4: Outlines of a Sociological Theory

The Structure of Social Action completed the foundational phase of Parsons’s work. He had established the action frame of reference and outlined the basic concepts needed for a scientific theory of action. He knew, however, that he had to refine and revise the theoretical ideas that had merely been sketched. In the two years following its publication, he completed a book-length manuscript with the title Actor, Situation and Normative Pattern. The manuscript was circulated among his students and colleagues for critical discussion as a prelude to a further projected revision. It was posthumously published in 2011.

The move from descriptive generalisation to analytical theory was, Parsons felt, still a step too far. There was a need for an intermediate form of theory that combines descriptive and analytical concepts and so provides the basis for a theory of structural variation and change. He referred to this as ‘structural-functional’ theory. Such a theory combines a structural description of the normative patterning of role relationships with the ‘functional’ processes that sustain them. Parsons set out the methodological basis of structural-functional theory in two major essays on the position and prospects of theory.