ALL PARTS OF SOCIETY
ARE OPERATING WELL
=
SOCIAL BALANCE &
EQUILIBRIUM
POSITIVIST SOCIAL SCIENCE
Positivists believe that we need to find
out and verify universal laws of
human behavior and to understand
how the world operates so that people
can accomplish or foretell events.
Structural Functionalism
- is a dominant approach in the social
sciences that sees society as a complex
system whose parts work together to
promote solidarity and stability.
Historical Context
● 19th century by French Sociologist Emile
Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society and
Suicide
● 20th century, from England, Bronislaw
Malinowski speculated that cultural practices
had psychological and physiological functions
● A.R. Radcliffe-Brown focused on social structure
Key Concepts
● Social structure
● Social functions/Social
dysfunctions (Manifest and
Latent Functions)
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
- Society is systematically structured, may be
likened to biological organism.
SOCIAL FUNCTIONS
- refer to results or effects for the operation
of the society in general.
Example: Education has a number of
significant purposes in a society, such as
socialization and learning.
MANIFEST FUNCTIONS
- those that are intentional or known,
referring to functions which people suppose
and anticipate to be fulfilled by institutions
LATENT FUNCTIONS
- unexpected effects of institutions
Example: Rain Dance
Manifest Function: to produce rain
Latent Function: to provide a regular
opportunity for the members of a group to
meet and share a common activity
Example: Cellphone use.
Manifest Function: Cell phones are to allow
mobile communication between people.
Latent Function: Cell phones may be used to
provide a distraction from boredom.
Example: Wedding
Manifest Function: Wedding is the public
acknowledgment of union between two people.
Latent Function: A wedding may be used to
provide an opportunity for extended families to
socialize.
Example: Education
Manifest Function: to transmit cultural norms
and values to future generations.
Latent Function: to keep youth off the streets.
Example: Religion
Manifest Function: to provide meaning and
purpose for a society by offering a comforting
sense that we come from and will go back to a
higher being.
Latent Function: contributing entertaining
facilities to its youth members
SOCIAL DYSFUNCTIONS
- can be manifest and latent, and have a
negative effects on society
MANIFEST DYSFUNCTIONS
- expected disruptions of social life
Examples:
1. Manifest Function: Hospitals are expected to provide better healthcare to the people or treat the
patients going through any kinds of diseases.
Possible Dysfunctions: Lack of medicine and doctors
2. Latent Function: In a hospital, the doctors while treating a patient suffering from a certain kind
of incurable disease somehow saves the patient, thus, discovering a new method of treating that
particular disease.
Possible Dysfunctions: Patients are considered for subject of experiments
3. Manifest Function: College education helps stabilize students for employment
Possible Dysfunctions: Additional stress for students.
4. Latent Function: Education includes the formation of friendships among students who
matriculate at the same school.
Possible Dysfunctions: Misunderstanding and bias treatment.
THINKERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
- Bronislaw Malinowski
- Emile Durkheim
- A.R. Radcliffe - Brown
STRENGTHS
- The existence of general agreement
on the values and norms of the
society.
For example: Sharing is good, stealing
is bad.
STRENGTHS
- The belief that society is made up of
integrated parts that are bound
together, and that if something is
wrong with one part it will affect the
other parts.
STRENGTHS
- Tends to seek stability and
avoid conflict, thus supporting
the status quo and in effect,
maintaining social order
CRITICISMS
- Tendency to ignore inequality
in terms of race, gender, and
class, which causes conflict
CRITICISMS
- Only able to explain the
development of institutions through
recourse to the consequences
attributed to them, hence explaining
them circularly