Functionalism is the theory that all aspects of society serve a function, and these functions are necessary for society. Functionalists believe that the survival of society depends on all of the different aspects which is a like the human body. The human body has all different aspects of it working together to make it function (organs) and without one of these the body wouldn’t work, this is what functionalists believe society is like.
Marxists are critical of functionalism for assuming that everybody in society benefits from the family. Marxists believe that society doesn’t benefit society and that instead it benefits the bourgeoisie and The functional perspective is organic analogy they believe that society is like a biological organism (a living thing) and that society is like the human body. The functionalist argues that all parts of society have to work together and they compare this to the human body as they say if one part of the human body stops working then the body doesn’t work as well.
Functionalists believe in different institutions in society, there is said to be four of these institutions, which are family, schools, poverty and crime. The function of family is to teach manners and basic behaviour and also to shape views and begin to teach norms and values, as a child is young it will look up to family when trying to find out what are right and what are wrong things to do in life. This benefits society as everyone gets along better; it avoids social chaos and starts to enable social order. Schools is the next institution, functionalists believe that the function of schools teaches the young more about society and mixes the different people and different races to show children that everybody is equal. Schools also educate children, teach independence and teach discipline. This benefits society because then the children know how to behave, it also teaches them about the different cultures and