SOC 22000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Child Care, Social Fact, Anomie
12 Dec 2016
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Structural functionalism: society is a being of interdependent and interrelated parts working in harmony that serve functions to benefit the whole (consensus on values and norms) Macro-level; focusing on large scale social structure and institutions: those could be the parts but so could people. Oldest body of theory, not nearly as much impact as it once had: 50s and 60s it dominated american sociology. Robert merton: manifest functions, latent functions: unrecognized/unintended functions may reflect hidden purpose of institution (informal, dysfunctions: when consequences of system lead to instability or breakdown. Durkheim created this, when society in harmony = normal (abnormal if not), suicide: conflict is dysfunctional and pathological, division of labor is key (people contribute to functioning society w/ individual tasks that create value consensus, ex. Organic analogy: all body systems function in harmony or all in dysfunction. Dys- greek prefix meaning defective", difficult", or painful". Dis- latin prefix meaning apart", asunder", or deprived of".
