Functional research on deviance: A critical analysis and guide for the future

This paper addresses quantitative and historical studies which purport to demonstrate the utility of a “Durkheimian” functionalist approach to deviance. When that tradition is analyzed the most dramatic general propositions are found to be inconsistent with subsequent extensions of the argument and are not supported by the examples presented. When the subsequent extensions are assessed in terms of the basic logic of a functional explanation the data presented are either inadequate for a test of the model or ignore a crucial aspect of it. Furthermore, interpretations of specific historical witchhunts in terms of a functional‐boundary maintenance model run counter to generalizations in historical research on European, British and colonial witchhunting. Even the link to Durkheim can be challenged in that arguments about mutual causation and ultimate consequences have been misinterpreted as arguments about functions and some of Durkheim's statements imply a quite different model. A careful assessment of boundary‐maintenance theory in terms of Stinchcombe's model of a functional explanation clearly highlights problems for future research.