Sociological Perspective and the Role of Family in Modern Society

This essay examines the sociological perspective on the role of family, focusing on the functionalist perspective. It explains how functionalism views society as a system of interconnected parts, with each social institution contributing to the overall balance and harmony. The essay highlights the family's crucial role in reproduction, nurturing, and socializing children, providing emotional and practical support, and contributing to social identity. It also discusses how changes in family structure can impact society, such as the increasing number of single-parent and dual-earning families. The functionalist perspective emphasizes the family as the basic building block of society, responsible for instilling culture, social class, and ethnicity. The essay concludes that the family's functions are essential for the formation and regulation of social activities.

RUNNING HEAD: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE AND ROLE OF FAMILY 0
Sociological perspective on family
student’s details-
DECEMBER 16, 2019

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE AND ROLE OF FAMILY 1
Sociological Perspective on Family
Sociological perspective refers to the way people view the social world and influences the
attitudes, actions and behaviours of the people (Bergman Blix & Wettergren, 2016). There
are mainly three sociological perspectives which are functional, conflict and social
interactionist which describe the human behaviour and social world of the people. Here, the
paper will discuss the role of family from one sociological perspective which is functionalist
perspective in order to determine the role of family in the society.
Functionalist perspective is based on the assumption that the society is based on the set of
system of interconnected parts that altogether work and maintain the equal balance and
harmony among the several functional elements in the whole society (Boden, et al., 2016).
Specifically, each social institution contributes to the society to a larger extent. This can be
seen from the role of family in the functionalism perspective as family is responsible for the
reproduction and nurturing and socializing of children. Thus, family plays a vital role in the
society from the functionalism perspective as it provides the practical and emotional support
to the children along with this, family supports the society with the sexual reproduction and
gives social identity to the individual. Moreover, changes in the family structure is a threat
for the society and often weaken the society.
Further, family under the functionalism perspective is the ‘basic building block of society’
that underpin the social needs and create the economic stability. Moreover, functional
perspective places emphasis on the societal interconnectedness wherein each individual
action within the society affects the other parts (Oberfield, 2019). This can be seen from the
social institution of family in which steady increase in the number of single parents and dual
earning families have given lesser time for the supervising the homework of their children,
has increased the number of failing students. This has been making contribution in the social

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE AND ROLE OF FAMILY 2
scenarios in which the people are going for the programs to learn new skills and have
subsequently increased the number of women and thereby contributing to the development of
certain social policies such as sexual harassment and job discrimination.
For functionalist, the family creates a well-organized structure for the members of the society
and it instils culture, social class and ethnicity to the new members. As the building block of
the society, it provides the nuclear family and it is new members the individual property
rights. Additionally, family provides emotional security, support, material and care to the
individuals. Apart from the regulation of sexual activity, family provides the social identity in
terms of race, ethnicity and religion that maintains the social hierarchy (Greene, et al., 2018).
To conclude, it can be said that role of family is crucial for the formation of the society.
Family is main function of the function that is the basic function it plays in the regulation of
the social activities. The paper has seen the sociological perspective of family in which
functionalism perspective is being explained.

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References
Bergman Blix, S. & Wettergren, A., 2016. A sociological perspective on emotions in the
judiciary. Emotion Review, 8(1), pp. 32-37.
Boden, M., Berenbaum, H. & Gross, J., 2016. Why do people believe what they do? A
functionalist perspective. Review of General Psychology, 20(4), pp. 399-411.
Greene, N., Kaplan, E., Crow, A. & Koronakis, V., 2018. Antibiotic resistance mediated by
the MacB ABC transporter family: A structural and functional perspective. Frontiers in
microbiology, p. 9.
Oberfield, Z., 2019. Discretion from a Sociological Perspective. In: Discretion and the Quest
for Controlled Freedom. s.l.:Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 177-191.