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Assess the Contribution of Functionalism to Our Understanding of Families and Households. (24)

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Eugenia Akumiah 12 G….Sociology,

The functions of the family
Assess the contribution of functionalism to our understanding of families and households. (24) Functionalists take a consensus view of the role of family. They see it as a universal institution that performs essential functions for society as a whole and all members of the family. According to Murdock, it provides important sub-system that provides stable satisfaction for the sex drive and therefore avoids social disruption. As well as this, Murdock says the family reproduces the next generation and thus ensuring current society to continue. Parsons sees a functional fit with the nuclear family fitting modern society’s needs for a geographically and socially mobile labour force. However critics argue that he is wrong about the relationship between industrialisation and family structure. Moreover Marxists, Liberal, radical and Marxist feminist all view the functions of the family in different ways, this essay will assess the different perspectives in which all these groups view the functions of the family. Functionalists believe that society is based on a value consensus- as set of shared norms and values; into which society socialises its members. This enables them to cooperate harmoniously to meet society’s needs and achieve shared goals. They regard society as system made up of different parts or sub-systems that depend on each other, such as the family, the education system and the economy. Factionalists also see the family as a particularly important sub-system- a basic building block of society. For example George Peter Murdock argues that the family performs four essential functions to meet the needs of its society members. Item A makes this clear as it states that “it provides for the stable satisfaction of the sex drive and thus avoids the social

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