Radcliffe-Brown was influenced by the French sociological school and emphasized 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. The year 1922 is known as „the year of wonders of Functionalism as both Bronislaw Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown published their work as an outcome of intensive fieldwork in the same year. A.R. Radcliffe-Brown published ‘The Andaman Islanders’ and Bronislaw Malinowski published ‘Argonauts of the Western Pacific’ in the same year i.e. 1922.
Structural Features of Social Life: According to A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, the structural features of social life as follows:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Arrangement of persons in dyadic relationship: an example of dyadic relationship is person to person relationship like master and servant.
- 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?
- There is an error arising from the assuming that one’s abstraction of a social situation reflects social reality in all details.
- 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.
- Structural functionalism believes in static in place of dynamic; but it does not deal with the changes.