What Is The Structural-Functional Perspective Of College?

SOC R100
Karen McPherson
26 January 2014
Scrapbook One The act of seeking higher education has become more and more necessary for the average American to acquire a stable job in the work force. Likewise, the men and women applying to become collegiate students have in turn drastically increased, which reinforces the importance of higher education in American society. As a whole, college can be analyzed through three sociological perspectives which include the structural-functional, social-conflict, and symbolic-interaction approaches. Moreover, the structural-functional approach is the best perspective that can be utilized to analyze college because every aspect is based on a purpose to change society through education.
Although the
social-conflict approach to analyzing college predominately highlights the negative aspects of college, there is much to be understood from the perspective. Furthermore, the social-conflict approach produces an image of society as operating to “benefit some categories of people and harm others” (Sociology 22). To be sure, college serves as an aspect of society that benefits students who successfully graduate through the system while negatively impacting those who are not able to participate in the system or are not able to successfully graduate. Indeed, it is projected that approximately 60 percent of all job openings in America will require higher education by the year 2018 (Admur 1). Therefore, anyone who chooses not to attend college, cannot afford college or are not accepted into a college is automatically limited to the minority of the job market. In addition, college serves as a system where students with higher performance and intelligence reap the benefits of the most valuable degrees while those with lower levels of performance and intelligence are not allowed the same benefits and often, as a result, earn a lower salary. While the social-conflict perspective produces an outlook on college as only positive for some and negative for others, the sociological perspective of symbolic-interaction examines society at a micro-level as an ongoing process where people interact and experience varying realities based on those interactions (Sociology 22). As far as the societal aspect of college is concerned, countless interactions occur every day in a college setting. During all of these interactions that could involve a student versus professor, student versus student, or student versus outsider or any possible interaction for that matter, anyone involved has the potential to view the experience in a different way. For instance, in a situation where a student attempts to explain why he or she arrived late to class can be interpreted by the student as an honest mistake cause by a viable excuse while the professor could interpret the same experience as the student attempting to lie in order to lessen disciplinary action. Because additional examples of such interactions are truly countless in a college environment, symbolic-interaction is an excellent perspective to better understand parts of the whole societal aspect that is college
Even though both of the above mentioned perspectives produce different and valid ways of analyzing society, the structural-functional perspective does the best job of analyzing college as an aspect of society because it operates on the macro-level while focusing the analysis what college is most widely known to be: a linked, multi-faceted operating system.
What is more, the structural-functional approach shows society as a relatively stable system of interrelated parts that keep society operating in an orderly way while members generally agree on the morality (Sociology 22). By analyzing college through this perspective, college can be seen as a stable educational system which operates by way of cohesive parts which include the administration, faculty, and students who all take on respective responsibilities. Certainly, all parts of college work together to keep society operating in an orderly way by providing students with an education in order to strengthen the US workforce. Additionally members of the college system collectively believe the pursuit of higher education is important and morally right because by attaining a higher education, personal improvement and overall societal improvement is likely to be
achieved.
Even though the structural-functional approach allows for a positive understanding of society, it also raises an important question: how are the major parts of society linked, and how does each part help society work (Sociology 22). Indeed, this question is easily answered through the structural- functional perspective when applied to college as an aspect of society. In regards to college, the administration acts as a governing force to the faculty members who use their talent to teach and support the students to function in the workforce as successful, productive members of society, thus improving society as a whole. In fact, there is no end to the system because it acts as a cycle where students ultimately occupy the faculty members’ positions before eventually being promoted to act as the administration. What is more, this cycle even promotes the stability of the college system because it self-regenerates, and in theory, becomes better each turnover.
While the structural-functional approach is the best perspective to use when analyzing college, the social-conflict and symbolic-interaction approaches also both act as excellent supplementary ways to better understand college as an aspect of society. To be sure, all three of the perspectives deserve to be used when analyzing any aspect of society because complete understanding is only gained when checks and balances are produced by the use of different perspectives in order to limit bias.

Worked Cited
Amdur, Eli. "By 2018, 60 Percent of Job Openings Will Require College Education." Las Vegas Review-Journal. Stephens Media, 2014. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
Sociology; 15th edition; John J. Macionis; Pearson