Functionalists are interested in determining how societies stay stable, or maintain what is termed "social homeostasis" when threatened by change or deviation of some kind. Sociology (and SAC) investigates 3 basic themes; social order, social change, and social conflict. So Functionalists are mostly interested in examining the reasons for social order. They are particularly wedded to the idea that the potential threat of social change is mediated or negotiated with the consensus or agreement of social institutions within legal, education, health, mass-media, and government systems. For example, in Australia, before the changes brought about with the so-called, 'No-Fault' divorce law, people seeking a divorce were limited to specific grounds for seeking it; i.e., unfaithful partner, insanity, alcoholism etc. To prove infidelity, there was an entire industry of Private Investigators whose job it was to capture evidence of infidelity. By the 1970s, many Australia's saw this system as unreasonable and unworkable. It did not meet their changed expectations of how they should be treated as a person so the idea of a divorce based on 'irreconcilable differences' became accepted and recognised as reasonable grounds for divorce Further, the Family Court of Australia was also established to provide a new section of legal practice so that these kinds of disputes would have a place to be resolved. That is an example - and I don't know how well I've explained it - of a Functionalist reading of how 1970s society 'solved' the problem of how to deal with the changed expectations of thousands of Australians in divorce. The basic elements of Functionalism applied to social phenomena are that societies are 1]Differentiated into different social groups and this is a positive thing and 2] society is interdependant in that all these groups and institutions although having different roles, statuses, and functions, work together to ensure the common goal of continuity and survival. If you're trying to apply the theory to social phenomena, the questions to ask are based around finding out what social purpose or function is being met by an event, issue, idea etc. I hope this helps.
