![]() The structural-functional theory has been criticized for failing to adequately explain social change.Dysfunction in education includes poor grades, truancy, dropping out, and not achieving a degree. ![]() ![]() Dysfunctional social processes negatively impact the functioning of society. These latent functions can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful. A second latent function of education is to create a hierarchy of employment based on the level of education attained. You will meet new people during your college years, participate in extracurricular activities, or even find a spouse or partner. Among the functions of college education, for example, are to gain knowledge, prepare for a career, and find a good job. Latent functions are the unintended consequences of social processes, as opposed to manifest ones. Robert Merton (1910-2003), another noted structural functionalist, noted that social processes often fulfill many functions. Laws may serve various purposes, such as protecting society from violence, punishing criminal behavior, or maintaining public health. All of these social facts serve a particular function in society. Laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and all other aspects of social life are social facts (Durkheim 1895). Sociologists can study society by going beyond individuals to look at social facts, according to Durkheim. All the parts of a healthy society work together to maintain stability, a condition called dynamic equilibrium by later sociologists like Parsons. According to Alfred Radcliff-Brown (1881–1955), the function of any recurrent activity is what role it plays in social life in general, and the contribution it makes to social stability and continuity. He argued that in order to study society, sociologists must look beyond individuals to social facts such as laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, and rituals, all of which are employed to govern social life. According to Durkheim, society consists of interrelated and interdependent parts that work together to maintain stability (Durkheim 1893), and shared values, languages, and symbols are what bind it together. Émile Durkheim, another early sociologist, applied Spencer’s theory to explain how societies change and survive. A part of society Spencer refers to is the social institutions, or patterns of beliefs and behaviors that address social needs, such as government, education, family, healthcare, religion, and the economy. The term functionalism originated with the writings of English philosopher and biologist Hebert Spencer (1820-1903), who saw similarities between society and the human body he argued that just as the various organs of the human body work together (Spencer 1898) to keep society functioning. Known as structural-functional theory, functionalism sees society as an interdependent structure that caters to both biological and social needs of its members.
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