Concept
Structural functionalism
Overview
Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability".
This approach looks at society through a macro-level orientation, which is a broad focus on the social structures that shape society as a whole, and believes that society has evolved like organisms. This approach looks at both social structure and social functions. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions.
A common analogy called the organic or biological analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer, presents these parts of society as human body "organs" that work toward the proper functioning of the "body" as a whole. In the most basic terms, it simply emphasizes "the effort to impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable, cohesive system". For Talcott Parsons, "structural-functionalism" came to describe a particular stage in the methodological development of social science, rather than a specific school of thought.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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When Milne-Edwards first used the phrase "physiological division of labour," he was obviously led to do so by perceiving the analogy between the division of labour in a society, as described by political economists, and the division of labour in an organism. Every one who reads has been familiarized with the first as illustrated in the early stages, when men were warriors while the cultivation and drudgery were done…
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Volume 1
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Such, then, is a general outline of the evidence which justifies, in detail, the comparison of societies to living organisms. That they gradually increase in mass; that they become little by little more complex; that at the same time their parts grow more mutually dependent; and that they continue to live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of their units appear and disappear; are broad peculiarities…
Herbert Spencer, Illustrations of Universal Progress
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Hitherto this aim has hardly been recognized, even with regard to the material world, and but a very small proportion of our energies has been spent upon it. Yet the aim is high, provided always that the view taken of human progress extend beyond its lower and more material stages. Our theoretical powers once concentrated on the moral problems which form their principal field, our practical energies will not fail to…
Auguste Comte, A General View of Positivism Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and Life
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Philosophers who discussed Structural functionalism
Related ideas
- Social system
- Feminism
- Auguste Comte
- Philosophy
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- John Locke
- Idea
- Linguistic turn
- Modernity
- Middle Ages
- Marxism
- Nuclear family
- Max Weber
- Natural selection
- Niklas Luhmann
- Ontology
- Bronisław Malinowski
- Papua New Guinea
- Robert K. Merton
- Postmodernism
- Herbert Spencer
- Post-structuralism
- Kinship
- Social science
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy of social science.