How Might a Structural Functionalist Approach the Study of Science

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The Answer is This approach to science and social problems illustrates the positive and negative functions of social structures.One social problem within science is that top scientists receive the lion's share of scientific credit.A structural functionalist answer would cite cumulative advantage,which multiplies the advantage for those who have resources and limits the capacity of those without.Cumulative advantage explains why graduate students who attend top-tier research universities such as Harvard,Stanford,and MIT in the United States are more likely to become prominent scientists than those that graduate from non-research universities.At a top-tier research university students have access to active scientists and their scientific networks.This resource provides students with a cumulative advantage over their peers who lack such access.
Another example of cumulative advantage is the accumulation of cultural capital,social assets that promote social mobility such as a parent's educational background.Doctoral students are more likely to have a parent with an advanced degree (43%)than a parent with only some college (12%)(NSF,2013).Cumulative advantage helps explain the absence from science of individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds,socioeconomic levels,and educational institutions.Lack of diversity reinforces the preexisting scientific social networks,which means most scientists train at the same institutions with comparable cultural capital from the same recognized scientific leaders.This sameness in turn stabilizes the scientific culture by ensuring that similar questions are asked and studied by similar people.
A structural functionalist position may also help researchers pose questions about what role science or technology is playing in the creation of a social problem.That is,researchers may trace what knowledge is defining a social problem and how it is being applied to describe the relationship between science and the social problem.Or they can focus on a technology,such as automobiles,to ask how individuals and communities are using them,to understand their role in traffic accidents or poor air quality.

How Might a Structural Functionalist Approach the Study of Science

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