(a) Using Material from Item a and Elsewhere Assess the Contribution of Functionalism to Our Understanding of Families and Households.
- Submitted by: lex03
- Views: 549
- Category: Other
- Date Submitted: 12/26/2014 05:21 AM
- Pages: 5
- Report this Essay
(a) Using material from item A and elsewhere assess the contribution of functionalism to our understanding of families and households.
Functionalism is a consensus perspective in sociology which sees society as like an organism, each part is interdependent, performing functions to maintain the system as a whole, for example, the family performs socialisation functions. Functionalists see society as having a number of sub-systems within it such as the family system, the education system and the economy. They see the family as a particularly important sub-system. George Peter Murdock (1949) is a key functionalist and he argues that the nuclear family is universal-found in all human societies- because of its ‘sheer practicality’ in performing four essential functions to meet the needs of society and its members. The first of which is a stable satisfaction of the sex drive, this means that sexual relations should be with the same partner so to prevent a social disruption caused by a ‘sexual free-for-all’, the second factor is the reproduction of the next generation because if the family did not perform this then society could not continue, the next is the socialisation of the young so that children have the basic skills needed to function that Murdock said was essential for the nuclear family to meet is that the family should meet its family’s economic needs by providing them with necessities such as food and shelter. This shows how functionalists contribute to our understanding of families and households however critics of Murdock would argue that these four functions could be performed equally as well by other institutions or by non-nuclear family structures. Marxists and feminists are also big critics of Murdock and they argue that functionalism neglects conflict and exploitation as Marxists see that the functionalist’s view of the family just serves to meet the needs of capitalism and not those of individual family members or society as a whole. They also...
Functionalism is a consensus perspective in sociology which sees society as like an organism, each part is interdependent, performing functions to maintain the system as a whole, for example, the family performs socialisation functions. Functionalists see society as having a number of sub-systems within it such as the family system, the education system and the economy. They see the family as a particularly important sub-system. George Peter Murdock (1949) is a key functionalist and he argues that the nuclear family is universal-found in all human societies- because of its ‘sheer practicality’ in performing four essential functions to meet the needs of society and its members. The first of which is a stable satisfaction of the sex drive, this means that sexual relations should be with the same partner so to prevent a social disruption caused by a ‘sexual free-for-all’, the second factor is the reproduction of the next generation because if the family did not perform this then society could not continue, the next is the socialisation of the young so that children have the basic skills needed to function that Murdock said was essential for the nuclear family to meet is that the family should meet its family’s economic needs by providing them with necessities such as food and shelter. This shows how functionalists contribute to our understanding of families and households however critics of Murdock would argue that these four functions could be performed equally as well by other institutions or by non-nuclear family structures. Marxists and feminists are also big critics of Murdock and they argue that functionalism neglects conflict and exploitation as Marxists see that the functionalist’s view of the family just serves to meet the needs of capitalism and not those of individual family members or society as a whole. They also...