Assessment of the Usefulness of Functionalism in Understanding the Family
Functionalism is a structuralist theory. This means it sees the
individual as less important as the social structure of society. It
is a ‘top down’ theory. The family can be defined as an intimate
domestic group composed of people related to each other by blood,
sexual relations and legal ties. When assessing how useful
functionalism is when looking at the family, other views/perspectives
need to be taken into account before making an overall conclusion.
Views from Talcott Parsons, George Murdock, Ann Oakley, Edmund Leach,
R.D Laing, David Cooper and Friedrich Engels will be taken into
account as well as perspectives from Marxism, feminism, family
diversity and radical psychiatrists. This will help draw the final
conclusion.
Functionalist sociologists suggest that the nuclear family is the norm
in modern day industrial societies.
George Peter Murdock (1949) supports the idea of functionalism. After
analysing 250 societies, Murdock argues that the family performs four
basic functions; sexual, reproductive, economic and educational.
These are the essentials for social life, since without sexual and
reproductive functions there would be no members of society, without
economic functions life would cease, and without education there would
be no culture. Human society without culture could not function.
Clearly, the family cannot perform these functions exclusively.
However, it makes important contributions to them all and no other
institution has yet been devised to match its efficiency in this
respect. A weakness of Murdock’s view is that some ...
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Now that perspectives and ideas criticising and supporting
functionalism have been illustrated. A conclusion can be made. If
looking at Murdock and Parsons it can be seen that they both tend to
only take into account Western societies, and tend to generalise.
Apart from that they both have strong, similar ideas on what the
family is. Oakley and Leach support their ideas on the nuclear family
being the majority of society. However, although the argument
supporting functionalism is sound, other views need to be taken into
perspective. For example Marxism, questioning the idea of a
universal/natural family. Family diversity offering different options
to how people choose to live, feminists saying the family exploits
women and radical psychiatry claiming the family is a dangerous place
and causes mental illness.
The film, “The Sociology of Families and Households”, examines families from a sociological perspective, as it discusses the ways in which the meaning of family has changed throughout history. To better understand how families have changed throughout several decades, the film discusses how structural functionalism, Marxist theory and feminist theory have played a role in defining what a family is, or was at that time in history. The film also examines a few key challenges facing families, such as divorce, single parent households, finding a balance between work and the family and the formation of stepfamilies. Conclusively, the film discusses how the changes in society affect how families function
“Leave it to Beaver” was a popular sitcom about a traditional nuclear family played out through the perspective of an adolescent boy whose curiosity and antics often got him into trouble (TV.com). Despite the show promoting positive family values, it also inadvertently shed light on a historically dark period of time in American history. One such instance was the lack of diversity on the show. Nearly 100% of the show’s characters were white throughout the six-season, 234 episode series. In the single episode that depicted an African-American, the character was a servant, further a reflection of the times when African-Americans where predominantly seen and treated as second-class citizens (Leaveittobeaver.org). However, this 1950’s ideal serves as a reference point to what typical families looked like and how vastly different they look now.
A family I might come across professionally would likely be a blended family. Not only do people get divorced more frequently now but my career field puts a lot of stress on families leading to even higher divorce rates. Blended families are already quite common and are less stigmatized than in the past. While I am not from one or having one anywhere in my family I did know some in school and the kids were just like everyone else.
The family structure is made up of individuals living together in intimate groups with the purpose of caring and supporting each other. Rules and boundaries, spoken and unspoken, are developed by the family members. Family rules and boundaries change and shift over time in order to evolve and grow as a family unit. Some changes are subtle, but some events force major change within the family system. This paper applies the concepts of systems theory to the family system in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. Reese Witherspoon (Melanie Smooter) and Josh Lucas (Jake Perry) star in this heart-warming film telling a story of a young woman who flees from Alabama to reinvent herself in New York City as a high fashion designer. She leaves behind her redneck husband and white-trash upbringing. Melanie finds herself engaged to the cities most eligible bachelor and has to return to Alabama to request a divorce from her first love and confront her past ("Alabama," 2002).
For the majority of human history marriage was always thought to be between one man and one woman. That was, until last year when the Supreme Court passed a law, legalizing gay marriage. Many people still do not support marriage, but people’s changing ideas of what defines a marriage made the legalization of gay marriage happen. This issue can also be applied to the Functional Analysis theory. Those with this perspective may believe marriage should only be between a man and woman, because each brings different skills to the home. A gay marriage and home could be viewed as unstable, because without a man in the home it may be difficult to do extensive heavy lifting and without a woman in the home it may be difficult to do housework like sewing. Functional Analysis may believe that gay marriage threatens the balance in the home which will in turn affect other aspects of life like childcare, cooking, housekeeping, etc. Sociologist who believes in the Conflict Theory perspective may think that gay marriage developed as a result of several people protesting to lawmakers that gay marriage should be legalized. Before gay marriage was legalized, marriage was between only a man and woman simply because there was no other definition of marriage. Men always had more power over women, but gay marriage allows everyone regardless of gender to get
By the 1980s, Marxism, the economics forces define the political and cultural realities in society, mixed with feminism claimed “that gender is not class but a driving force of history.” This created the notion that “when women are subordinate men benefit” and that women had a disadvantage to men in the workforce (Conley 2013). Marxist feminist would called this gender conflict. The nuclear family has gender roles which are “set of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one’s status as a male or female.Gender roles is more general term,but Parson’s sex roles is more of an ambiguous term. Sex roles theory states that men are work oriented, while women are domestic oriented to form the ideal nuclear family. “Sex roles created by society was formed for structuralism functionalism, which is the theoretical tradition claiming that every society has certain structures that exist in order to fulfill some set of necessary functions(2013). Even though functionalist supported this theory in the 1960s, it was flawed. Sex role theory only provided one way of how a family could function. Essentialist would describe Parson’s theory as the social phenomena of the nuclear family based on the biological factor of sex. R.W. Connell described the condition in which men are dominant and privileged and that it is invisible, which is Hegemonic masculinity. Even though hegemonic masculinity is what some theorist impose, it clarifies
It is a common theme throughout history that children “owe” it to their parents to do right by them by any means necessary in return for the parents years of hard work, personal sacrifices, and parental obligations to the child; whether that be through personal sacrifices or simply lending a helping hand. Modern philosophy attempts to disregard the ties of family entirely in order to prove that children do not voluntarily ask for sacrifices of their parents, or even the more dramatic claim – “life.” More conservative philosophers such as Christina Hoff Summers defends the moral duties of the more traditional sense of family and the personal morality involved in the family unit. The ideas presented on the tradition that family duties are stronger bonds than those of friends could potentially affect the overall quality of life in adults. In this paper I am going to argue that the traditional sense of family and its duties are stronger than the duties demanded of friendship.
According to Richard Charles (2001) “the effectiveness of family systems theory rests not much on empirical research but on clinical reports of positive treatment outcomes, the personal benefits experienced by the families that underwent this kind of treatment, and the elegance of Bowen’s theory” (p. 279). Bowen’s family systems theory views the family as an emotional unit and is a theory of human behavior. Systems thinking are used to describe the complex interactions in the unit. However, the client’s ability to differentiate himself/herself from the family of origin is the basis for Bowen’s family systems theory. In addition, the primary focus for growth within the emotional system is differentiation of self. Differentiation of self will be explored as well as how it relates to a church congregation.
Everyone goes through stages of life and everyone goes through them differently, there are some people that will go through life and not have any problems. While there are some people who will go through life and then will get a disease that will slowly kill them. Does getting a disease in old age make it harder for a person to live the rest of their life out? The functionalist perspective would best explain the expected outcomes, because it tries to help out society and make sure there is some stability.
Functionalist View on Same-Sex Families What is Functionalism? Functionalism is the belief that members of society form relationships with each other through rules and regulations i.e. the law. They also believe society is based on a consensus and there is no time for conflict, although it is acknowledged but is seen as only a temporary disturbance, which can be resolved. They believe it is the basis of social life without it there would be conflict and disorder. Society is seen like the human body, institutions within society playing a significant role to ensure its upkeep like schools.
Sociologists view the family as a universal institution that is central to social life (Powell and Branden 2007). The family is defined as a group of people related by descent, marriage, or adoption (pg 365). Marriage plays a pivotal role in families, marriage is the socially acknowledged and approved and often legal union of two people, allowing them to live together and to have children by birth or adoption (pg 365). The key to understanding the family are the concepts of endogamy and exogamy; endogamy is marriage to someone with similar characteristics in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, education level, social class,
In the event of an individual falling ill, we as a nation are very lucky to have such excellent Physicians. Sociology has a variety of different perspectives when it comes to the understanding of the honest purpose of healthcare. With the new era emerging with new technology, humans have become inattentive to the environment and health wellness. I will be explaining the importance of healthcare from the Functionalistic Perspective, targeting three main factors; sick role, gatekeeper and social class. Along with some interesting facts, and studies of the environments role in health within a community.
An adage goes by “show me your friends and I will tell you who you are” but in family system theory, it more like show me/tell me about a family member, and I will tell and interpret the family as a whole. Family system theory work hand in hand with the definition of family because, based on how the family defines itself, you can tell more about the family in terms of their communication and coexistence in general.
There are many criticisms of functionalism and their theories: Ø Functionalist ideas almost portray humans as being autonomous and that only socialisation determines our lives. They do not really see humans as the unpredictable creatures they are, not possible to stray away from the predictable ideas that functionalists have of people. Too much stress is placed on harmony and the potential for conflict and its affects are generally ignored. Ø There is no recognition of difference by class, region or ethnic group. The functionalist picture is simply reflective of happy middle-class American families.
The concept of family has change a lot over the past decides. Not only this, but the notions of family are very different depending on the countries, but the idea of a family (mother, father, children) has remained the same. In the 1950 's the normal American family consisted of a breadwinner father, homemaker mother, and several children, all living in homes in the suburbs on the outskirts of a larger city. It was a narrow view of a model family, yet it saturated the media and was widely accepted as the ideal and most normal. Now a days, a family can be anything, form a single mother raising her boy, to a gay couple raising adopted children. The myth of the “Model Family” does not persist to this day because gender roles have changed allot since the 1950s, the involvement of technology and devices in the house, and children are now raised by a variety of caring adults.