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Homelessness from a functionalist perspective
Homeless problems introduction
Homelessness from a functionalist perspective
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While circumstances can vary, an individual’s first choice is rarely to choose homelessness due to the inability to afford housing or other unforeseen circumstances. The support of friends, family, and community programs/shelters are first suggestions when a person becomes displaced. When these suggestions become inadequate, living on the streets is the next favorable/affordable option. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, on a night in January of 2015, there were 564,708 people homeless in the United States (para 3).
Finally, the three sociological perspectives can be seen. Functionalist can be observed in the way
The article utilizes logos in order to prove that when actions are taken to reduce homelessness, society can see improvements within many different aspects of functionality. The article evaluates how homelessness functions in the world of healthcare, moral and ethical situations, incarceration, local economies and tourism, and within shelters or supportive housing. Through this, the article gives the topic exigence and shows the audience what’s ‘in it for them’. (SHOW
In sociology, there are three theoretical perspectives; symbolic interactionism, functional analysis and conflict theory. The major point of symbolic interactionism is to use symbols to help understand how we as a society view the world, and how we communicate with one another. In functional analysis, the major point is to look at society as a whole, constructed of various parts, or groups, that all have their own function. Lastly, conflict theory is the opposite of functional analysis. In this perspective, society is viewed as different groups, each competing for power, or dominance.
Homelessness is not a new issue as it has already existed for many years ago and the existence of homeless people is often being ignored. The reasons why they end up sleeping on the streets is largely because of individual factors (Main, 1998), which is contributed by structural factors (Cyndy Baskina, 2007). It is unsure whether homeless people choose to end their lives in this way or are among the victims of situations? Many researchers contribute homelessness to structural factors but advocates of human rights debunk this and highlights that the main reason for homelessness is due to mostly individual
The social issue that I picked is homelessness. Homelessness is a real issue, even if we don’t always see it. Homelessness doesn’t just mean you don’t have a roof over your head, it means you don’t have food, a good education, a healthy lifestyle, or a warm place to sleep every night. Some people don’t think very highly about homeless people, they think that it's their fault that they are where they are in life. Homelessness is going to end up becoming a bigger problem.
Area of Conflict Homelessness can be understood in the perspective of conflict theory, which holds that capitalism is one the main reason for homelessness. “Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned” (Ayn Rand). There are many reasons why a person becomes homeless, an increasing number become homeless each year, with up to 5,000 people becoming homeless every year. Generally the experiences that lead to homelessness are determined by poverty and structural inequality.
Looking at society as a whole with individual units that work together to make society function efficiently is the structural functionalism concept. Each unit has a part and is describe as institutions such as family, religion, education, politics, economy and inequality. Because structural functionalism looks at social structure and patterns of behavior it is able to create values for society. As well as, distinguish between visible and suppressed problems within the social structures that may need to be addressed. For instance, homelessness is indication of dysfunction in structural functionalism system.
The sociological imagination is thinking that is done with the realization that both the individual’s experience and the historical context which they live in must be looked at to fully gain insight about the world around them (Elwell, 2006). In other words, “the individual and society cannot be understood apart from each other” (Pyyhtinen, 2016, p. 4). The intersection of the two is where valuable information is found. The sociological imagination requires the ability to change between perspectives of biography and history (Mills, 1959). One can practice the craft of sociological thought by using the sociological imagination.
Homelessness is one the most ignored problems in the United States with citizen and politician. Homeless people are walked by and ignored. Nobody ever thinks that they will be homeless. Due to the economy, people live paycheck to paycheck making house payments very difficult. Most people will want to believe most homeless people are drug addicts or alcoholics, but most people will be surprise to know that it is no all true.
The current government is creating a situation where more families along with their children are experiencing homelessness. An individual may be considered homeless when they lack permanent housing and have to stay in shelters, abandoned buildings or vehicles, on the streets, or in other forms of unstable situations. Many homeless people start out with jobs and stable residences, but then social and economic factors intervene, causing a rapid change in their living situation causing them to leave, and live on the street. Even with the population of homeless keeps increasing, the government does not aid nor benefit the homeless because they only worsen the homeless problem by having laws that go against homelessness, not helping mentally ill homeless population, and having the lack of subsidized housing.
Functionalism is usually analyzed as macrostructure which includes things like school systems and economic factors that can have an influence on substance abuse. From a functionalist perspective, someone can be using drugs and alcohol abusively based on issues in their social life. Society has this norm where people are required to work to be able to live comfortably independently. There are people who balance work and school which becomes stressful but they are required to work for financial support and they need education for a better future so they are forced to do it. With these heavy responsibilities, a person seeks leisure during their time off.
During the recent years homelessness has increased eminently. Although homelessness is not a new phenomenon it has become a huge social issue in today’s society. In urban areas homelessness is visible by the masses but ignored by society’s negative perception. Characterized as unstable individuals, alcoholics and criminals by society, these negative stereotypes have only escalate the issue. Homeless can occur at any stage of life for multitude of factors.
How might the following 3 theoretical approaches explore the topic of poverty in the family - structural functionalism, social conflict, symbolic interactionism? Structural functionalism a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability (Macionis et al,2013, p.10). Structural functionalism can be a very valuable theory when addressing poverty. It focuses on the structure of things and can be used to analyze the effects that structure has on poverty.
In other words, functionalists like Durkheim believed that for a society to survive, its various social processes must come together to meet the system’s needs. Functionalists implement Durkheim’s outlook of a unified social scheme with various elements having a function within
