Compare and contrast functionalist and marxist perspectives including Essay

Compargon and contrast functionalist and marxist perspectives including feminist perspectives - Essay Exampleinterpretive sociology examines the meaning that is given to everyday tone by those involved in its construction. The culture in which mint live has a profound impact on what is perceived as reality. People act proscribed their social roles, some of which are ascribed or given at birth, and others are achieved or gained through life experiences. The Functionalists and the New Right adopt a consensus perspective and uphold family values based on consensus. On the other hand, Feminism and Marxism are conflict perspectives, which view family values as part of the problem in relation to power, control, status and inequality (Squire, 2003 69).The functionalist perspective of family is comprehensively explained by Parsons (1964), who identifies two major functions of the conjugal family. First, families serve the procreation of children and socialize them into adult roles of the kind which are accepted and expected by the social congregation in which they live. An example is the teaching of adult sexual practice roles by the Western family. This is achieved by the way in which children are dressed, the games they are allowed to play, how they are spoken to and the different attitudes of parents towards their childrens behaviour (Bond, 1994 95). Children are socialized into identifying with a gender role.Secondly, the family undertakes to re-inforce primary and secondary socialisation and also stabilizes adult behaviour towards the stereotyped roles of husband and wife. Thus, in traditional conjugal families, parents act as role models for their children, besides influencing the way children identify adult gender roles. In industrialized societies, men usually work to earn money to support the family, hence their activities and interests are more focused outside the home than are those of women whose main occupations are domestic and therefore revive to the home (Bond, 1994).Thus, the functionalist perspective views the relatively independent-functioning