Studying aging in families
George E. Dickinson, Brenda S. Sanders in Aging in the Family, 2018
Turning now to macro theories, structural functionalism is one that views society as a social system of interrelating parts. Emile Durkheim’s work (1964) serves as the primary foundation for theoretical frameworks relating to group actions and societal structures. The social system is not unlike the human body, an organism, which is made up of parts, each functioning on behalf of the other: an organism with parts making up the whole. If something happens to one of the parts (e.g., an individual breaks a leg), then the movement of the entire body is impaired. Or one could liken this to an automobile that is made up of parts. One assumes that most, if not all, of the parts are working at any given time. With the impairment of any one part, say a flat tire, the vehicle will cease to function effectively.
Doctors, patients and interaction in health care
Michael Bury in Health and Illness in a Changing Society, 2013
Talcott Parsons is often identified as the 'founding father' of medical sociology. Apart from the quaintness of this designation, it is not altogether accurate, as sociological studies of health and illness, especially mental illness in urban America, had been conducted throughout the decades before Parsons turned to the subject, and major studies of the subject were published in the 1950s (e.g. Hollingshead and Redlich 1958). What is true, however, is that in the same period Parsons developed for the first time a thoroughgoing theoretical account of health, illness and medicine. This formed part of an overall structural-functionalist theory of modern American society, which aimed to provide nothing less than a complete account of the 'functional prerequisites' of the social system and the 'needs dispositions' of people living in it. Central to this project, both theoretical and real, was the rapid rise in importance of the professions. For Parsons, following Max Weber, the professions represented a new form of 'legitimate authority', based on rational and scientific knowledge and on a 'collectivity orientation', in contradistinction to the more coercive form of 'business ethic' which had previously dominated American life (Parsons 1951: 535).
Introduction
Stephen Buetow in From Loneliness to Solitude in Person-centred Health Care, 2023
In groups like young persons, the loneliest persons most resist the social interventions11 targeting loneliness.12 Nevertheless, research, policy, and practice continue to treat loneliness by building human sociability, including community integration. Social ties are cultivated from perspectives like structural functionalism and social network theory. They frame loneliness as a product of institutional arrangements limiting persons’ control over their social lives.13 This approach traces to Aristotle’s perspective that persons are social and political creatures in their natural state: “He [sic] who is unable to live in society… must be either a beast or a god.”14 Persons are assumed to affiliate with others to gain and reciprocate support and develop a sense of self-identity serving society’s best interests.
How Older White Gay Men and Lesbians Leverage Advantages to Navigate Healthcare
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2023
Grey Pierce
Social scientists and the medical community have studied inequalities in morbidity and mortality, particularly focusing on how sociopolitical factors are associated with disparities in health outcomes (Gengler & Jarrel, 2015; McLeod, 2015). The theory of cumulative advantages and disadvantages over the life course helps to elucidate health differences in old age along the axes of race/ethnicity, gender, SES, and sexual and gender minority status (Dannefer, 2003) based on the understanding of cohort studies introduced decades prior (Ryder, 1965). CAD has its roots in Robert Merton’s ideas of structural functionalism, which reasoned that stratification by CAD processes was necessary for a stable society. As sociologist Dale Dannefer points out, CAD can further knowledge of health inequity among older adults.
Federal road safety corps and administration of traffic laws in South-east Nigeria: an appraisal
Published in International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, 2020
Ejikeme Jombo Nwagwu, Kingsley Chigozie Udegbunam, Onyinyeomachukwu Gift Uwaechia
This study chose the theory of the structural-functionalist framework, which derives from system theory as propounded by Almond and Coleman (1960) and Almond and Powell (1966). The analysis is principally on the basic propositions emanating from structural functionalism which was gotten from earlier applications of functionalism and systems models in anthropology, sociology and later political science.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Adaptation
- Social Norm
- Socialization
- Group Cohesiveness
- Age of Enlightenment
- Natural Selection
- Cell
- Evolutionary Pressure
- Idea
- Voluntary Action