Merton: An American sociologist, Merton’s idea of functionalism had to do with standardized social/cultural beliefs that were functional for both society and the individual. Émile Durkheim: A French sociologist, Durkheim has several well-known works, which include The Rules of Sociological Method, The Division of Labour in Society and Suicide. Durkheims theory of functionalism is vital because it is the basis of structural functionalism theory, one of the three major sociological theories.In their pioneering book The Deindustrialization of America, Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison defined. So if lung cancer rates skyrocket due to smoking, society will, eventually, look at that and go “holy cow, we need to make sure fewer people smoke!” and that’s what will cause social change.įunctionalism is a MACRO view of society, meaning that it takes society as a whole and analyzes it from a distance, rather than on an individual basis. Structural theory contends that macrolevel labor market and demographic conditions put people at risk of poverty, and crosssectional and temporal differences in these structural factors account for variation in poverty. All of society’s institutions and structures are interdependent and when one of them has a problem, the rest compensate to continue to allow society to function smoothly.įunctionalism can be viewed as a sort of “let things handle themselves” way of looking at society, as the belief can be summed up as “things will work themselves out”. (Sociology an Overview of Functionalism, Structural-Functionalism, Conflict Theory, and Critical Theory, n.d.) The primary focus on structural-functional analysis shifted in the 1960 because some people challenged the idea that institutional practices were essential for a society to survive. You can think of a functionalist’s view of society as one would look at the different systems of the body. According to Fisher (2010), structural functionalism predates systems theory, yet it implies a 'systems' perspective of the political world, making the two approaches similar. In FUNCTIONALISM, society is viewed as a collection of social structures, all of which depend on and affect each other. These various ways are also called THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS. running head: mer ton-functionalism and structural functionalism intended, conscious, or deliberate functions of the social policies or action, which are created for the benefit of the society. The ‘ structural bit’ means that Functionalists argue there is a social structure that shapes individual behaviour through the process of socialisation. FUNCTIONALISM, also called STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM, is a way of approaching a problem or scenario. Functionalism is a ‘structural-consensus theory’.
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