Beginning with Durkheim and surveying representative works in social anthropology that reflect the Durkheimian perspective, this paper traces the movement from a sociologistic to a culturalistic emphasis. A classical period of structuralist-functionalist initiated by Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown was followed by two developments: a dynamicist school, which elaborated the processual aspect of the social order in relation to culture, and a social structuralist school, which elaborated the structural aspect. From the second derived the cultural structuralist approach, which treats cultural structure rather independently of society; Claude Lévi-Strauss and his Anglo-American counterparts represent this development.A concluding section considers possibilities for new paradigms that both synthesize and transcend previous trends.