Functionalist perspective?

Question

What would a functionalist perspective look at when it comes to race, gender, and social stratification?

Answer 1

A functionalist believes that whatever exists, not only physically but also conceptually, exists for a reason. Race, gender, and social strat are all systems of inequality. Functionalists see inequality as *good* because it's "incentive" or "motivation" for people to succeed.

However, functionalists also believe in retaining social order, again for the sake of "everything exists for a reason." Almost all functionalists were Social Darwinists (see Herbert Spencer), so they believed that whoever is at the top in an economically stratified system just *must* be the best so they deserve to be there.

So with race: functionalists believed that because white people had higher social ranks, they must be inherently more capable than minorities. Eugenics was actually a normative solution to racial inequality all the way up until WWII & Hitler.

And, you guessed it, women must be less "fit" than men or else they would have all the power.

Needless to say, functionalism is not a popular theory in Sociology these days. It was only acceptable from the late 1800's to about 1937 (when Davis & Moore published "The Functional Theory of Stratification").

Answer 2

In sociology, social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of social classes, castes and strata within a society. While these hierarchies are not universal to all societies, they are the norm among state-level cultures (as distinguished from hunter-gatherers or other social arrangements).

In sociological research, functional prerequisites are the basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, and money) that an individual must have in order not to fall below the poverty line. This term is used by the functionalists in many of their research. Functional prerequisites are also the factors that make society run smoothly such as social order.

Social stratification is regarded quite differently by the principal perspectives of sociology. Proponents of structural-functional analysis suggest that since social stratification exists in most state societies, a hierarchy must therefore be beneficial in helping to stabilize their existence. Talcott Parsons, an American sociologist, asserted that stability and social order are achieved by means of a universal value consensus. Functionalists indicate that stratification exists solely to satisfy the functional prerequisites necessary for functional proficiency in any society. Conflict theorists consider the inaccessibility of resources and lack of social mobility in many stratified societies. They conclude, often working from the theories of Karl Marx, that stratification means that working class people are not likely to advance socioeconomically, while the wealthy may continue to exploit the proletariat generation after generation. Marx identified that the social classes are stratified based on their connection to the means of production. Therefore the ruling class, bourgeoisie, and working class, proletariats, maintain their social positions by maintaining their relationship with the means of production. This maintenance of status quo is achieved by various methods of social control employed by the bourgeoisie in the course of many aspects of social life, e.g., through ideologies of submission promoted through the institution of religion. However, some conflict theorists, mainly Max Weber and followers of his perspective, have criticized Marx's view, pointing out that social stratification is not based purely upon economic inequalities, but is also shaped, to an equal degree, by status and power differentials. Weber's analysis indicated the presence of four social classes, which he called the propertied upper class, the property-less white-collar workers, the petty bourgeoisie, and the working class. Another noteworthy factor is cited in the work of Francois Adle, who stated that, "The advancement [of] technology has changed the structure of mobility completely."

In a nutshell: social stratification refers to the ranking of social groups above and below each other, in terms of how much power, prestige and wealth members have.