Functionalist Perspective Analysis

For a start, chapter five was very informative and a pleasure to read. It reconnected all the dots that steered me in the direction/profession of social work. As Rhodes & Rhodes (2015), states “Social class is to rank with others in terms of wealth, power, and prestige. This ranking separates people into different groups that experience different opportunities in life and different ways of looking at the world” (pg. 225). With that being said, this reignites the topic of homelessness that I chose for my term paper. It touched on a very important note on how society clearly defines inequality, wealth, and income. Further grabbing my attention, was the effort it took to conceptualize theses terms, versus the lack of effort to formulate new ideas on how to combat societal problems. Furthermore, when analyzing the different classes, and the distributions of wealth and income in the United Sates; for instance, the upper, middle, …show more content…
According to Davis & Moore (1945), “Functionalist believe that an unequal class structure is necessary for a successful society” (pg.234). This perspective capitalizes in rewards and meritocracy from the advantaged and highly positioned. Additionally, poverty is viewed as functional, in that it keeps the low paying jobs on high demand among the working poor, in return, keeping the goods, merchandise, and services at an affordable price. When applying this to the homeless population, it is applicable in terms of how they struggle to find adequate employment and financial stability. For instance, while being a homeless case manager during my internship, I noticed the constant struggle of my clients acquiring full-time employment. Most often, if not always, clients would give up on seeking employment through large corporation, established businesses, and revert back to day labor jobs via temp