structural functionalism theory and public education

Radcliffe-Brown responded to this critique by stating that functionalists did not believe that useful historical information could be obtained with respect to primitive societies it was not history, but “pseudo-history” to which functionalists objected (Harris 1968:524). Hence, if events were to be understood, it was their contemporary functioning that should be observed and recorded (Lesser 1935:55-56).Ĭonsequently, this led some to interpret functionalism as being opposed to the study of history altogether. Functionalists believed the motive force of events was to be found in their manifestations in the present. That is, the evolutionist school postulated that “an observed cultural fact was seen not in terms of what it was at the time of observation but in terms of what it must stand for in reference to what had formerly been the case” (Lesser 1935:55). From the functionalist standpoint these earlier approaches privileged speculative theorizing over the discovery of facts. The evolutionary approach viewed customs or cultural traits as residual artifacts of cultural history.

There was a shift in focus from the speculatively historical or diachronic study of customs and cultural traits as “survivals” to the ahistorical, synchronic study of social “institutions” within bounded, functioning societies (Young 1991:445).įunctionalists presented their theoretical and methodological approaches as an attempt to expand sociocultural inquiry beyond the bounds of the evolutionary conception of social history. It was an attempt to move away from the evolutionism and diffusionism that dominated American and British anthropology at the turn of the century (Lesser 1935, Langness 1987). Unlike Malinowski’s emphasis on individuals, Radcliffe-Brown considered individuals irrelevant (Goldschmidt 1996:510).Īs a new paradigm, functionalism was presented as a reaction against what was believed to be outdated ideologies. Thus, individuals were replaceable, transient occupants of social roles. Radcliffe-Brown argued that explanations of social phenomena had to be constructed within the social level. Radcliffe-Brown, inspired by Augustus Comte, stated that the social constituted a separate “level” of reality distinct from those of biological forms and inorganic matter. He suggested that a society is a system of relationships maintaining itself through cybernetic feedback, while institutions are orderly sets of relationships whose function is to maintain the society as a system. Radcliffe-Brown focused on social structure rather than biological needs. He argued that satisfaction of these needs transformed the cultural instrumental activity into an acquired drive through psychological reinforcement (Goldschmidt 1996:510 Voget 1996:573). Malinowski argued that uniform psychological responses are correlates of physiological needs. Each institution has personnel, a charter, a set of norms or rules, activities, material apparatus (technology), and a function. There are also culturally derived needs and four basic “instrumental needs” (economics, social control, education, and political organization), that require institutional devices. Malinowski suggested that individuals have physiological needs (reproduction, food, shelter) and that social institutions exist to meet these needs. Two versions of functionalism developed between 19: Malinowski’s biocultural (or psychological) functionalism and structural-functionalism, the approach advanced by Radcliffe-Brown. Functionalism was a reaction to the perceived excesses and deficiencies of the evolutionary and diffusionist theories of the nineteenth century and the historicism of the early twentieth (Goldschmidt 1996:510). Radcliffe-Brown had the greatest influence on the development of functionalism from their posts in Great Britain and elsewhere. Functionalism, as a school of thought in anthropology, emerged in the early twentieth century. Functionalist analyses examine the social significance of phenomena, that is, the function they serve a particular society in maintaining the whole (Jarvie 1973). Institutions such as religion, kinship and the economy were the organs and individuals were the cells in this social organism.

Like a biological organism, a society is able to maintain its essential processes through the way that the different parts interact.

The organism is able to live, reproduce and function through the organized system of its several parts and organs. The organic analogy compares the different parts of a society to the organs of a living organism. Functionalists seek to describe the different parts of a society and their relationship by means of an organic analogy.

Structural functionalism theory and public education