Functionalist perspective on poverty. Functionalism And Poverty Essay 2022-10-25
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Functionalism is a sociological perspective that focuses on the way that various parts of society work together to maintain stability and order. According to functionalists, poverty serves a number of important functions for society.
One function of poverty is that it helps to maintain social hierarchy and a stratified social system. In a stratified social system, people are ranked according to their wealth, power, and status. Those who are at the top of the social hierarchy have more resources and privileges than those at the bottom. Poverty helps to maintain this hierarchy by providing a lower class of people who are unable to access the same resources and opportunities as those who are more wealthy.
Another function of poverty is that it serves as a way to allocate resources and motivate people to work. In a functionalist perspective, people are motivated to work hard and achieve success in order to move up the social ladder and improve their economic status. Poverty serves as a way to allocate resources to those who are most productive and motivated, rather than distributing resources equally to everyone regardless of their efforts.
A third function of poverty is that it can serve as a safety valve for social discontent. When people are unhappy with their circumstances, they may turn to social activism or even violence to express their discontent. However, if there is a lower class of people who are already living in poverty, these individuals may serve as a outlet for discontent and prevent more widespread social unrest.
Overall, the functionalist perspective on poverty sees it as an inevitable and necessary part of society that serves a number of important functions. While it may be undesirable for those who are experiencing poverty, it is seen as serving a necessary role in maintaining social order and stability.
Functionalist Perspective and Poverty, Essay Example
Retrieved from Gans, H. Children from families in poverty experience more emotional and behaviour problems than children from middle and upper class families. The issue of poverty can always be. These processes take place at different levels and in different sections of society. For example, they are said to be impulsive and to live for the present rather than the future. .
Sociology of Poverty: Functionalist and Conflict Perspectives
What is a positive function of poverty? The set of fifteen positive functions is provided, including economic, social, cultural, and political aspects of disclosing the role of poverty for nonpoor groups in the United States. This means that under the functionalist viewpoint, they believe poverty is a result of how society is structured. The Functionalist Perspective sees society as a system. This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative. Although all children go to school, the background of some puts them behind their peers academically from the start. It seems logical, if the income per household is lower than the standard of living it then places a family in a position of challenge to meet the needs of everyday life.
Another prominent criticism is that oftentimes the relationship between social benefit and socio-economic reward is not consistent. Absolute Poverty and Relative Poverty. Ultimately, the last function provided by Gans implies that the poor play a fundamental role in shaping the political process in America 283. What is an example of structural poverty? The Functionalist belief on poverty is based on the premise that poverty serves a positive function for society since functionalism is interested in large scale structural explanations of social life. . Coming apart: The state of white America, 1960—2010.
American Sociological Review, 18, 387—393. Unlike the functionalist and conflict views, it does not try to explain why we have stratification in the first place. Critics of the conflict perspective point to its overly negative view of society. Share this: Facebook Facebook logo Twitter Twitter logo Reddit Reddit logo LinkedIn LinkedIn logo WhatsApp WhatsApp logo When enough people in a society agree that a condition exists that threatens the quality of their lives and their most cherished values, and they also agree that something should be done to remedy it, sociologists say that society has defined that condition as a social problem. If people wants to earn and achieve success, people should then know to manage everything and work as hard as they probably could. Also, people who are in the music industry for rock are now also very rich.
These books focus on different people in different places, but they all make very clear that the poor often lead lives of quiet desperation and must find ways of coping with the fact of being poor. However, poverty is dysfunctional because it intensifies a variety of social problems, including those associated with health, education, crime and drug addiction. No, because Durkheim writes his view as a whole, and not by certain country represents. Additionally, doctors offer a service that is core to survival and can not be replaced, hence the job of a doctor is both valuable as well as complex. Some principles of stratification: A critical analysis. Why would Functionalists like Durkheim say that poverty serves positive functions? And that the basis of class inequality is dependant on the degree of benefit that each occupation to society as well as the degree of complexity a job possesses.
Let me see if I can make this more clear. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs. These meanings are not inherent things, but emerge from social interaction, and because we are continually interacting, shared cultural meanings are continually emerging and changing. This view on poverty can be better recognized by understanding the functionalist perspective on social stratification, specifically class stratification. Was he able to express his ideas on how a functionalist perspective on poverty should be in vicinities such as Manila, Quezon City, Cebu and others? The joy we have for boating directly affects aquatic life Free Natural environment Environment Environmentalism Walmart: Functionalist Perspective together so that the body can survive. Share this: Facebook Facebook logo Twitter Twitter logo Reddit Reddit logo LinkedIn LinkedIn logo WhatsApp WhatsApp logo Around the Philippines itself, imagine searching through garbage, junks, rivers full of waste, rubbish and trash; imagine searching through dumps, or burrows along the streets, looking for food to satisfy unending hunger. According to the functionalist perspective, each part of society is interdependent and contributes to society functioning as a whole.
Functionalism aims at the analysis of social and cultural phenomenon in terms of the functions they perform. In these books, the consequences of poverty discussed later in this chapter acquire a human face, and readers learn in great detail what it is like to live in poverty on a daily basis. Some people even want to include the ability to go on foreign holidays as people are deprived of something the majority up till quite recently could do. What is the structural explanation of poverty? Retrieved from Harrington, M. The threshold is adjusted annually for inflation.
Poverty from Functionalist and Rational Choice Perspectives
All the different components of the functionalist perspective are seen in Walmart. Which is the best description of structural functionalism? As such, the superstructure justifies how the base operates through exploitation and keeps the power in the hands of the elite Cole, 2020. Gans mentions several ways in which poverty is functional for the better-off members of society: Dirty work gets done. The poor help to preserve a low-wage labor pool. Professional and business niches get created. If you decide to shine shoes, you can begin making this money at age 16, but if you decide to become a brain surgeon, you will not start making this same amount until about age 35, as you must first go to college and medical school and then acquire several more years of medical training.
Poverty is needed by the people who are in the middle class or of a higher status. It apparently makes life for their employers easier because they have to pay them less. If these effects lead to a culture of poverty, they add, poverty then becomes self-perpetuating. To reiterate an earlier point, several of the remaining chapters of this book discuss the various obstacles that make it difficult for the poor, women, and people of color in the United States to move up the socioeconomic ladder and to otherwise enjoy healthy and productive lives. For example, the job of a doctor is complex, the basis on which this complexity is derived is that medical training and education average 10 years. Security of social location.
