In an institutions, the structure is made up of inter-connected roles and inter-related norms. Thus in the Family. the roles of husband, wife, parent, child, are structured within a set of related norms. The family exists partly for the socialisation of new members (=children); the function of the family is to pass on a set of learned and shared values and norms.
Functionalism suggests that societies have basic needs in order to survive. These are known as functionalist pre-requisites.
Food and Shelter provide for the maintenance of life.
Family and Culture provide for social life.
In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, these are both low order requirements.
(see overleaf for a Maslow diagram).
Functionalism relies on a value consensus. In mid C20 U.S.A.
1. Materialism is seen as the integrating value of society.
The values of a society which relies on materialism.
2. The economy is dedicated to production of large range of goods, increasing productivity is an important goal, leading to increased consumption.
3. Education is (largely) about the production of skills and expertise to expand production and increase efficiency.
4. The family is an important unit of consumption.
5. Politics is about improving material living standards and raising productivity.
In mid-twentieth-century Britain (as in the U.S.A. and most of western Europe), a particular set of values applied:
1. A feeling of security from the early 1950s to 1973, following the insecurity of the years of the Second World War and its destruction.
2. Most individuals had relatively well-defined roles:
men as wage-earner, husband, father, provider;
women as stay-at-home housewife, wife, mother, carer, comforter.
3. Full employment. For twenty years there was less than three-quarters of a million persons who were unemployed, for much of the time unemployment was under half a million.
