![]() Given the potentially mechanistic character of this type of theory when practically applied, it is remarkable to see what Merton and his Columbia University colleagues did with it. As is illustrated below, Robert Merton, a student of Parsons’ in the mid-1930s, who emerged as one of the leading structural functionalists, was intensely interested in developing research methods for testing hypotheses posed by structural functionalism treated as a theory. Bureaucracy also endured much attention as the pattern of behavior within institutions. Professions evolved, allowing institutional functions to be more effectively performed. Much of the discussion centered upon professional roles. Institutions were arrayed in structures and Individuals occupied roles within institutions. ![]() Institutions performed functions necessary to society. There had been less scepticism about the theory of the operation of social systems: structural functionalism. “System” conjured forces interacting and opposing, generating change from one state of the system at T zero to another later at T one. I knew The Social System had met with a lot of scepticism about whether society is a system in any meaningful sense. It involved going back to the mid -60s when I first encountered Talcott Parsons’ The Social System (1950?) and The Structure of Social Action (1938?). Kenneth Fox email: I began what has become the Merton/Columbia Project the working title was Beyond Causation, a “whither social theory” notion. ![]()
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