Criticisms of Functionalism

The error of reification
1. Do social institutions have "needs" and "purposes" in the way as human beings?
2. Ontological argumen
3. Organic Analogy
Sharrock et al. (2003) (Non - Functionalist)
1. "The level of consensus in society is overemphasized!"
2. ""Organisms exist as biological entities, whereas society is a concept, which has no natural cycle or natural form"
3. "Functionalists have problems explaining social change!" What about Parsons??
4. "Parsons seems to ignore differences in power"
5. Human beings in the Parsonian model of society, seem rather like puppets having their strings pulled by all-powerful societies via pattern variables.
Robert Merton (1957) (Functionalist)
1. Criticised Parsons!
2. "Parsons ignored that some institutions can be both functional & dysfunctional for society" E.g. Religion
3. ""Parsons failed to realiize the distinction between manifest functions and latent consequences of these actions."
Very much of the research is based on the same social groups of the writers. (White, middle-class, American males!)
There is no recognition of difference by class, region or ethnic group.
The functionalist picture is simply reflective of happy middle-class American families.
Deterministic
1. Ideas almost portray humans as being autonomous and that only socialisation determines our lives.
Durkheim
1. Too optimistic
2. Maintains the idea of social solidarity as the main theme
Marxism
1. Accuse functionalists for ignoring the fact that power is not equally distributed in society
2. " Partisan to advanced welfare capitalism "
3. Justifying institutions
Feminism
1. Criticise functionalists for ignoring male dominance that often is present in society.
Epistemological argument
1. "Functionalism is tautologous"
  1. Attempting to account for the development of social institutions solely through recourse to the effects that are attributed to them
It can be argued that functionalism does not explain the original cause of a phenomenon with reference to its effect, and is therefore, not teleological.
It cannot explain why individuals choose to accept or reject the accepted norms, why and in what circumstances they choose to exercise their agency
Conflict theorists
1. "Concept of systems as giving far too much weight to integration and consensus"
  1. "Neglecting independence and conflict"
2. "Parsons’ theory missed the concept of system contradiction."
Jeffrey Alexander (1985)
1. Sees functionalism as a broad school rather than a specific method or system
Conservative
Ambiguous
Lacks in adequate methods

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	Creado por Daniel Johnston hace casi 11 años