Parsons, who elaborated on Durkheim’s work, compared the workings of organs in a body and how they maintain life, to institutions in society such as the family and education which shows how society is maintained. He also commented on the system needs the two have such as nutrition and socialisation. His analogy helps sociologists understand how to maintain society in a healthy way, which is seen as a strength of the functionalists approach.
Parsons also identified four needs of society. He claimed society needs adaptation to meet the material needs of society. He also claimed that society needs goal attainment and this is met through politics who work towards improving society. Integration is also identified as a need as it shows how the different institutions work together to try and remove conflict. Latency is the last of the identified needs as it shows how people deal with problems by turning to institutions such as religion. This is seen as a major strength of the functionalist approach to society as it shows sociologists what society needs to work well.
However, Merton who is another functionalist sociologist disagrees with the needs Parsons identified. He says Parsons ignores dysfunctional institutions within society such as religion that can cause division within society. Parsons also shows the functions of society as simplistic as he doesn’t show the differences between the latent and manifest functions. Merton also argues that children can be socialised in single parent families, disagreeing with Parsons idea that a tradition nuclear family is needed. His arguments show that some aspects of functionalism is seen by society as a weakness.
Other criticisms of functionalism is that it explains effects before the cause by claiming children need to be socialised so the family exists, which means that functionalisms may not be used to explain society properly. Marxists also say functionalist fail to explain conflict and change within society as it is shown as harmonious. Feminists and Marxists say exploitation and inequality exist in many forms and that functionalism failed to acknowledge this meaning its views are outdated, which shows flaws in their approach and is therefore a weakness.
In conclusion, the functionalist approach has many strengths and weaknesses about society’s functions. Strengths include its basic explanation of needs and functions of society, while is weaknesses are that it doesn’t acknowledge exploitation and inequality within society. So, overall, I see this as a balanced argument.