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Asking “how” something works instead of “why” something exists has been around for centuries

Origins of this theory - Thomas Hobbes’s question “How is social order possible?”

Greek thinkers, Aristotle and Plato

Every social system needed to achieve a state of order or system equilibrium

Structural

any questions

?

Sources of Power

Legitimacy – the belief that the person is entitled to prevail by right.

Money

Physical coercion – threats or force to make up another important source of power

Love – used to coerce someone emotionally

ion

a

Sources of Power

Families have different resources and amounts of power.

There are four important sources of power: legitimacy, money, physical coercion, and love.

As a consequence of competition, inequality results.

Conflict Theory directs attention to how the wider gender, racial, and economic inequalities that result influence families.

ritique

app

Conflict Theory derives from politics and economics in which self interest, egotism, and competition are dominant elements. However, people’s behavior is also characterized by self sacrifice and cooperation.

Conflict Theorists do not often talk about the power of love or bonding.

This theory assumes that differences lead to conflict.

Conflict in families is not easily measured or evaluated.

Sources of Conflict in Families

  • Conflict theorists believe that conflict is a natural part of family life.
  • Families always have conflicts – from small to major.
  • Families differ in the number of underlying conflicts of interest, degree of underlying hostility, and the nature and extent of the expression of conflict.
  • Conflict can take the form of competing goals or differences in role expectations and responsibilities.

We can analyze marriage and families in terms of internal conflicts and power struggles.

Conflict theorists agree that love and affection are important elements in marriages and families but that conflict and power are also fundamental.

Since marriages and families are composed of individuals with different personalities, ideas, values, tastes, & goals, each person is not always in harmony with others in the family.

Assumptions

  • Humans are motivated principally by self-interest
  • Conflict is endemic in social groups
  • Conflict is inevitable between social groups
  • The normal state of society is to be in conflict rather than harmony
  • Because conflict is both endemic and inevitable, the primary concern in the study of social groups such as the family is how they manage conflict.

Conflict

Negotiation

  • Negotiation happens when both parties state their goals and then use their resources to induce or coerce the other to move closer to their goal.
  • Argument, bribery, and deceit may all be involved in negotiation.

key

cepts

Resources

(Power & Authority)

Consensus

(Agreement)

  • Knowledge, skill, techniques, and materials that are at the ready disposal of a person or group.
  • Resources provide the potential for power and control

Theory

  • Achieved when parties to a negotiation agree…
  • the preferable outcome of negotiation.

Structure

co

2 kinds of structure

  • Structure of the situation: Competition vs. Cooperation
  • Competition: Not a process but the way something is organized
  • Cooperation
  • Structure of the group
  • The number of members in the group
  • The age of members
  • The gender of members
  • Combination

Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

history as ruled by dialectic of ideas: each idea presupposed its opposite

1

Thomas Hobbes “How is social order possible?”

Two laws of all organisms

self preservation and self assertion

humans form social contract where they give up some of rights of self interest to live in stable and secure society

tension

Natural right

thus people’s self interest collides with self interest of others

synthesis

antithesis

2

new thesis

Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels

directly applied conflict theory to family

Conflict

Disagreement, clashes, and discordance in interests or ideas.

attacked Hegelian notions

  • people could either control the means of production or labor for those who controlled production

dialectical material explanation of history

Family rooted in biological self interest yet also a form of social organization

  • first class opposition: man and woman in marriage
  • first class oppression: female sex and male sex

ry

hist

Evolutionary theories

in middle of 19th century

Precursor of 20th century versions of functionalist framework

Now possible to expand functional arguments to explain not only why a set of functions developed but how they might end

Adaptation and selection

perspectives that emphasize social, political or material inequality of a social group that detract from structural functionalism

1820-1917

Spencer & Durkheim

Social theorists

Recognized how functionalism might be used to explain various social institutions and behaviors

Emancipatory vision of conflict theory

  • understanding is emancipatory
  • knowledge and political action are always tied together

Believed that parts of social system had to be understood as functioning for the whole

Family – supplying various functions such as reproduction to the larger social whole

Oriented towards social goal of integration and order

Social and cultural anthropologists began to pursue explanations of why and how different cultural traditions exist in various social systems

Two anthropologists impacted functionalism

&

The Social System has several levels

Biological (Personality)

Social structural

Cultural

conflict theory focuses both on conflict within and conflict between groups

A.R. Radcliffe Brown

(1881-1955)

ions

his

Bronislaw Malinowski

(1884 – 1942)

Equilibrium

  • Added the dimension of levels of social systems
  • Integral to next contribution by Parsons
  • Made functionalism relative to the environment in which society must adapt
  • Argued that structure developed to serve a particular system within the parameters of an environment and its demands
  • Made it broader in order to incorporate social and cultural variation

Subsystems must articulate with one another so as to maintain the social system at some equilibrium range.

I.e. Envision a thermometer

System

leaves

branches

A tree has many substructures or parts.

Each structure has a function.

Society is made up of subsystems.

trunk

  • The system is treated as a whole.
  • Structures play a role within the larger system

key

root

Norms

Values

Subsystems are the major institutions such as the family, religion, government, and economy.

Each of these structures performs functions that help maintain society, just as different parts of the tree serve a function in maintaining the tree.

Structural functionalism is deeply influenced by biology and treats society as if it were a living organism.

The theory sometimes uses the analogy of a tree in describing society.

  • The social rules that regulate our behavior with each other as well as with cultural objects.
  • Norms control the actors behavior
  • Values give motive to the actor’s behavior
  • Values are the expression of culture interacting with the individual

Action

Action is intentional; Behavior is motivated and intended by the actor.

(1902-1979)

Talcott Parsons

Structure

y

  • believed in possibility of "grand theory" of social systems

Comprised of individual members of a group. The links between groups that organize particular patterns of behavior or communication

Function

A function is relational, not a thing itself.

oncepts

application

Religion – spiritual support

Government – ensues order

Economy – produces goods

Family – provides new members for society through procreation and socializes its members so that they fit into society.

divided up the social world into three systems

  • cultural system: shared symbols and meanings
  • social system: organized social groups and institutions
  • personality system: species generic types of personalities

Each system requires

  • adaptation
  • goal attainment
  • integration
  • latency

1970s dormant

Education

Resurgence in 1980s

  • Alexander 1985
  • Kingsbury and Scanzoni 1993

c

itique

Structural-Functionalists see education as contributing to the smooth functioning of society. Educational systems train the most qualified individuals for the most socially important positions. Education teaches people not only the skills to maximize their potential, but also how to be good citizens and get along with others. They would NOT see education as contributing to inequality (along class, race, gender, etc. lines) but rather as serving the positive function of the overall society.

& assump

Structural functionalists examine how the family organizes itself for survival and what functions the family as a whole performs for its members.

Members of family must perform certain functions that are traditionally divided along gender lines. I.e. Men & women have different tasks.

The family molds personalities to carry out certain functions.

The Family As a System

Crime

Reawakening with family scholars

(1950s)

Robert Merton

Such division of labor and differentiation of temperaments is seen as efficient.

Minimize competition

Creating interdependence

Reduce ambiguity

Role allocation may be deemed functional.

Don Swenson 2004

  • attempted to unite diverse family theoretical frameworks through functionalism

How to we determine which family functions are vital?

Structural Functionalism looks at the family abstractly. It is not always clear what function a particular structure serves.

Critics argue that the most highly rewarded positions are not necessarily the most important.

William Goode

Structural-Functionalists view crime as a necessary part of society. Through public outrage and legal punishment, the majority of people in a given society recognize, accept, and adhere to a shared set of moral guidelines and rules. Without crime, there would be no legal system or shared morals in our society. A stable crime rate is a sign of a healthy society. Too high crime rates vs. too low crime rates.

(1963)

envisioned modest "middle range" theories

  • reference group theory
  • theories of social normlessness

Expanded Parson's notion that American family losing extended kinship as result of industrialization

  • as family functions changed, structure of family changed
  • convergence theory
  • modernization theory
  • social development theory

Functionalism

Questions about "why" things exist are explained by "how" things exist or the thing's function

1

Explains structure or event by its function for the larger social system

We have a heart by citing the need for a pump in our circulatory system

2

Explains things by producing outcomes that are required by a system

Respiration is a basic function in humans that is needed to survive

Society is a complex system whose parts work together to promote stability

Lolita Lyles

Justine White

& Jessica Chen

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