CONCEPT AND

PRINCIPLES OF MAJOR
SOCIAL SCIENCES
THEORIES
Structural-Functionalism
1.1. Structuralism
1.2. Determine manifest and
latent
functions and dysfunctions of
sociocultural phenomena.
ACTIVITY: BUILD A WORLD
1. You are tasked to build your very own community.
2. Draw a community comprised of different institutions.
Feel free to choose any institution.
3. Be ready to explain your answer why you chose the
institutions and how they function in the community.
(Refer to the questions below)
What is the name of your community?
What institutions are found in your community? What are
their functions? Why did you choose them?
 What is Structural-Functionalism

Is a framework for building

theory that sees society as a
complex system whose parts
work together to promote
solidarity and stability.
Economy, religion, politics,
education, and family are to be
considered groups as a major
institution. Individual and group
behaviour, more often than not,
serves a function for the larger
society.
Society is a system of
interconnected parts that
work together in harmony to
maintain a state of balance
and social equilibrium for the
whole.
Economy Economy

Religion
state of
Politics Family
balance
and social
Religion

Education, and equilibrium

Family Education Politics

Herbert Spencer, who lived from 1820
- 1903, was an English philosopher.
Spencer compared society to a human
body. In the same way each part of
the body works in harmony with other
parts, each part of society works in
harmony with all the other parts. If we
want to understand the importance of
the heart for helping the body
function properly, we need to
understand how it relates to other
parts of the body.
Functionalists emphasize that order and
balance are the normal state of society, and a
disruption in one part of the system will
certainly disrupt the other parts.
 Functional and Dysfunctional

Functional if they contribute

to social stability and
dysfunctional if they disrupt
social stability.
Robert Merton identified two types of
functions, the manifest function and
latent function.
Manifest functions are consequences that
are intended and commonly recognized. In
contrast,
latent functions ar
e consequences that are unintended and
often hidden.
For example: the manifest function
of education is to transmit
knowledge and skills to society’s
youth. But public elementary
schools also serve as babysitters for
employed parents.
• Conformity occurs when an individual has the
means and desire to achieve the cultural goals
socialized into them.
• Innovation occurs when an individual strives
to attain the accepted cultural goals but
chooses to do so in a novel or unaccepted
method.
• Ritualism occurs when an individual continues
to do things as prescribed by society but
forfeits the achievement of the goals.
•Retreatism is the rejection of both the
means and the goals of society.
•Rebellion is a combination of the
rejection of societal goals and means
and a substitution of other goals and
means.
APPLY WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
• Keeping in mind structural-functionalism theory, what do
you think happened to the boy in the video? Why did the
boy steal?
• What Social structures we’re present in the video? What
was their function?
• Among the structures present in the video, what were
functional and dysfunctional?
• What latent and manifest functions have you observed in
the video?
GENERALIZATION

•Using your own words,

what is structional
functionalism theory?