Using material from Item B and elsewhere assess the usefulness of functionalism for an understanding of the family.

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Vikki Holness        Page         

Using material from Item B and elsewhere assess the usefulness of functionalism for an understanding of the family.

Functionalists emphasize the integration and harmony between different parts of society, organic analogy, and how these parts work together to maintain the whole, society. They therefore see the ‘family’ as a vital organ in maintaining the ‘body’ of society as it performs a number of functions that contribute to society’s well being. Although functionalism is useful for exploring functions that families perform it fails to consider influences such as ethnicity, social class and religion. Moreover, the rosy and harmonious picture of family life painted by functionalists ignores social problems such as high divorce rates, child abuse and domestic violence.

Sociologists may be in broad agreement that the family institution is clearly related to other institutions within in society, however individuals and sociologists differ in the way they interpret this relationship. Functionalists believe that the family is the ‘cornerstone of society’. In a study of the family George Peter Murdoch studied and analysed 250 societies and based on this research he claimed that the ‘nuclear family is a universal human social grouping …it exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society’. This research was the basis for his argument that the family performed four basic functions: sexual/reproductive, which help to maintain social order and produce new members of society, The primary and secondary socialisation of these new members ensures that they are taught the norms and values of their culture and society and that they learn to conform to authority and the economy is the economic base of society, without this function societies would cease to exist.

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Murdoch saw the family as integral to society and ideal for producing capable adults, his research proved useful in understanding how the family’s functions are beneficial not only to its individuals but for the society as a whole.

        The American sociologist Talcott Parsons (1955) argues that the typical family unit is the ‘isolated nuclear family’ and states that there were two basic and irreducible functions of the family, rather than four. The socialisation of children; the meeting of their developmental needs and the transmission across generations of social norms and values. The stabilization of adult personalities; the family provided a ...

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