The terms ‘functionalist’ and ‘structural-functionalist’ and their corresponding ‘isms’ are now quite stable in their meanings. However, this was not always the case. Before looking at the theories, a brief tour of the changing nuances of the terms is in order.

‘Functionalism’ is a broad term. In its widest sense, it includes both functionalism (narrowly defined) and structural-functionalism. I use it mainly in the narrower sense, that is, to refer to ideas associated with Bronislaw Malinowski and his followers, notably Sir Raymond Firth. It is the perspective concerned with actions among individuals, the constraints imposed by social institutions on individuals, and relations between the needs of an individual and the satisfaction of those needs through cultural and social frameworks. ‘Structural-functionalism’ tends to be concerned less with individual action or needs, and more with the place of individuals in the social order, or indeed with the construction of the social order itself. Typically, the latter term identifies the work of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and his followers. In Britain these included E. E. Evans-Pritchard (in his early work), Isaac Schapera, Meyer Fortes, and Jack Goody, among many others.

Yet the boundary between structural-functionalism and functionalism was never rigid. Some of Radcliffe-Brown's followers did not mind the term ‘functionalist’; others took to the labels ‘structural-functionalist’ or ‘structuralist’ (to distinguish their work from that of Malinowski). Furthermore, the term ‘British structuralist’ was heard in the 1950s to distinguish Radcliffe-Brownianism from Lévi-Straussianism or ‘French structuralism’ (described in chapter 8).