Families and households Flashcards
What is the difference between a family and a household?
Households may not have any kinship relations (no relations via blood, marriage or adoption.)
What are there 2 types of extended families and how do they differ.
Traditional extended family: Three or more generations, living within close proximity with frequent inter-generational interaction.
Attenuated extended family: Nuclear families living apart from their extended but keep regular contact.`
What is a nuclear family
Two generations living together consisting of parents and their dependant children.
What does Murdoch (1949) argue the main functions of the family are?
1) Sexual: Provides a stable sexual relationship for adults.
2) Reproductive: provides new members of society (babies)
3) Economic: The family pools and provides resources for all it’s members
4) Educational: allows for the teaching of societies norms and values
What did Parson’s argue the primary functions of the family were?
1) Stabilisation of the adult personality
2) Primary socialisation of children.
What did Parson’s note about role allocation in the family?
Parson believed believing that women offered an “expressive role”- the caring and nurturing role, while men offered the “instrumental role” or the role of a bread winner.
How does the new right perspective on the family differ from the functionalist one?
Unlike the functionalist perspective, the new right does not believe that the family is stable and working in harmony; disorder within society can be traced back to deviation from the nuclear family.
In “The bell curve” by Charles Murray, he talks about the idea that welfare creates a “culture of independence”. What does this mean?
The culture of dependence is the idea that through benefits, the working classes become deincentivised to work. He argues this encourages single mothers and other deviant family types.
How does Engles argue the family as an institution reproduces capitalist values?
Via the process of inheritance, the redistribution of wealth is prevented by the bourgeoisie.
How does Althusser argue the family as an institution reproduces capitalist values?
The family acts as an ISA that legitimizes acceptance of the differing roles of men and women in order to make for a more efficient work force.
How does Zaretsky argue the family as an institution reproduces capitalist values?
The family acts to make the working man the “king of his own castle” allowing him, to vent any frustration he may feel through work.
How do liberal and radical feminists differ about the view on the family?
Radical feminists argue that the family is inherently sexist while liberals argue that it merely reflects the values of society.
Why does Judith Stacey, as well as other postmodernists, argue plurality within the family.
Due to social and cultural values there is a wide range of family types that are all equal and valid. We all experience these to a degree and so there is no dominant one.
Explain Parson’s “Functional fit model.”
The family is dependent on the the type of society it is surrounded by and as such will change to better serve it’s functions.
How has the family changed as a result of industrialization?
The family has “mechanised” in the sense that there is now a work home sepration and that children leave when they are old enough as to remove inter-generational tension caused by differing levels of status.
