Functionalism
1) society is viewed as a system---a collection of interdependent parts, with a tendency toward equilibrium. 2) there are functional requirements that must be met in a society for its survival ( such as reproduction of the population). 3) phenomena are seen to exist because they serve a function.
Functionalism: the perspective of this is built upon twin emphases: 1) application of the scientific method to the objective social world 2) the use of an analogy between the individual organism and society.
The emphasis on scientific methods leads to the assertion that one can study the social world in the same ways as one studies the physical world. Thus functionalists see the social world as "objectively real," as obserable with such techniques as social surveys and interviews.
The second emphasis, on the organic unity of society, leads functionalists to speculate about the needs which must be met for a social system to exist, as well as the ways in which social institutions satisfy those needs. A functionalists might argue, that every society will have a religion, because religious institutions have certain functions which contribute to the survival of the social system as a whole, just as the organs of the body have functions which are necessary for the body's survival.
The analogy between society and an organism focuses attention to the homeostatic nation of social systems: social systems work to maintain equilibrium and return to it after external shocks disturb the balance among social institutions. Such social equilibrium is achieved, most through socialization of members of the society into the basici values and norms of the society, so that consensus is reached. where socialization is insufficient for some reason to create conformity to culturally appropriate roles and socially supported norm, various social control mechanism exist to restore conformity or to segregate the nonconforming individuals from the rest of society. The social control mechanisms range from sanctions imposed informally-- sneering and gossip, --to the activities of certain formal organizations, like schools, prisons, and mental institutions.
Society is viewed as a system of interrelated parts, a change in any part affecting all the others. Within the boundaries of the system, feedback loops and exchanges among the parts ordinarily lead to homeostasis. Most changes are the results of natural growth or of evolution, but other changes occur when ourside forces impinge upon the system.
Functionalist analyses often focus on the individual, usually with the intent to show how individual actors as decision-makers, although some critics have suggested that functionalist theorists are, in effect, treating individuals either as puppets, whose decisions are a predictable result of their location in the social structure and of the norms and expectations they have internalized, or sometimes as virtual prisoners of the explicit social control techniques society imposes. In any case, functionalists have tended to be less concerned with the ways in which individuals can control their own destiny than with the ways in which the limits imposed by society make individual behavior scientifically predictable.
Robert Merton, 1) he distinguishes between manifest and laten functions: those which are recognized and intended by actors in the social system and hence may represent motives for their actions, and those which are unrecognized and, thus unintended by the actors. Second, he distinguishes between consequences which are positively functional for a society, those which are dysfunctional for the society, and those which are dysfunctional for the society, the those which are neither.
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Functionalism Explanation
Marxist's explanations of functionalism: the explain the presence of a social fact in terms of the function that state of society performs.
1) the legal system of a capitalist democratic society performs the function of maintaining the class distinctions within such a society.
2) the educational system performs the function of reproducing economic inequality.
3) liberal/democratic institutions perform the function of keeping bourgeois power relations static.
4) the welfare system performs the function of reproducing economic inequality (poverty traps)
Cohen
The relation between legal and political institutions, class structure and economic structure.
The legal system reinforces class structure which reinforces economic structure
Eg: Striking creates a prisoners dilemma
1) if everyone strikes the strike succeed and wages raised
2) if no one strikes wages will stay low.
3) if everyone else strikes and i don't i will get my wages and they won't. maybe they will be sacked.
1 is the best option but everyone reasons ( in the absences of any coercive mechanism for enforcing solidarity or assurance that no one will defect) according to 3. Thus everyone strikes and 2 is the result. wages stay low, the worst possible outcome.
The sharing information and the generation of trust, however transforms the dilemma into an assurance game in which 1 is the outcome. For this to occur there must be perfect information and trust. In this case, class solidarity performs the function of transformation, revolutionary leadership is the mechanism "through continued interaction the worker become bother concerned about and trusting of each other."
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posted by C-T @ 11:14 PM
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