Structural Functionalism Academic Essay

Structural functionalism is a sociological perspective that interprets the society as a structure with interrelated parts. Functionalism focuses on society as a complete unit in terms of function of its constituent elements such as norms, customs, traditions, and institutions, etc. At the center of the analysis are social structures from which social functions are deduced. According to structuralism, the world is composed of mutually interrelated part and how they operate as systematic wholes to maintain equilibrium. This equilibrium in the society can be attained and is based on two perspectives, either the consensus perspective or conflict perspective.
Consensus perspective proposes that the equilibrium is only seen in the society when there is the absence of conflict. It is assumed that stability and order in a given society is brought about by widespread agreement. It focuses on maintenance and continuation of social order. This perspective suggests that conflicts emerge within the social structures due to incompatible relationships. The society maintains its stability, order and progress when social organs, structure and institutions coordinate and cooperate with each other just like in a normal biological organism. The society is hence held together by consensus of its members.
The conflict perspective encourages conflict in the society by focusing on the incompatible aspect of the society. It explains that change can emerge between a human being and their society since human beings can think and act against situation that is not satisfactory to them. A means of conflict between two people can bring change.
Conflict can emerge between member/elements within a given social structure, most notable between races. The social importance of race is derived from a process of racial formation; any biological significance is relatively unimportant to society. Racism may emerge from such activities as colonialism and immigration. It is common to find that such conflicts within the racial, social structure can easily be solved by either assimilation or pluralism. Assimilation demands that subordinate racial groups conform to the dominant group while pluralism implies mutual respect among diverse groups. Conflict can also arise from within the member of the same race who share no common ethnicity, e.g. the English might consider Italians to be of low social standing, though both are white, but of different ethnicity. However, structural functionalism gives a rigid outlook in the definition of race. It fails to explain how the elements of ethnicity within a race promote further discrimination. It views racism as a social vice that is practiced from one race against another. Members of a race can also discriminate each other based on gender or ethnicity.
Race is a social group of people who share common biologically inherent trait considered significant by the society. They share a common physical appearance such as skin color, hair color, and jaw/bone structure. This classification has brought about negative bias in which one race is considered inferior to another based on their skin color or other dominant physical trait, e.g. Caucasian/white race is considered to be the high above the rest in social stratification with the black race ranked lowest.
Ethnicity, on the other hand, is a grouping of people based on commonly shared factors such as culture, ancestry, language and nationality. For example, within the Caucasian race exists different ethnicities such as Germans, Irish, English; who differ in their nationality, language is spoken, cultural heritage, tradition, customs and rituals. Conflict between races according functionalism stems from a lack of shared norms among the major races of the world. Gender and sex of a person can also be considered as a social structure with unique norms assumed to them.
Sex is a socially constructed terminology that refers to the biological characteristics that categorized as male, female or intersex (typical combination of feature that separates male and female). Males are distinguished from females by use of their reproductive organs, body muscular development and voice.
Gender refers to attitudes, behavior and feelings a given culture relates to a person’s biological sex. Constructionist in their approach believe that male and female are not the only method used to classify a person, and with time what is considered masculine and feminine will vary over time. However, society at present uses gender as a tool of social stratification where, for example, being a man or women determine your privileged access to power and wealth.
Sexism is gender-based discrimination and misguided belief that the one’s gender is superior to the other. Sexism is used to refer to discrimination against women especially in patriarchal societies. It is also exhibited in stereotyping, sex roles and commonly rooted in cultural traditions. In the academic arena, women tend to cluster in fine arts and social sciences while men dominate technology and engineering faculties.
All the forms of social stratification promote conflict between different structure elements of any given society. Of all the forms of discriminating elements, racism and sexism stand out as the ones that have brought conflict over a long period to the present day. Racism is a global challenge that has proved hard to handle to nearly all nations around the world. Continual practice of sexism especially in denying women equal access to economic opportunities has brought conflict between men and women over time. Even more disadvantaged are person who suffer from both racial and sexist discrimination. If you happen, for example, to be both “black” and a woman in corporate American, then you will not only suffer from perceived racial discrimination, but also discrimination for being a woman. Conflict that emerge in the society between the structural elements like race, gender, sex and ethnicity, can be brought to harmony through collective understanding of the functional norms associated with the individual structures.
In sociology, norms are agreed upon cultural expectation by which member of a culture behaves. In Asian culture, for example, talking to someone while averting your eyes is considered polite and respectful while, in American culture, this is considered rude. The common types of norm's sociologist consider are folkways, mores, laws and taboos.
Folkways are standards of behavior the society expect from an individual, but not punishable or with no serious consequence if broken. Cultural forms of dressing or food, for example, are folkways. Failing to wear the Indian sari dress does not bring any serious consequence.
Mores are norms that control moral and ethical behavior, define wrong and right hence morally and ethically significant. Acting contrary to mores results in disapproval. For examples, there are religious doctrines and precepts that prohibit cohabitation without marriage.
Laws are norms that are documented and subjected to judicial enforcement by the law enforcing agency. There are laws against vices like murder, theft and drunken driving. Norms are tools that can be used to avoid social conflicts in a stratified society. Member of different races or genders can adopt norms that promote social harmony.
Anomie is a situation in which cultural norms break down because of the rapid change. This is a condition whereby things that are normally against the values of the society are acceptable and taken to be normal because the society caused it due to lack of regulation, commonly referred to as harmlessness. For example, lack of cohesion between a culture’s norm about what defines success and culture’s norm of how to achieve success, can lead an individual to justify his stealing habit that brings him success. The society must hence come up with a value system that can be installed in its members from an early stage of life. No social group has ever been more significant in instilling positive social values in a child as a family.
One of the most significant and vital social groups that offer valuable support when it comes to child care is a family. Family is a social group whose members share common values, goals and is bound by legal, biological or emotional ties. According to structural functionalism, family serves to reduce anomie by providing socialization. Child rearing in America was rated as one of life’s greatest achievement, with most people preferring to raise two children, as opposed to eight children 200 years ago. This zealous expectation comes from the realization that the child might one day take care of the aged parent now that there is life expectancy in America. Children also help in fulfilling basic household chores that initially needed the attention of the parent or hiring of a specialist in case of working parents.
There is also a disadvantage associated with parental child care, among them being the high cost of day care centers especially for working parent(s). On the other hand, there is a rapidly aging population in America as the baby boomer generation move into older age. The rapid growing population provides another hurdle since this aging generation of 65 years and above requires special accommodation. 10% of these elderly generations also live below the poverty line.