Social order enables individuals to live together with understandings of the rules and expectations, that are imagined, and practised in their social existence. We live in a society of shared norms with a clear understanding of what is ok, reading the signals others give and behaving appropriately. This social order is a fundamental aspect that is of interest to social scientists who study many types of order as they coexist, interact and change. Social order is constructed and shaped by society, therefore there can be many different types of order within different environments and cultures, as well as different social orders which co-exist in the same society. There can also be different types of order within the same social groups and individuals can change and adapt, choosing an order to fit in with their needs at the time.
Parsons calls this agreement value consensus. One of the strengths of Functionalism is that it asserts that there are purposes for social conditions or facts. For example, under a functionalist point of view the newspaper deliverer and the sewer worker all contribute to the function of the entire unit without serving these purposes, the social structure would not function properly. However a weakness of this approach postmodernist would argue, that functionalism assumes that society is stable and orderly. As such this explanation of obtaining social order through a ''shared culture''
This influence should be implemented by society-there are so many groups who exercise this influence, like family, trade union church ,state, school ,neighborhood, clubs, religious groups etc. 3. The influence should be exercised for promoting the welfare and interest of the entire group. Every society must have harmony and unity. Without it no society actually could remain in existence.
It interprets each part of society in terms of how it contributes to the stability of the whole society” (Crossman, A, 2011). Functionalism focuses on the maintenance of stability and order within a society, viewing society as a system of integrated parts, with needs that must be fulfilled so that social order is maintained (Germov, 2009).It recognizes but does not challenge inequalities within society. The perspective of functionalism is one of social order, structure and conformity. A key concept of symbolic interactionism is the “self
Starting with the Functional Theory, this theory explains the every aspect of our society is interdependent and is necessary for our society to function as one or a whole. It also explains that our society is held together through social cohesion and consensus, where we as members of society work together and agree with each other to achieve what would benefit society the most and what would be our society’s best interest. Functionalism argues that if it is not a useful purpose in our society then it will be phased out from one generation to the next generation. This perspective would see that the purpose of social networking has and is every becoming useful in our society because it use and prevalence continues to increase, the Functional perspective see social networking as a way to enforce
When functionalists describe society, they will often liken it to the human body, where all of the parts need to work in unison to ensure well being. The different parts of a society are seen to be
Fun with Social Norms: Violation of the Finest Good behavior is a key aspect of human character and social life. Since the beginning of history, the life of man has been characterized by his social interactions and the ability to cope in different circumstances. As a result, every society focuses at instilling acceptable behaviors among its members through varying approaches including but not limited to religious teachings, establishment of rules and regulations and adoption of code of ethics. The understanding of good behavior is therefore of paramount importance in upholding social values for harmonic day-to-day social-coexistence. What are social norms?
A culture is a set of norms, values, beliefs and goals shared by the members of society, whereby value consensus is the glue that holds the society together. Durkheim is also supporting this basis of idea when he states that that a greater level of happiness and progress in the society can be achieved if people work together rather than competing with each other like animals in a war of all against scarce resources. In his work, he also stated that humans have unlimited desires and there has to be a basic agreement on values. The basic function of consensus is to make social order possible by integrating individuals into social system and direct them to meet the system’s need. Everybody has to internalize their roles and the social order depends on how people play their own roles.
The theory that a sociologist picks to back has an effect on how they do research and how they look at problems. (Schaefer) The first theory is Structural Functional Theory, or functionalism. Functionalism is one of the oldest theories, and is still used today. In functionalism society is made up of different parts, and these parts work together to keep the society stable. Functionalism relies very much on the scientific method.
A theoretical approach is a basic image of society that guides thinking and research. Two very important theoretical prespective are the structural –functionalism and the conflict theory. These two theoretical prespective are classified as macrosociology because they focus on large groups, social institution and society and they both have basic underlying ideas. The basic underlying idea of structural fuctionalisnm is that all parts of society needs to make a contribution to operate as whole and maintain society. Each elements in this structural fuctionalism are interdependent and a change in one element would lead to the changes in the other elements.