Today Functionalism in sociology is greatly less popular than it was in the 1950’s. The main criticisms of the Functionalist theory are that they ignore the fact that power and wealth are not evenly distributed in society. Some groups in a society have more wealth and power than other and so are able to impose there norms & values on other groups. The theory also ignores the individuals freedom of choice in life, jobs, religion, extra are not forced on the individual as people make choices that make sense to them not on the basis of weather it would benefit society. And finally Functionalism puts too much focus on order and consensus, cultural differences may be present in the same society and people of the same culture are not identical.
The Functionalist theory like all other theories can’t provide all the answers and there are theories that disagree completely with the Functionalist view. For example Marxists believe culture is based on conflict rather that consensus. This theory became increasingly influential during the 1970’s partly because of the decline in Functionalism.
The Marxist theory begins with the simple observation that in order to survive people must enter into different social relationships with other people as production is a social enterprise. Each stage in the development of production will correspond with a different social relationship of production.
Marxists believe that members of different classes (particle the upper & working class) are in conflict with one another. However the working class rarely challenge capitalism because those are the people who control the economy and those who control the economy also control education, media, family and all other cultural institutions.
The main criticism of The Marxist theory is, like the Functionalist theory it tends to ignore the freedom enjoyed by individuals. However this criticism does not apply to all Marxists, Hall and Jefferson (1976) argued that opposition subcultures can exist in a capitalist system and members of these subculture (usually youths) can use them to express their dissatisfaction of the capitalist system.
Another alternative viewpoint is the Social action theory, this theory rejects the structulist view that human behavior is determined and it starts with people rather than society. Society is the result of people coming together in social groups and trying to make sense of their own and other people’s behavior.
All things considered the theory I tend to agree with most is Functionalism. Out of the two main pools of thought (Marxism and Functionalism) the Functionalist theory makes most sense to me, looking at our society there are obvious social groups that are inter depend on each other for example criminal groups and the police, if no one broke the law then society would not need the police. These groups also cut across the social classes, the scull probation teacher is working class and the chief inspector of schools is high earning middle class but both are part of the education system. Society is not mad up of layers but different groups of people which fit together to make up society.