argue that the most difficult jobs in any society have the highest incomes to encourage people to fulfill the roles necessary for the division of labor. Thus, inequality serves social stability.
This argument has been criticized as erroneous from different points of view: the argument is that the most worthy people are the most deserving, and that a system of unequal rewards is needed, otherwise no people will act as necessary for the functioning of society. The problem is that these awards should be based on objective merit, and not on subjective “motivations”. Critics have suggested that structural inequality (inherited wealth, family power, etc.) in itself is the cause of individual success or failure, and not the consequence of this.
Merton Supplements
It's time to talk about Merton's functionalism. Robert C. Merton made important refinements for functionalistic thought. He fundamentally agreed with Parsons theory. However, he recognized it as problematic, believing that it was generalized. Merton, as a rule, emphasized the theory of the middle range, and not the great theory, which means that he was able to specifically deal with some of the limitations of the Parsons idea. Merton believed that any social structure probably has many functions that are more obvious than others. He identified three main limitations: functional unity, the universal approach of functionalism and indispensability. He also developed the concept of rejection and made a distinction between manifest and hidden functions.
Manifesto functions relate to the recognized and perceived consequences of any social model. Hidden functions refer to the unrecognized and unintended consequences of any social model.
Chronology
The concept of functionalism reached its peak of influence in the 1940s and 1950s, and by the 1960s it had rapidly gone to the bottom of scientific thought. By the 1980s, its place was taken in Europe by more conflicting approaches, and more recently, structuralism. While some of the critical approaches have also become popular in the United States, the mainstream of this discipline has shifted to a multitude of empirically oriented theories of the middle class that do not have a comprehensive theoretical orientation. For most sociologists, functionalism is now "dead like a dodo." However, not everyone agrees with this.
As the influence of the representatives of functionalism weakened in the 1960s, linguistic and cultural developments led to many new movements in the social sciences. According to Giddens, structures (traditions, institutions, moral codes, etc.) are generally quite stable, but can change, especially through unintended consequences of actions.
Influence and Legacy
Despite the denial of empirical sociology, functionalist themes remained prominent in sociological theory, especially in the works of Luman and Giddens. However, there are signs of an initial resurgence, as recently functionalistic claims have been reinforced by events in multilevel selection theory and empirical research on how groups solve social problems. , . ( ) . .
In the 1960s, functionalism was criticized for not being able to explain social change or structural contradictions and conflict (and therefore was often called the "consensus theory"). In addition, it ignores inequalities, including race, gender, class, which cause tension and conflict. The refutation of the second critique of functionalism, that it is static and has no concept of change, has already been formulated above, is that although Parsons theory allows change, it is an ordered process, moving equilibrium. Therefore, to refer to the theory of Parsons society as static is incorrect. It is true that he places emphasis on balance and maintenance, and also quickly returns to public order. But such views are the result of that time. Parsons wrote after the end of World War II, at the height of the Cold War. Society was shocked, and fear abounded. At that time, social order was crucial, and this was reflected in Parsons' tendency to promote equilibrium and social order, and not to social change.
Functionalism in Architecture
It should be noted separately that the direction of the same name in architecture has nothing to do with the theory associated with sociocultural anthropology. The style of functionalism presupposes a strict correspondence of buildings and structures with industrial and domestic processes taking place in them. Its main trends:
- The use of pure geometric shapes, usually rectangular.
- Lack of ornamentation and protruding details.
- Use of one material.
Critics of the concept of functionalism in architecture usually speak of “facelessness”, “seriality”, “spirituality”, gray and artificial concrete, the angularity of parallelepipeds, the rudeness and minimalism of the external finish, the sterility and inhuman coldness of tile. However, such buildings are often practical and easy to operate.