Functionalist & New Right Perspectives
Sociology: AQA A Level, topic 4.1.2
The Functionalist Perspective
Functionalists see the family as beneficial to society, contributing to social stability and providing a source of practical and emotional support for individuals in a number of ways.
The Functionalist perspective
- The family meets the needs of society by socialising children into shared norms and values, that is, a value consensus leading to social harmony and stability.
- The family provides security for conception, birth and nurture of new members of society.
The male role
- The family stabilises adult personalities and helps to maintain a stable society through the sexual division of labour, with men performing instrumental roles and women performing expressive roles.
- Instrumental role refers to the role of the ‘breadwinner’ which can lead to stress and anxiety and can destabilise his personality.
The female role
- The stress caused by the man’s instrumental role can be countered by that of the woman and her expressive role, providing warmth, security and emotional support to the family.
- The family is a supportive and general happy social institution.
Loss of function
- Parsons argues that the family in contemporary society had lost many of its functions through the process of structural differentiation.
- Structural differentiation refers to the way functions are transferred to other specialised institutions, such as the welfare state and healthcare.
- Parsons believes that the two main functions of the family are the primary socialisation of children and the stabilisation of human personalities.
Benefits & Criticisms - the Functionalist Perspective
The Functionalist perspective holds the traditional nuclear family as the familial ideal. However many have taken issue with this perspective.
Benefits of the traditional nuclear family
- Parsons argues that the two-generational nuclear family ‘fits’ contemporary industrial societies better than extended families.
- Smaller families provide a more geographically mobile workforce who can easily move around the country to areas where their skills are most needed.
Social mobility
- Higher rates of social mobility make it easier to move up or down that social scale.
- Rising living standards and the welfare state taking over some functions previously performed by the family (structural differentiation) have reduced dependence on kin for support in times of distress.
Meritocracy
- The growth in meritocracy (where success is possible through people’s own efforts and skill, rather than family connections) means that extended kin have less to offer family members, for example, job opportunities.
Criticisms of the functionalist approach
- Functionalism assumes that the family is a happy and harmonious institution and ignores the reality of family conflicts and domestic abuse.
Out-dated
- The notion of instrumental and expressive roles is out-dated and bears little relation to modern families.
- Today, both partners are likely to be playing the instrumental and expressive roles.
Undermines women
- The functionalist view ignores the exploitation of women, who suffer the responsibility of housework and childcare, undermining their position in paid employment and reducing their power.
The New Right Perspective
The New Right is a political rather than sociological approach and views the role of the family in society in similar way to functionalists.
Gender roles
- The New Right support traditional family values and a traditional heterosexual nuclear family.
- The New Right believe that the best way to bring up children is to encourage conformity and raise them within a family made up of two natural parents and the division of instrumental and expressive gender roles.
Alternative families
- The New Right opposes changes to the law that would make divorce easier.
- They are also opposed to stepfamilies, an increase in lone parents, cohabitation as an alternative to marriage, and births outside marriage.
State policy
- The New Right believe that welfare state policies that support relationships outside the conventional nuclear family undermine personal responsibility and create a dependency culture and social problems such as juvenile crime and anti-social behaviour.
Test yourself on Functionalist & New Right Perspectives
Who argued that the family in contemporary society had lost many of its functions through the process of structural differentiation?