Original scientific paper
Functionalism in Sociology
Ivan Kuvačić
; Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb
Abstract
This article is an abridged version of the first part of paper treating functionalism in sociology.
The term functionalism is conceived as a more or less systematic framework of sociological analysis. The author is trying to give the answer as to why this orientation appeared in the second half of the last century. Emile Dürkheim, Radcliff Brown and Bronislav Malinowski appeared to be the most influential theoreticians who have made the foundations for functionalism.
Contemporary functionalism is seen as a phenomenon which belongs, in the first place, to American sociology. It has been developed along the line of opposition to Marxism. Its main base in Harvard University. Focusing on the problems of social differentiation and social integration, functionalism has stimulated the polemic about the »functional theory of stratification«, rejecting the idea of equality as a primitive pattern which does not fit into modern society.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
155437
URI
Publication date:
31.12.1989.
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