Families and Households Flashcards
Functionalism: Parsons.
Primary socialisation of children, value consensus, stabilisation of adult personalities (warm bath theory).
Males: instrumental leaders.
Females: expressive leaders.
Functionalism: Murdock.
Reproductive, sexual, educational, economic.
Functionalism: Evaluation.
Still aim to live as a nuclear family. Social policies have an origin in functionalist theories.
Consumption is a key feature.
Child abuse and domestic violence are ignored.
Ethnocentric and heteronormative.
Reproduction is less important.
Other sources of socialisation have overtaken the family.
Marxism: Zaretsky.
Family supports capitalism. Children are socialised into becoming future workers. Alternative ideas are suppressed. Manages resentment of capitalist system. Responsibilities such as bills and mortgages.
Inequalities are unchallenged.
Marxism: Overview.
Wealth is passed down through inheritance. Maintains divide between bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Workers are less likely to strike due to the necessity of providing for family.
Marxism: Evaluation.
Targetted by advertisers. Working class parents teach working class norms and values.
Too simplistic, dismissive of social and emotional satisfaction gained from family.
Feminism: Oakley.
Gender inequality is a product of institutional discrimination. Socialisation leads to creation of patriarchal discrimination.
Feminism: Wilkinson.
Women more able to take up jobs, no longer dependent on a partner. Genderquake.
Greater aspirations.
Greater reproductive rights.
Feminism: Evaluation.
Only explains progression for white, middle class, professional women.
Corsaro: no established link between gender role socialisation and role development.
Feminism: Marxists.
Social class inequalities main source of oppression. Patriarchal ideologies benefit the capitalist society.
Feminism: Radical.
Gender inequality main source of oppression. Nuclear family benefits heterosexual men. Permits violence against women. Natural division of labour.
New Right:
Family is central in social policies. Poor behaviour is down to poor family background. Nuclear family is ideal. Single motherhood leads to a culture of welfare dependency.
Postmodernism:
Free to construct own identity. Society is a collection of subcultures. Family is less stable. Greater diversity. Domestic violence undermines positives.
Policy: Donzelot.
Policy is a form of state control over family. Professionals exercise power over clients through knowledge (policing of families).
Fletcher says social policy is a progression to a society where families are assisted by the state rather than controlled.
Policy: Leonard.
Male head of household benefits from women’s services. Women financially and emotionally dependent. Nobody was interested in wellbeing of women. Single mothers reliant on state benefits. Lesbians regarded as a subject of amusement.
Social policies constructed on women and children’s dependency on men.
Equal pay and welfare benefits support women.
Policy: Murray.
Social policies designed to support nuclear families and encourage self reliance, reducing a culture of dependency.
Feminists argue this pushes women back into a homemaker role. Marxists say this would push more working class families into poverty.
Policy: Evaluation.
Tax and welfare favour heterosexual married couples. Mothers are more often granted custody after a divorce. Housing is designed with the nuclear family in mind.
State intervention has increase.
Functional single parent may be more beneficial than dysfunctional nuclear family.
Patterns in Marriage.
Steep decline, increase in age, increase in middle class.
Corse: less working class get married, decline in factory jobs. Berthoud: 3/4 Pakistani and Bangladeshi women married by 25, compared to 1/2 white women.
Married people live longer.
Secularisation.
Still a life goal.
Patterns in Cohabitation.
Number of couples doubled, fastest growing household type, increased children born outside of wedlock.
New Right: argue cohabitation is replacing marriage.
Morgan: ‘marriage-lite’.
Murphy: worse results, left school earlier, more likely to develop serious illnesses.
Beaujoauan and NiBrolchain: test run, decline in marriages ending in divorce.
Patterns in Divorce.
Major increase, number of silver splitters increased.
Alternatively: separation, empty-shell marriages.
1969 Divorce Reform Act. Changes in attitude. Higher marital standards. Secularisation of society. Declining influence of extended family.
Patterns in Childbearing.
Decreased over time, recent slight increase.
More reliable birth control. Prioritising careers. Voluntary childlessness.
Increase in fertility due to immigration.
Life Course:
Postmodernists: focus on life course instead of family. Individual may live in several different household types.
Single Person Household:
Largest type of household, increase in divorce, increase in geographic mobility, less social stigma, increase in affluence. 47% are elderly one-person households.
Single Parent Household:
91% led by women. New Right: incentive of welfare benefits. Large proportion not in work.
Mooney: parental conflict greater negative effect than parental separation.
Patterns: Chester:
Neo-conventional: dual earning, both spouses work, greater equality.
Patterns: Giddens:
Personal relationships less stable with choice. Less likely to get married due to structural changes.
Pure relationship: only lasts as long as both partners are happy.
Patterns: Rapoports:
Diversity in life-cycle, organisational, cultural, social class, life-stage, generational.