Sociology Blog: Functionalism and Conflict Theory
Kilali Latter
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
10/12/20
Functionalism says that society is a system of interconnected parts that work together in order to maintain balance within society. For example, “Family provides a context for reproducing, nurturing, and socializing children; education offers a way to transmit a society’s skills, knowledge, and culture to its youth; politics provides a means of governing members of society.” These things contribute important functions to society to help society run and be balanced. The functionalist perspective looks into how each part of society benefits and impacts society. There are two terms that are used a lot in functionalism and they are functional and dysfunctional. Dysfunctional Parts of society do not contribute to or benefit society and they disrupt social stability. Functional parts do benefit society and keep social stability. There are also two types of functions within functionalism: manifest and latent. Manifest functions are ones that have consequences that are intentional. Latent functions are ones where the consequences to it are not intentional and are hidden.
While Functionalism looks at society as parts working together, the Conflict theory looks at different parts of society competing for power and recourses. Conflict Theory is based on the work of Karl Marx. He said that all societies go through economic development, in which our main concern switched from survival to profit. He also said that industrialization led to the forming of two classes of people: The bourgeoisie (people who own the means of production) and the proletariat (the working class). Through this division of classes, the workers aren’t able to access many of the recourses that the bourgeoisie is able to access. This allows the bourgeoisie to use their resources and power to influence and control society’s institutions to their advantage. This shows the inequality and different distribution of power that conflict theory focuses on because the wealthy are more capable of getting what they want out of society than the working class is.
Source: https://laulima.hawaii.edu/access/content/user/kfrench/sociology/The%20Three%20Main%20Sociological%20Perspectives.pdf
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
10/12/20
Functionalism and Conflict Theory
Functionalism says that society is a system of interconnected parts that work together in order to maintain balance within society. For example, “Family provides a context for reproducing, nurturing, and socializing children; education offers a way to transmit a society’s skills, knowledge, and culture to its youth; politics provides a means of governing members of society.” These things contribute important functions to society to help society run and be balanced. The functionalist perspective looks into how each part of society benefits and impacts society. There are two terms that are used a lot in functionalism and they are functional and dysfunctional. Dysfunctional Parts of society do not contribute to or benefit society and they disrupt social stability. Functional parts do benefit society and keep social stability. There are also two types of functions within functionalism: manifest and latent. Manifest functions are ones that have consequences that are intentional. Latent functions are ones where the consequences to it are not intentional and are hidden.
While Functionalism looks at society as parts working together, the Conflict theory looks at different parts of society competing for power and recourses. Conflict Theory is based on the work of Karl Marx. He said that all societies go through economic development, in which our main concern switched from survival to profit. He also said that industrialization led to the forming of two classes of people: The bourgeoisie (people who own the means of production) and the proletariat (the working class). Through this division of classes, the workers aren’t able to access many of the recourses that the bourgeoisie is able to access. This allows the bourgeoisie to use their resources and power to influence and control society’s institutions to their advantage. This shows the inequality and different distribution of power that conflict theory focuses on because the wealthy are more capable of getting what they want out of society than the working class is.
Source: https://laulima.hawaii.edu/access/content/user/kfrench/sociology/The%20Three%20Main%20Sociological%20Perspectives.pdf
Comments
Post a Comment