FUNCTIONALIST VIEW OF

CULTURE
 was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic
discipline and—with W. E. B. Du Bois, Karl Marx and Max
Weber—is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern
social science.
Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies
could maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity, an era
in which traditional social and religious ties are no longer
assumed, and in which new social institutions have come into
being. His first major sociological work was The Division of
Labour in Society (1893). In 1895, he published The Rules of
Sociological Method and set up the first European department of
sociology, becoming France's first professor of sociology.
• According to functionalist perspective, societies can operate
smoothly only if their members are able to meet the
demands and challenges of the environment in effective,
coordinated ways.
• This perspective on culture has at least one major limitation
because it has the tendency to ignore dysfunctions or the
harmful and negative aspects of both material and
nonmaterial culture.
CONFLICT VIEW OF CULTURE
• was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist,
political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary.
• Marx's critical theories about society, economics and politics –
collectively understood as Marxism – hold that human
societies develop through class struggle. In capitalism, this
manifests itself in the conflict between the ruling classes
(known as the bourgeoisie) that control the means of
production and the working classes (known as the proletariat)
that enable these means by selling their labour power in return
for wages.
• From a conflict perspective, society is not held together
because everyone learns and shares common cultural
values. Conflict theorist are concerned with how the
groups that control the means of material productiong
impose their products, values and norms on other groups.