THE FUNCTIONALIST THEORY IN SOCIOLOGY
The Functionalist Perspective. By Wilbert Masamba The structural-functional—or, more simply, functionalist—perspective draws substantially upon the ideas of Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer,and Émile Durkheim, and takes a broad view of society, focusing on the macro aspects of social life. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the functionalist theories of Talcott Parsons (1949, 1951) and his students occupied center stage in American sociology. Indeed, some proponents such as Kingsley Davis (1959) argued that the approach was essentially synonymous with sociology. Society as a Social System Functionalists took as their starting point the notion that society is a system, a set of elements or components that are related to one another in a more or less stable fashion through a period of time. Functionalists focused on the parts of society, particularly its major institutions, such as the family, religion, the economy, the state, and education. They identified ...