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UPSC SOCIOLOGY – Paper 1 – SOCIOLOGICAL THINKERS – Talcott Parsons – Social System; Pattern Variables.
- Social System is defined as ‘Consisting of plurality of individuals actors interacting with each other, in a situation which has an environment with the actors who are motivated in terms of the tendency to the optimisation of gratification’.
- The definition provides two parts – Structure and Functions.
- Structure has various parts like institutions or organisations, stratification, power relations, religion and moral values.
- There are a number of functional prerequisites of a social system like social systems must be structured and must meet a significant portion of the needs of its actors.
APPROACH
- Parsons took a synthetic approach.
- He took a structural functional view of society.
- He saw existence of society in terms of a social system which has various subsystems and so on and each performs a unique prerequisite.
ACTION SYSTEM
- Action systems as a precursor to his idea of social system.
- Organismic System – it is the physical or biological aspect of social reality.
- Personality System – it represents the internal, hidden aspects of society resulting from motives alone.
- Social System – it refers to a pattern of actual interaction between units in the society.
- Cultural System – it consists of norms and values.
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AGIL FRAMEWORK
- To visualise the system and its functional prerequisites, Parsons gave an AGIL Framework.
- Adaptation – In order to survive, social system must gain some control over the environment for needs like food and security. Adaptation refer to the relationship with the environment.
- Goal Attainment – The polity performs the function of goal attainment by pursuing societal objectives and mobilizing actors and resources to that end.
- Fiduciary System – The fiduciary system or institutions of socialization (the schools, the family and religion) handle the latency or pattern maintenance function by transmitting culture to actors and allowing it to be internalised by them.
- Integration – The integration function is performed by the societal community or institutions of social control. For example, the law.
CRITICISM
- A grand functional theory with little practical utility.
- Low on empirical testability.
- Ideas are too abstract and utopian.
- Over socialised view of man.
- Ignored conflicts or dysfunctions.
- Turner criticises him for being obsessed with integration.