Banaticla, Nerissa Jenn C.

12-STEM 2

USCP Assignment #2

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I. What is the meaning of AGIL? What does it have to do with reproduction?

Talcott Parsons, an American sociologist, developed a sociological scheme called the

AGIL Paradigm in the 1950s. Parsons explored why the society is stable and working.
His model AGIL represents the four basic functions in which all social systems must
carry out in order to persevere. AGIL stands for:

(A) – adaptation; a system must adapt to its environment

(G) – goal attainment; a system must settle and achieve its goals

(I) – integration; a system must maintain its relationship with other parts

(L) – latency; a system must maintain and renew both the motivation of individual
and cultural patterns that create and sustain that motivation

He applied this model at the social, psychological, structural, and ecological levels.
In terms of the larger society, the organizational type that served each function (plus
some examples):

Adaptation – organizations oriented to economic production – business firms

Goal Attainment – organizations oriented to political goals – government agencies,

banks

Integration – integrative organizations – courts, political parties, social-control

agencies
Latency - pattern - maintainence organization - museums, educational organizations,
religious organizations.