Families and Households: Theoretical Perspectives

Question 1

Value consensus

Answer 1

A shared set of norms and values into which society socialises its members. This enables them to cooperate to meet society’s needs and achieve shared goals.

Question 2

What are functionalists interested in, in terms of the family?

Answer 2

• The contribution that the family makes to satisfy the functionalist prerequisites which enable society to survive.
• How the family fits with other social insitiutions so that society functions efficiently and harmoniously.

Question 3

Murdock (1949)

Answer 3

Argues that the family performs 4 essential functions to meet the needs of society and its members:

1. Sexual
2. Reproduction
3. Socialisation
4. Economic

Question 4

Murdock (1949) - Functions of the family:

Sexual

Answer 4

The family performs the function of the stable satisfaction of the sex drive with the same partner, preventing the social disruption caused by a sexual ‘free-for-all’.

Question 5

Murdock (1949) - Functions of the family:

Reproduction

Answer 5

The family performs the function of reproduction of the next generation, without which society could not continue.

Question 6

Murdock (1949) - Functions of the family:

Socialisation

Answer 6

The family performs the funstion of the socialisation of the young into society’s shared norms and values.

Question 7

Murdock (1949) - Functions of the family:

Economic

Answer 7

The family serves the function of meeting its members’ economic needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter.

Question 8

Evaluation of Murdock (1949)

Answer 8

• Murdock accepts taht other institutions could perform thses functions, however he argues that the sheer practicality of the nuclear family as a way of meeting these 4 functional prerequisites explains why it is universal.
• However, critics claim that other non-nuclear family structures are just as capable of fulfilling these functions.
• They also question Murdock’s ‘rose-tinted’ consensus assumption that all nuclear families carry out these functions.

Question 9

Parsons ‘Functional fit’ Theory (1955)

Answer 9

According to Parsons the particular structure and functions of a given family will ‘fit’ the needs of society in which it is found. Reflecting this he argues when society changes from traditional to modern, the family changes on two levels:

1. Its structure changes from extended to nuclear.
2. It looses many of is functions.

Question 10

Parsons ‘Functional fit’ Theory:

Strcutural Changes:

Answer 10

• When Britain began to industrialise the extended family (3-gen living under one roof) began to give way to the nuclear family (just parents and dependent children).
• This was becuase emerging industrial society had different needs from pre-industrial society and the family adapted to meet these needs.

Question 11

Accoridng to Parsons (1955) what are the two essential needs of industrial society?

Answer 11

1. A geographically mobile workforce: Easier for the compact two-gen nuclear family to be mobile and move around the country for work than it would be for three-gen extended families’.
2. A socially mobile workforce: Tensions and conflicts would emerge if a socially mobile younger generation achieving higher status than their parents still lived at home.

Question 12

Parsons Functional fit Theory:

Functional Changes

Answer 12

• Parsons argues that the evolution of society involves a process of specialisation and structural differetiation.
• As society develops and becomes icreasingly complex, institutions specialise in fewer functions.

Question 13

What is Structural differentiation (Parsons)?

Answer 13

• The transfer of many traditional family functions to other institutions: work into factories, education into schools, healthcare into hospitals.
• The family has thus been stripped of some of its more general non-essential functions.
• For Parsons this is a positive development as it means the family has become a more specialised agency.

Question 14

What are the two basic and ‘irreducable functions’ of the family according to Parsons (1955)?

Answer 14

1. The primary socialisation of children: Argues families are ‘factories’ of human personalities.
2. The stabilisation of adult personalities: Once the personality is established it must be kept stable. Adults need emotional security, and this is seen as being best achieved through the marital relationship and parenting roles.

Question 15

What does Parsons (1955) argue about children’s personalities?

Answer 15

• Children’s personalities are structured through the internalisation of their society’s culture. Children absorb the norms and values of the society they grow up in to the point where they become part of him/her/them - they are moulded in terms of the central value system of society.

Question 16

Young and Willmott (1973): Pre-industrial family

Answer 16

• Produced evidence that contradicted Parsons view of the family. Found that the pre-industrial family was nuclear and not extended, with parents and children working together.

Question 17

Laslett (1972)

Answer 17

Found that households between 1564 and 1821 were almost always nuclear. Furthermore, a combination of late childbearing and short life expectancymeanthat grandparents were unlikely to be alive for very long after the birth of their first grandchild.

Question 18

Young and Willmott: Extended families

Answer 18

Found that extended families didn’t cut ties following industrialisation. The hardship of the period gave rise to ‘mum-centered’ working-class extended families, based on ties between mothers and their married daughters, who relied on each other for financial, practical, and emotional support.

Question 19

Anderson (1980)

Answer 19

• Study of Preston in the mid-19th century showed thepopularity of working class extended families.
• The harsh conditions of the time (poverty, sickness, early death, absence of welfare) meant that the benwefits of maintaining extended family ties greatly outweighed the costs.
• Benefits included using older family members for childcare while parents worked and taking in orphaned relatives to produce extra income and help torwards rent.

Question 20

Evaluation of the Functionalist perspective:

Answer 20

• Issues of conflict, class, violence, and exploitaton of women are ignored.
• They assume families and their members are simply passive puppets manipulated by the structure of society to perform certain functions.

Question 21

What other institution could meet the economic function of the family (Structural differentiation)?

Answer 21

The welfare state

Question 22

Does functionalism view the family from a positive or negative point of view?

Answer 22

They view the nuclear family from a positive point of view, as the believe it performs the essential functions of society.

Question 23

Does Marxism view the family from a positive or negative point of view?

Answer 23

Marxists criticise the family becuase they believe the way the family functions, serves to preserve the fundementally deliberating patterns and interests of capitalism. They claim it obstructs the emergence of a socialist utopia, becuase it props up capitalism.

Question 24

Which perspective criticises functionalism for assuming people are passisve puppets?

Answer 24

Interactionalism

Question 25

What are the five key processes whereby families support and reflect capitalist relations?

Answer 25

• Families encourage and reproduce heirarchical, unequal relationships.
• Families act as a safety valve, dampening down discontentment.
• Families serve to reproduce labour power.
• They are a unit of consumption.
• And a means for the bougoise to transer their wealth via inheritance.

Question 26

What is meant by status quo?

Answer 26

The existing state of affairs.

Question 27

What is meant by ‘pester power’?

Answer 27

The tendency of children, who are bombarded with advertisements, to relentlessly request products.

Question 28

According to Marxists how do families reproduce heirarchical, unequal relationships?

Answer 28

• Children are socialised to accept patters of authority, obedience, and power. In this way they become well practiced in subordination and become subservient.
• Children observe and accept heirarchy. The family is based on unequal relationships between males and females, and parents and children. Thus, it represents a microcosm of the workplace.
• This creates a habit of deferring to authority, therefore the family functions to sustain unequal relationships outside itself.
• The faamily acts as a barrier to the development of a strong, organised, and collective opposition to the status quo - it opperates by ideologically supporting capitalism.

Question 29

According to Marxists how do families act as a safety valve, dampening down discontentment?

Answer 29

• In capitalist societies work is alienating and expolitatve, which leads to discontent.
• As a result the family is placed on a pedastal and seen as the source of satisfaction.
• The family ideologically functions to cushion the effects of capitalism even though it cannot compensate.

Question 30

Zaretsky (1979)

Answer 30

• States that in capitalis society the exploitative nature of work leads to feelings of discontentment.
• Observes the fundimental irony of the way the family is seen as a source of satisfaction.
• The less fulfilling the work the more people cling on to the family as their only hope and source of value and satisfaction.
• Yet in doing so they allow the structures of inequality (capitalism) to continue.
• The family in dampening down discontement, perpetuates the very system which produces it.

Question 31

According to Marxists how to families serve to reproduce capitalist labour power?

Answer 31

• In providing a place where children can be born and raised in relative safety, the family reproduces the future labour force with the correct attitudes required.
• By offering a centre for relaxation, refreshment, rest and recreation, the family also ensures that members of the labour force return to work each day fit and healthy so they can be productive at work.

Question 32

According to Marxists how does the family act as a unit of consumption?

Answer 32

• Advertisers urge families to ‘keep up with the Jonses’ by consuming all the latest products and creating false needs.
• The media target children who use ‘pester power’ to persuade their parents to spend more.
• Children who lack the latest clothes or ‘must have’ gadgets are mocked and stigmatised by their peers.
• Through its purchasing the family keeps the capitalist economy ticking over.

Question 33

Engles (1884)

Answer 33

Said the family had an economic function of keeping wealth within the bougoise by passing it on to the next generation as inheritance.

Question 34

How did Inheritance bring female sexuality under male control?

Answer 34

There was a rise in the monogamous nuclear family due to the problem of inheritnce, becuase men needed to be sure the children they were raising were their own.

Question 35

Evaluation of the Marxist Perspective of the family:

Answer 35

• Assume that the nuclear family is dominant in capitalist society. Ignores the variety of family structures found in todays society.
• Femenists argue that the Marxist emphasis on class underestimates the importance of gender inequalites within the family.
• Functionalists argue that Marxists ignore the real benefits of the family.
• There is no explanation for why the family flourishes as an institution in non-capitalist societies.
• Assumes families + members are simply passive puppets manipulated by the structure of society to perform functions.

Question 36

What is the New Right?

Answer 36

A conservative political approach, which favours the traditional nuclear family, believeing it is the ideal family structure. They are strong supporters of the institution of marriage and are critical of many contemporary trends which they believe have undermined these structures.

Question 37

What is the New Right critical of?

Answer 37

• Family diversity.
• Social policies on family, children, divorce and welfare.

Question 38

Murray (1898)

Answer 38

Said welfare benefits asre too high and create a ‘culture of dependency’, where an individual finds it easy and acceptable to take benefits rather than work.

Question 39

Why are the New Right critical of lone parent families:

Answer 39

• Expensive family unit as disproportionately dependent on benefits.
• Dysfunctional family unit as children lack male role model
• Reflect a lack of moral responisbility e.g. children of divorce/out of marriage - breaks down traditional values and causes social problems.

Question 41

Evaluation of the New Right perspective on the family:

Answer 41

• Criticised for ‘blaming the victim’ for their problems.
• People with mental helath problems or a disability don’t actively choose not to work.
• Most people are not dependent by choice.
• A generalisation.
• Not all LPF are headed by mothers - argument of a lacking male role model doesnt make sense.

Question 42

Postmodernist - Stacey (1990)

Answer 42

• Reckons there is such a diversity of family types, relationships, and lifestyles that there will never be one dominant type of family is Western culture again.
• Argues family structures are varied and flexible meaning a person can move from one structure to the necxt and not get stuck with one fixed structure.

Question 43

What is the Postmodernist Perspective on the Family?

Answer 43

Believe the old established traditions, and certanties associated with modern societies have almost collapsed for example the traditional family, monogamy, and employment for life. In relation to the family they celebrate greater individualism and believe it is reflected in greater family plurality and diversity.

Question 44

Why do Postmodernists believe postmodern society is like a ‘cultural supermarket’?

Answer 44

They believe that individuals have much greater freedom to choose and negotiate their own lifestyle. People now have the ability to ‘pick n mix’ their own life and liufe-couse reflecting their own individual needs and preferences.

Question 45

What trends to Postmodernists interpret in positive terms?

Answer 45

• Cohabitation
• Divorce and remarriage
• Single Person Households
• Reconstituted families
• Gay households

e.ct.

Question 46

Evaluation of the Postmodernist Perspective on the family:

Answer 46

• Critics question wheather a movement through different family types is really all that typical.
• Stigma still exists that creates a barrier to just choosing a new identity
• Some people are negatively labelled or stereotyped in a way that they find it hard to overcome those labels.

Question 47

What is meant by a ‘bottom up’ approach to the family?

Answer 47

Looking at individual meanings and experiences first, rather than society to gain knowladge

Question 48

Give three examples of relationships that some people regard as ‘family; but are not based on blood or marriage:

Answer 48

1. Mum’s friend who you call Auntie
2. Godmothers/Godfathers
3. Friends who are like siblings

Question 49

What is the Personal life Perspective on the family?

Answer 49

• They are influenced by interactinalist and postmodernist perspectives and reject the structural view as it ignores the fact that people have some choice in creating family relationships.
• They argue that to understand the family today we must focus on the meanings its members give to their relationships and situations, rather than on the family’s supposed functions (good or bad).

Question 50

What relationships does the Personal Life Perspective argue are significant?

Answer 50

• Relationships with friends - people who are ‘like a sister or brother’
• Fictive Kin - Mum’s best friend who you call ‘auntie.
• Gay and lesbian chosen families - supportive network of close friends, ex partners, e.c.t.
• Relationships with dead relatives - living on in memories.
• Relationships with pets.

Question 51

What view of relationships does the Personal Life Perspective take?

Answer 51

The personal life perspective takes a wider view of relationships than just traditional ‘family’ ties based on blood or marriage. These include all relationships that indiciduals see as significant and give them a sense of identity, belonging, and relatedness.

Question 52

Evaluation of the Personal Life Perspective:

Answer 52

• Accused of being too broad. By including a wide range of different kinds of relationships, critics say we ignore what is special about relationships based on blood or marriage.
• It does not see intimate relationships as performing the important function of providing us with a sense of bleonging and relatedness.
• Perspective recognises that relatedness is not always positive. People may be trapped in violent or abusive relationships or ones where thye suffer from unhappiness, hurt, or lack of respect.