Debates about family diversity Flashcards
what did Rapport et al (1982) say about family diversity?
- rapport began to examine the idea that we were witnessing a growth in family diversity
- mainly centred on two issues: whether family diversity is a good thing and the extent to which families are actually diversifying
what are concerns about diversity?
- the strongest concerns about family diversity have come from the New Right, who see diversity as destroying traditional family values
- they call for social policies that strengthen marriage and encourage raising children in traditional nuclear families
- from their perspective any family other than the nuclear family do not function effectively at socialising children and providing stable family life
- while not agreeing with the New Right family as an ideal form but have expressed concern at the way in which individuals’ concerns about the risk of commitment have undermined family life
what is support for diversity?
- Giddens argues that there has been a democratisation of intimate relationships meaning hat individuals are not forced into relationships but only engage with them when they find them fulfilling, meaning that there is more equality between partners
- feminists have also welcomed many aspects of family diversity, arguing that the traditional nuclear family was patriarchal
- the fact that women can opt out of marriage, bring up children without a male partner or engage in lesbian relationships are all seen as extending socially acceptable lifestyles for women
what did Langford (1999) say about family diversity and patriarchy?
-Langford agrees with Giddens, in that love has the potential to be a liberating a transforming experience, but suggests that all too often women end up feeling alienated because they are the ones who invest emotionally in relationships and do not receive in return to the deep emotional intimacy that supposedly characterises confluent love
what does Chambers (2012) say about family diversity and the patriarchy?
-chambers points out that women who reject traditional family forms, such as single mothers and lesbians often still face condemnation from more traditional sections of society and mass media
what does Chester (1985) say about the neo-conventional society?
- Chester arues that many families that are not strictly nuclear families are baed on the nuclear model, and he described them as neo-conventional families
- parents may be cohabitating rather than marrying and may be same-sex rather than both sexes, couples may both pursue careers and share domestic roles and in some causes there may be step parents and stepchildren in failies
- chester also pointed out that statistics are misleading because they only show how many households are based on different types of families ay one point in time
- in reality individuals move uin and out of different househiolds and families at different stages in their life course
- whi;e only a minority of people live in nuclear familied at any one time, being part of a nuclear family will be part of he experience of the vast majority of people whether as children or as parents
- for example many of the increasing proportion of people who live alone are either young people who have left their parents family and who will eventually settile down and create their own family or they are elderly people who have completed raising family and are now widowed
what are continuities in family life?
-some sociologists have debated the reasons for family diversity and its impact on society, others have questioned whether there has been such a radical transformation of family life and have argues that there are important continuities in family life between the past and the present
what did Gittins (1993) say about family ideology?
- Gittins drawing on Marxist and feminist approached, argues that this consensus is the only maintained because there is a powerful ideology of the nuclear family
- an ideology is a misleading view based on value judgements, defining what is normal and desirable
what does leach (1967) say about family ideology?
- leach called the nuclear family shown in adverts in the media cereal packet families, it portrays happy families where the mother is typical cooking and performing domestic chores for husbands and children in advertisements from cornflakes to washing up liquid
- such families are not real but create an image of what family life should be like, to which everyone is encouraging to aspire
- from this perspective, the reality of family life may have changed, but the ideology that supports the nuclear family as normal is still very powerful
what did Smart (2007) say about personal life?
- Smart does not dispute the evidence that people now live in more diverse families and intimate relationships
- however she does tale issue with the arguments of theorists such as Giddens, Beck and Beck Gernsheim, which suggests that we have become so individualised and focused on our own personal needs and interests that this has led to a decline in commitment and perhaps even of family life itself
- smart argues that it is useful to think in terms of personal life rather than family life
- many people now exist in a network of relationships, which may include people who are related by blood or marriage, but may also include other people such as friends whom we enjoy family-like relationships
- Smart argues that individuals are still bonded into such networks and share things like family secrets etc.
- who we think of as family or even the traditional extended family, but individuals are still embedded in networks of personal relationships that in many respects fulfil the functions of more traditional families
how does Somerville (2000) support Chester’s study?
- she claims that only about 5% of people will never marry in their lives
- moreover comparisons of rates of marriage in the 1960s and 70s are misleading as the rates of marriage in this period were at the highest since national statistics were first gathered in 1837
- Somerville concludes that most people in the uk are still committed to family life and that we need to be cautious about exaggerating the extent of change
