Flashcards
Fundamentalism
Flashcards do conjunto (20)
- 1What is functionalism?Functionalism is a structural theory that was created by Durkheim (1858 - 1917) who was concerned by rapid social change and the decline of 'mechanical solidarity' or collective consciousness. Durkheim believed that rapid social change undermined norms, throwing people in a state of anomie that threatens social cohesion.
- 2How do they see society?They see contemporary society as a system with all parts inter-related and working together to meet the needs of society. In other words, society operates like a living organism (the body), it has basic needs that must be met in order to survive (socialisation of member is like nutrition) and each part of the system has a function that are interdependent in order to ensure survival.
- 3How do cultural systems work?Cultural systems socialise individuals to conform to society's norms, values, beliefs and goals. It provides a framework that allows individuals to cooperate. This creates value consensus.
- 4What is value consensus?It is a shared agreement of norms and values by all individuals in society. According to Parsons, this maintains social order so that society is able to function properly, creating a stable and harmonious society. Because of this social change will be slow and gradually evolve.
- 5The intergration of individuals is central of Functionalist thinking. For Parsons, the system has two mechanisms for ensuring that individuals conform to shared norms and meet the systems needs. What are these functions?1. Socialisation - through this process, individuals internalise the system's norms and values so that society becomes part of their personality structure. Different agencies contribute to this process
2. Social control - positive sanctions are needed to rewarded conformity and negative ones punish deviance - 6The social system is made up of different parts. What are these?At the bottom, are individual actions which are governed by specific norms or roles. These come in clusters called status-roles and refer to positions that exist within the social system (e.g. a teacher has a set of norms that tells them how their duties must be carried out). Status roles also come in clusters known as institutions (e.g. the family is an institution made up of related roles of father, mother, child etc.) . In turn related institutions are grouped together into sub-systems (e.g. shops, factories, banks etc.) to make up the social system as a whole.
- 7Parsons identifies four basic needs of the system (AGIL schema), each need is met by a separate sub-system of institutions. These are...Adaption (members material needs are met through the economic system)
Goal attainment (function of political system through institutions such as parliament)
Integration (different parts of the system must be intergrated together to pursue shared goals - this is the role of religion, education and media)
Latency (the processes that maintain society over time such as the kinship sub-system that provides socialisation and allows tension management.) - 8How do functionalists view societal change?They see societal change as a gradual evolutionary process (organic analogy). Parsons believes that as societies develop, the kinship systems need to lose their functions and separate, functionally specialised institutions develop in other parts i.e. changes to industry bring changes to the family
- 9EVALUATION One strength is that it has wider theoretical appeal....Its underlying ideas have been taken up by other structural perspectives and has generated new theories and research from the New Right e.g. like functionalists, the New Right believe that the family is the 'heart' of society. This suggests that the theory has some validity.
- 10EVALUATION Another strength is that it recognises the importance of ...... of social structure in understanding society i.e. how it constrains behaviour and how social institutions have links between them and why most people generally conform to the rules of life.
- 11EVALUATION Merton makes three important criticisms of Parsons work, indispensability, functional unity and universal functionalism. What is meant by indispensability?Points to the possibility of 'functional alternatives' e.g. primary socialisation may not always be best performed by the nuclear family
- 12EVALUATION Merton - What is meant by functional unity?Parsons assumption about how individual social institutions are tightly integrated and the extent to which they have a 'knock on effect' may be over-exaggerated. Society is complex and some parts are only distantly related (e.g. structure of banking and the rules of netball)
- 13EVALUATION Merton - What is meant by universal functionalism?Parsons assumption that everything in society performs a positive function for all groups may be wrong. Functionalism fails to consider dysfunction (negative functions), the fact that there may be conflicts of interest where some groups have the power to keep arrangements in place that benefit them at the expense of others.
- 14EVALUATION One weakness of functionalism is that it has been criticised by Marxists...... For example, Marxists criticise functionalism for its inability to explain conflict e.g. between the working and ruling class. Marxists suggest that society is built on exploitation and unequal interests where stability is the result of the ruling class ability to prevent change through coercion (force) or ideological manipulation. This suggests they only offer a partial view.
- 15EVALUATION Another weakness is that it is deterministic...... Functionalists argue that how we behave within society is determined by social structures and the social system. Social action theorists argue that is suggests that individuals have no free will (merely puppets on a string), which is a pessimistic view of society.
- 16EVALUATION One weakness of functionalism is that it is teleology (explaining things exist through their effects)...Critics of functionalism argue that a real explanation of something is one that identifies a cause - and locially, a cause must come before its effect e.g. the functionalist claim that the family exists because children need to be socialised is teleological - it explains the existence of the family in terms of its effect. This suggests they offer an inadequate explanation of why things exist
- 17EVALUATION Another weakness is that functionalists provide an inadequate explanation of social change..... It simply states that if change does occur it will be due to evolutionary factors rather than anything else. Rapid change which sometimes occur in society would suggest this is not always the case. This suggests they only offer a partial understanding of society
- 18Functionalism and research methods. How do they research sociology?They see sociology as a science and study society using a positivist approach. In terms of research methods. Durkheim developed a number of concepts to help him to explain and research society. 'Social fact' was one of them and in order to discover 'social facts' scientific research methods are preferable such as questionnaires, structured interviews and official statistics e.g. Functionalists accept OCS
- 19What are the strengths and weakness of functionalist approach to research methods?:) - One strength of these methods is that quantitative data can be gathered which allows for comparisons to be made e.g. Durkheim was able to compare the suicide statistics in a range of countries to develop his theory of suicide. This suggest methods used are objective
:( - One weakness is that little qualitative data is gathered. For example, Durkheim did not find out why people committed suicide. This suggests they lack depth and detail about feelings and emotions - 20In CONCLUSION...... Although functionalists provide a useful insight into the workings of society the theory is ideologically driven. Therefore, the theory is reductionist as it fails to take into account competing theoretical ideas. Postmodernists are critical of the functional meta-narrative as they claim to have a 'totalisng' (all encompassing) theory of society. Postmodernists maintain that rival narratives should be considered for a full account of social life.
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- A-level Sociology (Paper 1 and 3 - Research Methods and Theory) FlashCards sobre Fundamentalism, criado por Catherine Rayner em 22-02-2018.
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- Catherine Rayner
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