manifest function

Examples of manifest function in the following topics:

• Intelligence and Inequality

  • Although schools' manifest function is to educate and train intelligence, they also have latent functions like socializing students.
  • The manifest function of education is to transmit knowledge to students.
  • Manifest functions involve things people expect or can observe.
  • Latent functions are not generally recognized or intended; rather, they are a secondary effect of manifest functions.
  • Socialization is slowly transforming into a manifest function, especially within special education and working with children on the autism spectrum, who suffer from serious social skill deficits.

• Structural-Functionalism

  • Merton (1957) proposed a distinction between manifest and latent functions.
  • Manifest functions are the intended functions of a phenomenon in a social system.
  • An example of manifest and latent functions is education.
  • The manifest purpose of public education is to increase the knowledge and abilities of the citizenry to prepare them to contribute in the workforce.
  • Thus, while education's manifest function is to empower all individuals to contribute to the workforce and society, it also limits some people by creating boundaries of entry into occupations.

• The Functionalist Perspective

  • Education also provides an example of Merton's theory of manifest and latent functions.
  • The manifest purpose of public education is to increase the knowledge and abilities of the citizenry to prepare them to contribute in the workforce.
  • Thus, while education's manifest function is to empower all individuals to contribute to the workforce and society, its latent function is to create and maintain inequality.
  • In the 1950s, Robert Merton elaborated the functionalist perspective by proposing a distinction between manifest and latent functions.
  • Manifest functions are the intended functions of an institution or a phenomenon in a social system.

• The Symbolic Nature of Culture

  • This view of culture as a symbolic system with adaptive functions, which varies from place to place, led anthropologists to conceive of different cultures as defined by distinct patterns (or structures) of enduring (although arbitrary) conventional sets of meaning.
  • The sociology of culture concerns culture as it is manifested in society: the ways of thinking, the ways of acting, and the material objects that together shape a people's way of life.

• Urban Decline

  • Urban decline is the process whereby a previously functioning city or neighborhood falls into disrepair.
  • Urban decline is the process whereby a previously functioning city or neighborhood falls into disrepair and decrepitude.
  • In many countries outside of the West, urban decline manifests as peripheral slums at the outskirts of cities.

• Theories of Socialization

  • Socialization is the means by which human infants begin to acquire the skills necessary to perform as functioning members of their society.
  • Socialization is the means by which human infants begin to acquire the skills necessary to perform as a functioning member of their society and is the most influential learning process one can experience.
  • Although cultural variability manifests in the actions, customs, and behaviors of whole social groups, the most fundamental expression of culture is found at the individual level.

• Adolescence

  • The end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood varies by country and by function.
  • Developmental psychologists might focus on changes in relations with parents and peers as a function of school structure and pubertal status.
  • Cognitive autonomy is characterized as the manifestation of an independent set of beliefs, values and opinions

• Participatory Democracy

  • Demarchy is a hypothetical system where government is heavily decentralized into smaller independent groups and where randomly selected decision makers have been chosen to govern, and each group is responsible for one or several functions in society.
  • List the key qualities of participatory democracy and some of its historical manifestations

• Gender Inequality in Health Care

  • Gender discrimination in health care manifests itself primarily as the difference that men and women pay for their insurance premium.
  • Gender discrimination in health care manifests primarily as the amount of money one pays for insurance premiums—the amount paid per month in order to be covered by insurance.
  • Identify three ways in which gender inequality in health care manifests itself in the United States

• Religion and Other Social Factors

  • Counter-intuitively (unless gender inequality is one of the primary goals or functions of much religion), even though women are more religious than men, many religions continue to disenfranchise women.
  • However, Chaves, who delineated these reasons in his book on female ordination, notes that these are more akin to "manifest" reasons and the real or latent reason is because these religions continue to cater to a specific market niche - individuals who oppose modernity.