Structural Functionalism

 

INTRODUCTION:

          Structural functionalism is a sociological theory that attempts to explain why society functions the way it does by focusing on the relationships between various social institutions that makes up society (like government, law, education, religion etc.)

Thinkers’ contribution:

         The structural functionalism school of thought is mainly divided into three groups, namely the British School of Structural Functionalism, the American School of Structural Functionalism and the French School of Structural Functionalism.

Many sociologists and anthropologists contributed their points of view about the structure and function of society to understand the structural-functional theory.

The main thinkers are –

British School of Structural Functionalism:

·         A.R. Radcliffe Brown

·         S. F. Nadel

·         E.R. Leech

·         R. Firth

·         Meyer Fortes

American School of Structural Functionalism:

·         Talcott Parsons

·         M. Kluckhohn

·         G.P. Murdock

French School of Structural Functionalism:

·         Emile Durkheim

·         Levi Strauss

 In this article, we will mainly discuss the contribution of the British school of thought that throws light into the idea of structural function and its incorporation into society.

British School of Structural functionalism:

Ø  A.R. Radcliffe Brown’s concept of Structural Functionalism:

                 The concept of social structure and its functional features has been described by Radcliffe Brown in his book “Structure and Function in Primitive Society” (1952).

                  According to him, the concept of structure refers to an arrangement of parts related to one another in some sort of larger unity. For instance, the structure of a house reveals the arrangement of walls, roofs, rooms, windows etc. Thus, in the social structure, the ultimate components are the arrangement of persons about each other in a family we found a relationship between mother, brother, sister etc.

                   According to Brown the structural features of social life is as follows:

·         Existence of social group

·         Internal structure of the group

·         Arrangement into social classes

·         Social distinctions

·         Arrangement of persons in a dyadic relationship; and

·         Interaction between groups and persons

                           Radcliffe Brown has presented the types of social structure into two forms one is ‘Actual social structure’ in which according to him the relationships between the persons and the groups may change from time to time by adding new persons or eliminating some persons through different social actions like birth, marriage, death or divorce and the other form is ‘General Social structure’ where the relationships between persons or groups remain relatively constant for a long time. Thus, he held the view that sometimes the structural form may change gradually or suddenly but even though the sudden changes occur the continuity of structure is maintained to a considerable extent.

Now to understand the relation between structure and function Radcliffe Brown had turned to Biology.  To him, the structure of an organism consists of ordered arrangements of its parts and the function of the part is to interrelate the structure of an organism. Similarly, social structure is the ordered arrangement of persons and groups. The functions of persons are to the structure of society and social organism. So social structure is not to be studied by considering the nature of individual members of the group but by examining the arrangement of functions that make society persistent.

 

 

Radcliffe Brown’s structural-functional law:

Radcliffe  Brown thinks that law is a necessary condition of continued existence. According to him, generalization about any sort of subject matter is of two types:

·         Generalization about common opinion; and

·         Scientific law:  Generalization that has been demonstrated by a systematic examination of the evidence afforded by precise observations systematically made.

 

Ø  S.F. Nadel’s contribution to Structural-Functional school:

Nadel developed the theory of social structure in his book “Theory of Social Structure”( 1957). Here he presented the two angled views of society like

1/ action such as marriage, kinship etc. and

 2/ groupings such as family, clans etc.

 He also said that there are some social and cultural facts which fall outside the social and cultural scheme.

 According to him, the structure is the former relation of parts such that a set of data may be said to exhibit structure in as much as they exhibit a definable articulation of an ordered arrangement of parts. There are 3 aspects of structure:

1/ structure as opposed to function ;

2/ structure as opposed to qualitative character; and

 3/ structure as opposed to the process.

To him, the institutionalised behaviour is characterised by the consistency of the relationships of which it is composed but what is constant is not concrete behaviour itself. It varies in detail according to occasion and circumstances. The social structure lies not in the mere presence and collection of relationships but in the order in which they appear. Thus according to Nadel, “we arrive at the structure of society through abstracting from the concrete population and its behaviour that pattern or network of relationships obtaining between actors  in their capacity of playing roles relative to one another”(Nadel,1957:12)

               According to him, there are 3 elements of society:

1/A group of people

2/ Institutionalised rules according to which members of the group interact; and

3/ An institutionalized pattern or expression of this interaction.

The institutionalized rules and patterns do not change easily and this creates orderliness in society. These rules determine the status and the roles of individuals and there is an order among these rules and status also which provides an ordered arrangement of human beings. That means the functions of the society depend on the rules and laws formulated by that particular society.

Ø  E.R. Leach’s contribution to Structural-Functional school:

          This British anthropologist dealt with change without abandoning the useful notions of structure and function. In his book “Political System of Highland Burma” (1954) he proposed a creative solution by considering conflict itself as a form of structure. In the social system of the highland Burma area, individuals are presented with inconsistencies in the scheme of values by which they ordered their lives. Thus, they felt the alternative mode of action. For him, functionalism is dynamic and diachronic.

Ø  Raymond Firth’s views on Structural-Functionalism:

 Firth has also dealt with the dynamic and diachronic nature of function like Leach. According to him, decisions are not made in terms of optimization of power., but according to personal evaluation of efficiency towards any given goal. These goals are not random but formulated by groups and subgroups to which individuals belong. These subgroups are internally structured and interrelated with one another as well as to the structure of society as a whole. For instance, an individual belongs to several subgroups which are determined by certain criteria of marriage, religion, class, caste, status etc. 

Membership in these groups is overlapping, and conflict in the choice of action often arises.  This is because what is efficient within the framework of one individual may be detrimental to the other members of that particular group. So social structure and function are more or less dependent on the thinking capacity or personality of the individuals belonging to a group.  

               

Ø  Meyer Fortes’ views on Structural-Functionalism:

Fortes was inclined to give his views on functionalism. He stated that the functionalist point of view has always been concise and consistent. It had its goal to search for general laws that could be discovered without the aid of history. A significant social analysis thus could be made regardless of the past. He was convinced that social laws must exist because social life is not random. At the same time, he was forced to admit that the combination of factors present on any particular occasion can never be predicted. Social laws, thus refer to ideally isolated features of social life and can be stated only in terms of probabilities. They would not have many references to social reality at all.