Functional Theorists

Functional theorists look for positive consequences for participants such as self-esteem, grades, career aspirations, and the career mobility patterns of former athletes. Functional theorists believe in harmony and that if social change happens that leads to dysfunction and possible chaos; self-correcting mechanisms of the social system can reverse the dysfunction and bring the system status back to the status quo. In other words, everything will work it’s self out for the better, and there is no need to cause more dysfunction in society then already created. Dayton Public school’s new rule can be viewed by both theorists, the functional theorists can look at this new rule change as a positive change to the Dayton Public school’s society. While the conflict theorist will look at it as a negative change that will give most students false hope in life. Functional theorists would look at this rule as a motivational outlet, a way to help the students who
have a hard time in school, and it gives the kids a goal to reach and strive for. The functional theorists would argue that this rule was implicated to motivate students to stay in school by giving them more of a reason to. By letting sports become more accepting of students, it allows more students to participate and learn how to manage more than one task in their lives. As well as helping the kids in school with their education and forcing them to improve instead of never trying to. This rule would motivate kids to do better in classes and improve their grade so they can continue to also improve their athletic ability. This rule is a way to encourage the influence of education and sports. This can show the kids that no matter where you start out, you can always work your way to the top. Not all kids understand and comprehend their education as much as others do. Some kids need more help understanding the material then others but may be too embarrassed to ask for help or don’t have the motivation to do so. This rule reaches out to those kids, and helps them improve in their education. While also giving them an experience of knowing how it feels to have more than one obligation to have in their life. This rule can show certain kids in the public-school system how improving in their education can help them succeed in other parts of life, including sports. The functional theorists believe that the benefit of youth sports is teaching the kids the ability to accept authority and strive for excellence.
This will help them in not only sports but their education. By putting these kids in sports, they are being shown what it is like to be a part of something a little bigger. These kids will also experience the feeling of achievement. Sports for the youth can show these kids how to put what they learn on the field, court, track, ect. to their education. By giving these kids the feeling of successes, it will show them how to not only have that feeling of winning in sports but how they can also “win” in school by keeping their grades up. It all comes back to motivation, this rule creates a goal for these kids, which builds their motivation to thrive in their education. This rule also keeps more students in school which then helps them continue their education and have a high success rate in their life. In the eye of a functionalist theorist, sports and education go hand in
hand.