• Radcliffe-Brown was influenced by the French sociological school and
emphasised upon the social function.
• This school developed in the 1890s around the work of Emile
Durkheim who argued that "social phenomena constitute a domain,
or order, of reality that is independent of psychological and biological
facts”.
• As per this sociological school the social phenomena, must be
explained in terms of other social phenomena, and not by reference
to psychobiological needs.
• Radcliffe-Brown focused on the conditions under which social structures are
maintained.
• He also believed that there are certain laws that regulate the functioning of
societies.
• He also modified the idea of need and replaced it with necessary conditions for
existence for human societies and these conditions can be discovered by proper
scientific enquiry.
• He argued that the organic analogy should be used carefully.
• In a biological organism the functioning of any organ is termed as the activity of that
organ.
• But in a social system the continuity of structure is maintained by the process of
social life.
• In Radcliffe-Brown’s concept of function, the notion of structure is
involved.
• This structure involves several constituent unit entities which
maintain the continuity of social structure.
• Structural Features of Social Life:
• According to A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, the structural features of social life
as follows.
• : 1. Existence of social group: social structure consists of all kinds of social groups
like family, clan, moieties, social sanction, totemic group, social classes, caste
group, kinship system etc.
• The inter relations among these groups constitute the core of the social structural
phenomenon
• 2 Internal structure of the group: these groups have specific internal structure.
• For example, a family consists with the relations of father, mother and their
children.
• 3. Arrangement into social classes: these groups are arranged into social classes
and categories.
• For example, the economic classes in the Western societies and the castes in the
Indian societies.
• 4. Social Distinctions: there is social distinction between different classes
which is based on sex, economic distinctions, and authority and caste
distinctions.
• For example, in India there is social distinction between the Brahmins and
Shudras.
• 5. Arrangement of persons in dyadic relationship: an example of dyadic
relationship is person to person relationship like master and servant.
• 6. Interaction between groups and persons: interaction between persons
can be seen in social processes involving co-operation, conflict,
accommodations etc. while the interaction between groups can be seen
while nation goes to war with another nation.
• Types of Social Structure:
• According to Radcliffe-Brown the importance of social institution is
that social structure is the arrangement of persons which is controlled
and defined by institutions.
• There are two types of models of studying social structure i.e. actual
social structure and general social structure.
• ‘Actual social structure’ according to Brown, the relationship
between persons and groups change from time to time.
• New members come into being through immigration or by birth,
while others go out of it by death and migration.
• Besides this, there are marriages and divorces whereby the members
change in several times.
• Thus, actual social structure remains changes in many times.
• On the other hand, in general social structure, remain relatively constant for a long
time.
• For instance, if one visits the a village and again visits that particular village after
few years i.e. after 10 years later he or she finds that many members of the village
have died and others have been enrolled.
• Now they are 10 years older who survive than the previous visit.
• Their relations to one another may have changed in many respects; but the general
structure remains more or less same and continuing.
• Thus Radcliffe-Brown held the view that sometimes the structural form may
change gradually or suddenly but even though the sudden changes occur the
continuity of structure is maintained to a considerable extent.
Structure and Function
• Radcliffe-Brown in order to illustrate the relationship between then
structures and function he again turns to biology.
• The structure of an organism is consists of ordered arrangements of
its parts and functions of the part is to interrelate the structure of an
organism.
• Similarly, social structure is ordered arrangement of persons and
groups.
• The functions of persons are to the structure of society and social
organism. In fact, social function is the inter-connections between
social structure and social life.
• Social structure is not to be studied by considering the nature of
individual members of group, but by examining the arrangement of
functions that make society persistent.
• He further points out that the relationships of parts of an organism to
one another are not static.
• The whole point about an organism is that if the organism is alive so
that study of its structure-the relationship of parts, must be activated
by a study of its functioning of processes by which its structure is
maintained
• In all types of organisms, other than the dead ones structure and
function are logically lined.
• Thus, structure and function are logically linked and structure and
function support each other and necessary for each other’s continuity.
• The social life of a community can be defined as the functioning of
social structure.
• For example, the function of recurrent activity such as punishment of
crime or a funeral ceremony is the part it plays in social life as a whole
and therefore makes contributions to the maintenance of structural
continuity.
• According to Radcliffe-Brown, the importance of differentiation
between structure and function is that it can be applied to the study
of both of continuity in forms of social life and of processes of change.
• He is of the opinion that similar things may have different meanings
in different cultures and also that different things may have similar
functions.
• Although they have individual meaning and functions, they have a
comparable social function at all.
• Radcliffe-Brown’s Structural Functional Law:
• Radcliffe-Brown is of the opinion that law is a necessary condition of
continued existence.
• According to Radcliffe-Brown generalization about any sort of subject
matter are of two types
• Generalizations of common opinion
• Generalizations that have been demonstrated by a systematic
examination of evidence afforded by precise observations
systematically made.
• This particular type of generalization is also called as scientific law.
• Criticism of Radcliffe-Brown’s Structural Functionalism:
• The structural and functional approach of Radcliffe-Brown’ has been
subjected to a very great criticism.
• Some of them are useful and some of them are useless.
• The major criticisms are discussed briefly:
• According to some critics, it is wrong to look at society as a living
organism because the structure of the living organism does not
change, but the society does
• 1. There is an error arising from the assuming that one’s abstraction
of a social situation reflects social reality in all details.
• 2. According to this approach, the functions of unites of society are
determined.
• The analysis is done on the basis of imagination, in the absence of any
concrete cases.
• 3. Structural functionalism believes in static in place of dynamic; but
it does not deal with the changes.
