Talcott Parsons’ concept of functionalism is known as ‘AGIL model’ or the ‘four-function paradigm’. All action systems, including society, face four main problems or needs. They are Adaptation, Goal Attainment, Integration, and Latency or Pattern maintainance. Parsons pictures society as a large square, which he divides into four equal parts. The underlying idea is that all systems need to accomplish these four functions in order to survive.
- Adaptation (A): This function involves obtaining and distributing resources from the environment. Each society needs institutions that handle adaptation, such as the economy in the context of society. Adaptation ensures that the system acquires and utilizes resources effectively to achieve its goals. In biological systems, adaptation involves adjusting to environmental conditions to maintain survival.
- Goal Attainment (G): This function focuses on mobilizing resources to achieve specific goals and setting priorities. It involves organizing efforts and motivating actors to reach these goals. In society, political institutions take on this role because they have the power to make decisions and implement them. Goal attainment is concerned with achieving ends.
- Integration (I): Often considered the core of the AGIL model, integration involves coordinating and regulating relationships among various parts of the system to maintain its unity. It ensures that different components work together harmoniously. In society, legal institutions and courts manage integration by upholding norms and resolving conflicts, thereby maintaining internal order and cohesion.
- Latency (L): This function addresses the need for maintaining and transmitting knowledge, values, and cultural norms within the system. Culture plays a crucial role here by providing the necessary information and values that guide action, even though it itself does not act directly. Institutions such as family, religion, and education are responsible for pattern maintenance, ensuring that societal values are preserved and tensions between different parts of the system are managed.
In Parsons’ framework, each of these functions is essential for the survival of a system. Parsons identifies sub-systems corresponding to the AGIL model in all systems and their sub-systems. at the general level of action theory, the biological organism performs the function of adaptation, the personality system, the function of goal attainment, the social system integrates different units, and the cultural system is concerned with pattern maintenance or Latency.
In summary, Parsons’ structural functionalism and the AGIL model provide a framework for understanding how different parts of a social system work together to maintain stability and manage change.
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