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FUNCTIONALISM - Coggle Diagram
FUNCTIONALISM
THE SYSTEMS NEEDS
- For parsons, society is a system with its own needs
- ADAPTION:
- the social system meets its members material needs through the economic system
- GOAL ATTAINMENT:
- Society needs to set goals and allocate resources to achieve them
- this is the function of the political system
- INTEGRATION:
- The different parts of the system must be integrated together to pursue shared goals
- system of religion, media, education
- LATENCY:
- processes that maintain society over time
- this provides pattern maintenance and tension management
- Parsons described adaption and goal attainment as instrumental needs (the means to an end e.g producing food to sustain population
- integration and latency are expressive needs since they involve the expression or channeling of emotions
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EXTERNAL CRITIQUES
LOGICAL CRITICISM
- Critics argue functionalism is telological - the idea that things exist because of their effect
- e.g functionalists claim the family exists because children need to be socialised
- it explains the existence of the family in terms of its effect
- howver critics argue a real explanation of something is one that identifies its cause ( a cause must come before its effect)
- Its also criticised for being unscientific
- e.g a theory is only scientific if in principle its falsifiable by tetsing
- this isnt true for funtionalism
- e.g functionalists see deviance as both dysfunctional (society needs cannot be met if individuals don't conform) and functional (reinforces social solidarity)
- therefore this theory cannot be disproved and is unscientific
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