Functionalism (2)

Émile Durkheim, another early sociologist, applied Spencer’s theory to explain how societies change and survive over
time. Durkheim believed that society is a complex system of interrelated and interdependent parts that work together to
maintain stability (Durkheim 1893), and that society is held together by shared values, languages, and symbols. He
believed that to study society, a sociologist must look beyond individuals to social facts such as laws, morals, values,
religious beliefs, customs, fashion, and rituals, which all serve to govern social life. Alfred Radcliff-Brown (1881–1955)
defined the function of any recurrent activity as the part it played in social life as a whole, and therefore the contribution it
makes to social stability and continuity (Radcliff-Brown 1952). In a healthy society, all parts work together to maintain
stability, a state called dynamic equilibrium by later sociologists such as Parsons (1961).