helping "to increase mutual understanding between cultures" and further international co-operation. While employing some concepts from Marxist conflict theory, such as social class and revolution, Marshall's analyses are based on functionalist concerns with phenomena such as "consensus, the normal, and anomie; co-operation and conflict; structure and growth," within self-contained systems. Rather than studying "society," which may include non-systemic elements, Marshall argues that the task of sociology is: the analytical and explanatory study of social systems....a set of interrelated and reciprocal activities having the following characteristics. The activities are repetitive and predictable to the degree necessary, first, to permit of purposeful, peaceful and orderly behaviour of the members of the society, and secondly to enable the pattern of action to continue in being, that is to say to preserve its identity even while gradually changing its shape.Since his work centers around functionalism, Marshall "uses a top-down perspective, by describing how political systems allocate social and political rights to citizens and develop institutions that are in charge of administering these rights." Whereas Marxists point to the internal contradictions of capital accumulation and class inequality (intra-systemic), Marshall sees phenomena that are anti-systemic as partly "alien" to the social system. Anti-system refers to one of the three branches of social phenomena that Marshall defines in Sociology at a Crossroads and Other Essays. It posits that conflict is incompatible with the operation of a social system yet is simultaneously an inevitable part of that system. The other two branches are known as "non-system" and "pro-system." See also References Footnotes Works cited Further reading (by Marshall) Marshall, T. H. (ed.). 1938. Class Conflict and Social Stratification. London: Le Play House Press. Marshall, T. H. 1950. Citizenship and Social Class: And Other Essays. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. Marshall, T. H. 1963. Sociology at the Crossroads and Other Essays. London: Heinemann. Marshall, T. H. 1973. "A British Sociological Career". International Social Science Journal 25(1/2): 88–100. Marshall, T. H. 1981. The Right to Welfare and Other Essays. London: Heinemann. Further reading (on Marshall) Bulmer, Martin, and Anthony Rees (eds). 1996. Citizenship Today: The Contemporary Relevance of T. H. Marshall. London: Routledge. Crowley, John. 1998. "The National Dimension of Citizenship in T.H. Marshall". Citizenship Studies 2:2: 165–178. Halsey, A. H. 1984. "T. H. Marshall, past and present: 1893-1981". Sociology 18: 1–18. Giddens, Anthony. 1982. Profiles and Critiques of Social Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press, Ch. 12, "Class Division,