Discuss the view that the culture of society is based on consensus.

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Yana Austin

26/04/07

Sociology Essay

‘Discuss the view that the culture of society is based on consensus.’

The view that culture is based on consensus is a Functionalist theory.

Functionalism first emerged in the nineteenth century Europe, one of the most influential sociologists at the time was the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Emile Durkheim was born on the 15th of April 1858. The concept of function played a key role in all of Durkheim’s work from ‘The Division of Labour’ in which he sees his prime objective in the determination of “the functions of division of labour, that is to say what social needs it satisfies”.

It was developed by American Sociologists in the twentieth century. Functionalism remained the dominate theory until the mid 1960’s.

It is a structulist theory so it sees an individual as less important than society as a whole. Society is studied rather than the individual because they are the product of society. Talcott Parsons (1902-79) was an among the American sociologists who developed the theory into its form today as mentioned above. He saw Functalism as the key to understanding human behavior, this theory shows society is made up of inter dependant groups of people and these groups cut across class boundaries.

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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 ...

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