Functionalism by Sanna and Karan - let us know what you think!

Functionalism

Durkheim: - crime and deviance were central to any understanding of how society functions. There are two different sides of crime and deviance for the functioning of society, a positive and negative side. The positive side which helped society change and remain dynamic, and the negative side which saw too much crime leading to social disruption.
Positive side:
§ A limited amount of crime is necessary for a society
§ Basis of society was a set of shared values that guide our actions, which he called the collective conscience
§ The collective conscience provides a framework with boundaries, which sets apart the actions that are acceptable and those that are not
§ The boundaries are not clear and are shown in 3 elements:
(1) Re-affirming the values/boundaries
(2) Changing values
(3) Social cohesion
Negative side
§ Anomie – in times of stress the collective conscience would be freed from its control and be used in selfish ways
Criticism: - Merton argued that anomie was a situation where socially approved goals were not available to people.

Hirschi: - bonds of attachment
§ There are 4 crucial bonds that attach society together:
(1) Attachment
(2) Commitment
(3) Involvement
(4) Belief
§ The greater a person’s attachment to society the less crime that is committed.

Lombroso: - researched and developed the theory of biological deviance, which states that some people are genetically predisposed to criminal behaviour
§ Influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution
§ Many criminals shared similar physical characteristics (skinny, dark-skinned, big nose, etc.)
Criticism: - accused of being racist to criminals and people were from a poor background, diet could explain their deformities

Merton: - strain theory (is developed from Durkheim’s anomie concept)
§ Stressed the importance of the American dream
§ Society internalises the idea that materialism, status, and success are crucial for status worth
§ Not everyone has an equal chance – which creates STRAIN
§ Those at the bottom of the class system stand the least chance to succeed are still living the dream
§ This forces people to react to the pressure to succeed

Parsons: - consider age to be important in the past
§ Since industrialisation people have become more socially mobile and age groups have become more important
§ They provide role sets – a group sharing the same set of roles expected
§ Age is like a mechanism – allows people to evolve from one age group to the other
Criticisms: - functionalists tend to focus more on youth groups than the elderly and the elderly disengage with society to an extent to make room for the younger group

Functionalist – sub cultural approaches

Cohen: - status frustration
§ Offending behaviour was for the thrill of the act not economically motivated
§ Lower class boys strove to follow middle class values but lacked the means to attain success
§ This led to status frustration – a sense of personal failure
§ Rejected patterns of ‘acceptable’ behaviour
Criticisms: - no mention of females and fails to prove that school is the key place where failure and success are demonstrated

Miller: - focal concerns and WC life
§ Argued WC possess a separate culture from the rest of the society – value different things and behave differently
§ They possess a range of focal concerns which frame their social engagement
§ MC value achievement and WC their focal concerns:
Feast
Excitement
Autonomy
Smartness
Trouble
Toughness
Because of these factors WC culture was a ‘generating milieu’ for gang delinquency.

Matza: - criticised Marxist and functionalist subculture theory
§ Believed the assumptions of different values was wrong
§ We all have
(1) conventional values – typical values
(2) Subterranean values – beneath the surface
§ we use the techniques of neutralisation to justify our deviant acts
(1) denial of responsibility
(2) denial of victim
(3) denial of injury
(4) condemnations of condemns
(5) appeal to higher loyalties