Question
Write main three features of the functionalist approach in sociology.
Solution
1. The functionalist approach, in sociology and social anthropology, appeared initially as a reaction against the methods and claims of the evolutionists.
2. It was a criticism of native and superficial uses of the comparative method and of the methods of ‘conjectural history, in which, unverified and unsystematic data were employed on contemporary or primitive societies for reconstructing the early stages of human social life.
3. It was also a criticism of the intention and claim of the evolutionists to give a scientific account of the complete social histroy of mankind.
