Functionalism in Sociology: An Introduction

Last Updated on August 27, 2026 by Karl Thompson

What is functionalism in sociology? Functionalism sees society as a system of interconnected parts, each performing a function that keeps the whole thing working. It is a structural theory, because it argues society shapes the individual rather than the other way round, and a consensus theory, because it argues society holds together through shared values rather than force.

This post covers:

1. What “structural consensus theory” actually means
2. Emile Durkheim on social facts, solidarity and anomie
3. Talcott Parsons on the organic analogy and value consensus
4. Robert Merton’s criticism from inside the perspective
5. Evaluations, and whether functionalism still explains anything

Functionalism is usually the first theory taught on the A-level course, and you will return to it in the second year as part of the social theories module, where it is examined mainly on Paper 3.

Two other posts on this site cover functionalism, and they do different jobs. If you want the theory in depth — Durkheim on mechanical and organic solidarity, Parsons on functional prerequisites and AGIL — go to The Functionalist Perspective: Durkheim and Parsons Explained. If you are revising and want the whole perspective on one page in note form, go to Functionalism Revision Notes for A-Level Sociology. This post is the starting point for both.

What is Functionalism in Sociology?

The structural part means functionalists believe there is a social structure — a set of institutions and shared norms and values — which exists before any individual is born into it and which shapes how they think and behave. You do not choose the language you speak or the norms you are raised with; they are there already.

The consensus part means functionalists believe a successful society rests on value consensus: broad agreement about what matters and what is right. That agreement is what allows people who have never met to cooperate.

Put those together and you get the basic functionalist picture. Institutions each perform a distinct function, in the way that organs in a body each do a different job, and the health of the whole depends on each part working properly. The family socialises the young and meets emotional needs. Education teaches wider skills and a shared identity. Work is where people contribute to the economy. The legal system deals with those who break the rules.

Functionalists generally see these functions as positive — good for the individual and good for society — and see institutions as working together to maintain social order.

Emile Durkheim: society shapes the individual

Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) was the first person anywhere to hold the title Professor of Sociology. He wrote between 1893 and 1912, in the middle of the industrialisation and urbanisation of France, and almost everything he wrote is a response to one worry: whether a rapidly changing society can hold together at all.

Durkheim argued that society has a reality of its own, above and beyond the individuals who make it up. He called the elements of that reality social facts — ways of acting, thinking and feeling which are external to the individual and which constrain them. Beliefs, moral codes, norms and values are all social facts. They are passed from one generation to the next, and they shape individual consciousness rather than emerging from it.

For a fuller treatment of the concept, see Durkheim on social facts.

Social solidarity and anomie

Durkheim thought too much freedom was bad for people. When individuals have no clear guidance about right and wrong, they experience uncertainty about their place in the world and about what they should be doing — a condition he called anomie, sometimes translated as normlessness.

The answer was social solidarity: making individuals feel part of something larger than themselves, and teaching them the standards of acceptable behaviour. The family does some of this. But Durkheim thought belonging to wider society mattered too, and that religion, which had traditionally provided it, was fading in twentieth-century Europe. He worried that modern societies faced a crisis of anomie.

His answer was that new institutions — schools, workplaces, voluntary organisations — would have to provide the social glue instead. This is not just a historical curiosity: Durkheim’s argument is one of the reasons European governments built national education systems in the first place.

Talcott Parsons: the organic analogy and value consensus

Writing in the 1940s and 1950s, Talcott Parsons developed Durkheim’s ideas into a full model of how societies work.

Parsons is best known for the organic analogy — the idea that society works like a human body, with institutions functioning as organs. Each has a distinct job, all are interdependent, and the health of the whole depends on each doing its part. The analogy also tells you how to study society: understand any institution by asking what it contributes to the maintenance of the whole.

The organic analogy, functional prerequisites and Parsons’ AGIL scheme are covered in full on the Durkheim and Parsons post. What follows here is the version you need to get started.

Parsons argued that social order is achieved not mainly through force but through institutions promoting value consensus — agreement around shared values. Commitment to common values, he thought, is the basis of order.

Two institutions do most of this work. The family provides primary socialisation, teaching basic norms and values, and Parsons believed the nuclear family was best suited to providing a stable upbringing and clear moral guidance. Education then integrates individuals into wider society, giving them a sense of belonging through a shared history and language.

Two shared values matter most in industrial societies, on Parsons’ account: the work ethic, and belief in meritocracy. The work ethic ensures people value working. Meritocracy matters because it means those who end up in lower-paid jobs accept inequality, believing they had a fair chance to do better.

Robert Merton: criticism from the inside

Not every criticism of functionalism comes from outside it. Robert Merton was a functionalist who thought Parsons had overreached on three counts: not everything in society is necessary, not everything is interconnected, and some institutions are actively dysfunctional for some groups.

He also distinguished manifest functions — what an institution is intended to do — from latent functions, the unintended consequences. That distinction alone makes the theory more usable, and it is worth having in an essay because it shows you can criticise a perspective without simply importing another one.

See Merton’s internal critique of functionalism for the full version.

Evaluating Functionalism

Keep the dates in mind. Durkheim’s work is over a century old and Parsons was writing in the 1940s and 1950s, so some of it was built to explain a society that no longer exists.

Criticisms of Functionalism

It is hard to argue there is value consensus in Britain today. Brexit split the country roughly in half, and the divisions it exposed have not closed. A theory whose central claim is broad agreement on values has to account for that.

Marxists argue functionalism is ideological. Parsons said value consensus was necessary because he wanted to preserve the existing order; a Marxist would say that order is based on inequality and exploitation, and that presenting it as natural and necessary serves the people it benefits.

Interactionists argue individuals are far less constrained by social structure than functionalists suggest. People interpret their situations and act on those interpretations, which makes them less predictable than the theory allows.

Postmodernists go further and question whether there is a social structure at all, arguing that contemporary society is too fluid and too diverse to be described as a system with shared norms.

HOWEVER, none of these criticisms disposes of the perspective entirely, which is what the next section is for.

Ways functionalism may still be useful

Durkheim’s concept of anomie arguably describes the present better than it described 1900. Rates of diagnosed mental health problems are high and rising, and uncertainty about norms and roles is a plausible part of that picture — though it is a plausible argument rather than a demonstrated one, and worth presenting as such.

Individuals may be unpredictable, but populations are not. Clear statistical patterns by class, gender and ethnicity run through the whole A-level course: children from poorer households do worse in education than children from richer ones, consistently and measurably. That is close to what Durkheim meant by a social fact.

Governments also behave as though functionalism were true. Funding education to improve the economy assumes society is a system in which one part affects another.

Functionalism: discussion questions

Try to think of contemporary evidence both for and against each of these.

1. To what extent does socialisation shape an individual’s identity?
2. Is anomie a problem in society today?
3. Do institutions really perform positive functions, and do we all benefit equally?
4. Is there value consensus in Britain today?

Signposting and Related Posts

This post has been written for students studying A-level sociology on the AQA specification, where functionalism appears in the first year as an introduction and in the second year as part of Theory and Methods on Paper 3.

Going deeper: The Functionalist Perspective: Durkheim and Parsons Explained — mechanical and organic solidarity, functional prerequisites, AGIL, social evolution and the full set of criticisms. Written for second-year students.

Revising: Functionalism Revision Notes for A-Level Sociology — the whole perspective in note form, with mind maps and topic applications.

Functionalism applied across the specification: the family, education, crime and deviance, and modernisation theory in global development.

It is usual to contrast functionalism with Marxism, so most students read an introduction to Marxism next.

This post is part of my introduction to sociology and of the main social theories page.

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