Theoretical tradition claiming that every society has certain structures (the family, the division of labor, or gender) that exist to fulfill some set of necessary functions (reproduction of the species, production of goods, etc.).

a. True
b. False

The correct answer is True (Structural functionalism)

Structural-functionalism took social anthropology as a science that should be developed along the lines of the natural sciences, because it defended that society functioned according to laws that could be identified.

For this approach "each society studied was considered as a 'totality', as an organism whose parts were integrated and functioned in a mechanical way to maintain social stability". Principles were sought in common between social structures in order to understand the function that those elements in common played for the maintenance and cohesion of society.

Among these are the "feeling systems" that "regulate the performance of individuals according to the needs of society", feelings developed in the individual from a social construction. Thus, individuals are an expression of the social structure by reproducing moral norms and civil rules that keep society cohesive, for Radcliffe-Brown “society is cohesive by virtue of a structure of legal rules, social statutes and moral norms, which circumscribe and regulate the behavior". We can see the enormous influence that Durkheimin's theory has on structural-functionalist thinking.

Radcliffe-Brown starts to use the comparative method of the tests of the field research to analyze the “total cultural systems” looking for universal principles for human societies, because “the field work must look for the abstract structural principles and the“ mechanisms ”of integration of society".