Functionalism Method

Functional Analysis

1. The functionalist method, in sociology and social anthropology appeared initially (in the beginning) as a reaction against the method and claims of the evolutionist. The term functional analysis and functionalism are often equated with a functionalist method that focuses on systems as a whole, how they operate, how they change and the social consequences they produce. Hence, functionalism provides a perspective from which to attempt an analysis of a society. The central concern is with the source of order and stability in society.

1. Functional analysis requires from the researchers (research scholars) that he/she explain or analyse his/her observations of recurring phenomena in terms of their consequences for the wider social system within which they exist. In this context, functional analysis is a method of sociological and anthropological inquiry, which consists in examining social and cultural items by locating them in a wider context.

2. In functionalism the focus is on:

(a) The way social institutions help to maintain order in social life, and

(b) The way structural arrangements in

Society influences behaviour.

2. Usually, function analysis means showing how different items affect and are affected by others with which they coexist over time within the same social system.

3. In functionalism, society is concerned as a system of interrelated parts on which no part can be understood in isolation from the whole. A change in any part is seen as leading to a certain degree of imbalance, which in turn results in changes in other parts of the system and to some extent to a re-organisation of the system as a whole.

3. Functional method (of analysis) refers to the functional analysis which is also known as functionalism and structural functionalism.

4. The development of functionalism in the nineteenth century was based on the model of the organic system found in the biological sciences.

4. In sociology, the functionalist method is traced primarily to the pioneering work of the nineteenth century French sociologist Emile Durkheim and in the twentieth century, to the American sociologist Talcott Parsons and his students.

5. Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer used an organic analogy, analyzing society as a kind of living organism. Just as a biological organism has inter-related tissues and organs that function together, they wrote, so does society. Like an organism, if society is to function smoothly, its different parts must work together in harmony. For instance, just as the heart has the function of circulating the blood, so also do social institutions have specific functions for society as a whole.

5. Functional analysis's anthropological roots extend to the work of Bronislaw Mainowski and A.R. Radicliff-Brown.

6. Robert K. Marton dismissed the organic analogy but continued with the essence of functionalism. The image of society as a whole as he maintained was composed of interrelated parts. Marton used the term

functions to refer to the beneficial consequences of people's actions that help to maintain the equilibrium of a social system. In contrast, dysfunctions are consequences that undermine a system's equilibrium.

6. From the perspective of a functional system, the group is a functioning whole, with each part contributing to the welfare of the whole. Whenever we examine a smaller part, we need to look for its functions to see how it is related to the larger unit. This basic approach can be applied to any social group, whether an entire society, a college or even a group as small as the family. Finally, we may view that functional analysis is a method, which refers to factors and forces of integration, equilibrium and also disequilibrium. At a given point of time inter-relation between different components of society can be studied from the functional point of view.