Critically Evaluate the Contributions of Functionalism to the Study of Society Essay

Critically try the contributions of functionalism to the plain of decree. Functionalist surmise is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology. It basin be debated that the functionalist speculation has do a signifi arset contribution to the tuition of gild. It originates from the work of Emile Durkheim who suggests that mixer companionship is possible and friendship re primary(prenominal)s horse barn callable to the functioning of several institutions. Everything has a specific function in company and golf club will al way of lifes function in harmony.The of import institutions studied by functionalism argon the family, the teaching system, religion and execration and deviance. Murdock argues that the family performs iv basic functions in all societies informal, reproductive, economic and educational. These four basic functions be essential for social life since without the sexual and reproductive functions there would be no members of baseball cl ub, without the economic function life would cease and without education there would be no socialisation or assimilation. Without these four basic functions pitying party could not survive.The family does not perform these functions alone however it makes big contributions to them all. Murdock is often criticised for his picture of the family as he did not consider whether its functions could be performed by other social institutions and he does not examine alternatives to the family. Equally, Murdock illustrates the nuclear family as very harmonious and perfect. There are many ill-functioning families in conjunction which Murdock fails to examine and explain. What is the function of families when the husband and wife fail to go for an integrated division of advertise and pee-pee a healthy sexual relationship?Talcott Parsons offers an alternative view of the functions of the family and suggests it serves two purposes primary socialisation and the stabilisation of the matur e personality. Primary socialisation refers to socialisation during the early years of childhood, which take place mainly within the family. This is important in contributing to society as our parents supposedly bring their offspring up to grow to be fountainhead-be caused, obedient individuals with the right values to help society function. The stabilisation of adult personalities emphasises on the marriage relationship and emotional security the couple abides for distributively other.This acts to counteract the stresses of everyday life and obtain the personality stable. Parsons claims that the family thusly provides a context in which husband and wife can express their callow feelings, give and receive emotional support, recharge their batteries and so stabilise their personalities. However, Parsons views on the family are criticised for being in release and idealising the family with his picture of well-adjusted children and sympathetic spouses warmth for each other uncondi tionally.It is a over-optimistic and modernist and has little relationship to reality, because as mentioned before, not all families function perfectly. Similarly to Murdock, Parsons besides fails to examine alternatives to the family which may provide the same functions for the development of society. The overall functionalist theory on the family is criticised by Marxism, feminists and few postmodernists. A Marxist would argue that the function of the family is to serve capitalism. Some feminists would argue that the function of the family is for women to serve men and that families are so diverse it is voiceless to argue that the family has a purpose.Some postmodernists suggest that the nuclear family is not as vernacular as it seems and that there are instanter many diversities of families due to heathen and social shifts. These views are clearly in conflict with the views of functionalism thence it allows us to question their validity. Functionalism also has its set of views on the education system. Emile Durkheim claimed that the main function of education was to transmit societys norms and values finished generations. Social solidarity is essential for the welding of mass individuals into a united consentaneous.Functionalists such(prenominal) as Durkheim argue that education builds a sense of commitment and be to a society and a belief that the whole of society is more than important than a single individual. Durkheim argued, to be sum up attached to society, they will come to see that they are part of something larger themselves they will develop a sense of commitment to the social group. Durkheim also claimed that the school serves a function which cannot be provided by the family the peer group. Individuals must learn to gather with those who are neither their family nor their friends.In this way, children learn to respect authority figures, such as teachers, and get on with other members of society they would be constrained to int eract with in later life such as bosses and colleagues. These social interactions are essential for keeping society harmoniously balanced and functioning. Durkheim claimed that along with teaching us to interact with different social groups, education serves to strictly reinforce school rules and ensure that children realise that these should be followed.Punishments should reflect the distressfulness of the damage done to the social group by the offence and teach individuals that it is wrong to act against the interests of the social group as a whole. In Durkheims words it is by respecting the school rules that the child learns to respect rules in general, that he develops the habit of self- check and restraint simply because he should control and restrain himself. It is the first initiation into the austerity of duty. Serious life has now begun. Durkheim closingly argues that education teaches individuals specific skills necessary for their future occupations.Schools transmit t wo general values which provide the necessary skills for social survival. Industrial society is united by value consensus and a specialised division of labour whereby specialists combine to bugger off goods and services. Education is essential for this because it trains individuals to develop the skills which will be useful for their future occupations. In the current education system children are given the chance to learn technical and practical skills as well as academic skills which all come together to help society function.However, Durkheim is criticised for several reasons. Firstly, he assumes that societies have a shared culture which can be transmitted through the education system. Britain for lawsuit is now multi-cultural and it is because debatable whether there is a single culture on which schools could launch their curriculum. If a school bases their curriculum on a single culture they are often accused of ethnocentrism, which is a difficult issue to cross when sch ools bring together children of many different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities.Secondly, his views on the education system are in conflict with those of Marxism, which argues that education serves to transmit a dominant culture and serve the interests of the ruling sept earlier than the members of society as a whole. Finally, functionalism has its views on the way nuisance and deviance applies to society. Functionalism looks at society as a whole and looks for the source of deviance in the nature of society rather than in the individual. Social control mechanisms such as the police and courts are argued to be necessary to keep order in society.Durkheim argues that crime is inevitable because not every member of society can be twinly committed to the collective sentiments of society. Durkheim also claims that crime can be functional because all social change begins with some form of deviance and a certain amount of social change is healthy for society. Merton, 1968, argued t hat deviance results from the culture and structure of society itself. Since members in society are placed in different positions in the social structure, for example different social classes, they do not all have equal opportunities.This web site can generate deviance for example, members of the dismount classes, such as the working or under class may resort to crime due to their position in the social structure because they are disadvantaged of things essential for survival. Merton also outlined the 5 reactions to cultural finishings conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. The first way in which society can respond to cultural goals is through conformity. Members of society conform both to success goals and to the normative means of reaching them.They hit for success by accepted means. The second response is innovation in which individuals reject normative means of reaching success and turn to degenerate means such as crime. Merton argues that members of the lower social strata are more likely to select this route to success. Merton claims that they have little access to constituted and legitimate means of becoming successful. Low qualifications mean little opportunity for jobs and advancement since their route to success is blocked. Therefore they turn to crime, which promises greater rewards than legitimate means.Membership of the lower social strata is not alone enough to produce deviance however pressures from society contribute to an individuals need to deviate. The third response is kn consume as ritualism. Those who select this as an alternative are deviate because they have largely abandoned the commonly held success goals. Members of the lower midway class who have less opportunity than other members of the middle class are likely to take the path of ritualism. However, they have been strongly socialize to conform to social norms so they do not turn to crime.They scale down or abandon their success goals. Ritualis ts are deviant because they have rejected the success goals held by most members of society. The fourth and least common response is retreatism which applies to psychotics, chronic alcoholics and drug addicts. They have strongly internalised both the cultural goals and institutionalised means, however they are unable to give success. They resolve their situation by abandoning both the goals and the means of reaching them. They drop out of society defeated and resigned by their failure.They are deviant in two ways they have rejected both the cultural goals and the institutionalised means. The fifth and final response is rebellion. This involves both rejection of both success goals and institutionalised means and replaces them with their own different goals and means. They wish to create a new society. Merton says it is typically members of a rising class rather than the most depressed strata who organise the fractious and the rebellious into a revolutionary group. Hannon and Defro nzo, 1998, carried out a oeuvre which gives empirical support for Mertons five stages.In a study of 406 metropolitan counties in the USA, they found that those with higher levels of wel remotee provision had lower levels of crime. They argued that the welfare provision opened up opportunities for people to achieve the goal of material success. They argued that the welfare provision opened up opportunities for people to achieve the goal of material success through legitimate means and therefore reduced anomie and the crime which could result from it. However, critics have argued that Mertons five stages neglect the power relationships in society as a whole within which deviance and conformity occur.Taylor, 1971, criticised Merton for not carrying out his analysis far enough and failing to consider who makes the laws and who benefits from them. The whole game may have been rigged by the powerful with rules that guarantee their success. These rules may be the laws of society. Merton i s also criticised for being deterministic because it fails to explain why some people who visit effects of anomie do not become criminals or deviant. It over-exaggerates proletariat crime and underestimates middle-class and white collar crime.Furthermore, Taylor, Walton and Young, 1973, criticise that Mertons theory cannot account for politically motivated criminals such as freedom fighters who boom the law because of commitment to their cause rather than the effects of anomie. In conclusion, functionalism has made great contribution to the study of society as it offers explanations for the functions of the major institutions in society. However, the whole functionalist theory is based around the idea that these institutions serve to keep society functioning and harmonious.Almost all their ideas are criticised by Marxism, which suggests the complete opposite that all institutions serve the interests of the ruling class and capitalism rather than serving the needs of the general members of society as a whole. As shown above, we can compare perspectives such as Marxism, feminism and postmodernism with functionalism to assess its advantages and disadvantages. The functionalist theory is an important perspective widely covering most aspects of society, however it waterfall flat where it is criticised for being too deterministic and failing to consider the booby hatch and disorganisation in society.