Families Exam Prep

Question 1

Family

Answer 1

Family is defined as any combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time

Question 2

Nuclear Family

Answer 2

Traditional family unit, mom and dad and kid.

Question 3

Extended Family

Answer 3

Family consisting of all relatives (parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) often used in a more limited sense to define a family structure in which a
married couple and their children share a household with parents

Question 4

Dual Income Family

Answer 4

Both partners work, family has two sources of income

Question 5

Consumer Family

Answer 5

a family in which the husband was the exclusive provider and the head of the household, while the wife was the homemaker for whom products were manufactured to help create a comfortable home for the family

Question 6

Technological Family

Answer 6

new technologies make it possible to conceive a baby without sexual intercourse

Question 7

Orientation Family

Answer 7

A family that you are born into (mom,dad,siblings)

Question 8

Functions of the Family (Six)

Answer 8

-Physical maintenance of group
● Procreation or adoption
● Social control of members
● Nurturance and love
● Socialisation of children
● Production, consumption and distribution of goods and services

Question 9

Future Trends in the Canadian Family (The transition)

Answer 9

○ Access to money made women less dependent on men
○ Dual income families
○ Both spouses work full time
○ More common that couples had fewer or no children (legal birth control)
○ Divorce Act 1968 - more lenient guidelines
○ Same sex parents

Question 10

Hunter Gatherer Societies

Answer 10

● Societal structure driven by a daily quest for food
● Division of responsibly between men and women
● Men - make tools and hunt
● Women - gathered fruits, nuts, small animals, childbearing, nurturing
● Women held high status - men loved them for producing children
● Women consumed 2⁄3 more calories than the group
○ Because of their role as child bearers - women were essential to survival

Question 11

Agricultural Families

Answer 11

● The change from H-G societies to agricultural society noticed a shift in the family
● No longer nomadic peoples
● Because they grew their own food and raised their own animals no longer had to go out
on a quest for them, therefore settlements began
● Increase in manual labour meant you needed more people to farm and raise animals
● Larger families

Question 12

Urban Industrial Families

Answer 12

● Family became consumer based and not production based
● Wage labour
● Factory work
● Emergence of cities
● Smaller families
● Industrial Nuclear Family (Mother, Father, Children
● Notion of motherhood (worked at home and raised children) and were financially
dependent
● Witness a shift in status of women
● Men were wage earners
● Children went to school and were no longer needed to work on farms

Question 13

Pre-industrial Families

Answer 13

● Cottage Industry - commerce, technology, and crafts developed in popularity
● Merchants and artisans began to work at home when their wives and children could help
● People began to have fewer children because life in towns and cities did not sustain a
large number of people

Question 14

Contemporary Canadian Family

Answer 14

● Ideal family life of the traditional nuclear family in the first half of the century depended
on
○ Women accepting the role as wife and mother
○ Men accepting the role as provider and earning enough to support the whole
family
○ THEN, family has had to adapt to new political economic and social pressures of
life

Question 15

Structural Functionalism

Answer 15

● The oldest sociological theory - used by anthropologists
● Macro approach, broad focus on social structures that shape society
● Functionalists believe that everything and everybody in society has a function that allows
society run smoothly
● Roles are all interdependent - they need each other
● Looks at how society is organised to perform its required functions
● Social change can upset the balance in society

Question 16

Status

Answer 16

a position within a social group

Question 17

Roles

Answer 17

Set of expected behaviours within a status

Question 18

Norms

Answer 18

The most prevalent behaviours in a society

Question 19

Systems Theory

Answer 19

● Examines how family members interact as a system, a set of different parts that work
together and influence one another, the goal is to maintain stability
● Family systems have complex organisations
● A change in one member causes change in all members
● Messages and rules shape members, prescribe and limit a members’ behaviour over
time, they are sometimes explicit and often very implicit “be responsible” “do unto
others..”

Question 20

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 20

● Emphasises the mental process of perception and interpretation in determining the
behaviour of individuals
● Looks at how individuals behave based on their perceptions of themselves and others
● People define and interpret their experiences in the social world to give them meaning
● It is this meaning that matters, not the social facts
● Mental processes are not visible, only the actions that follow
● Charles Cooley - “I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what I
think you think I am”
● An individual develops a two part “self”
○ Me (objective qualities, concrete things, i.e., tall, teacher, athlete)

Question 21

Exchange Theory

Answer 21

● Making choices based on costs & benefits
● Maximise benefits (physical/emotional security, access to goods & services, & social
approval) & minimise costs (providing the aforementioned)
● Individuals know what they have to offer and what they need
● Social roles are stable when the exchange is equal; benefits = costs
● Benefits and costs are based on perceptions, not facts

Question 22

Conflict Theory

Answer 22

● A sociological/political theory that examines how ‘power’ holds society together
● Conflict exists because of inequities in power (the ability to control the behaviour of
other)
● Used to criticise rather than explain
● Society is organised into groups to divide people according to their power, groups
compete to meet their needs, competition can result in exploitation (i.e, oppression in the
U.S., Karl Marx
● Developed in the 19th century when inequities were great
● Often used for analysing power and authority within the family
● E.g., Men worked for the money in the family, women worked at home (unpaid labour)
● Men had all of the power (and money) in the household and women had no choice but to
marry and have children

Question 23

Feminist Theory

Answer 23

● Social and political theories that examine the impact of sex and gender on behaviour, look at the family is an exploitative institution

Question 24

Examine at Bias

Answer 24

● Androcentricity: bias that assumes that male behaviour is human behaviour
● Double Standard: biases that apply different standards for evaluating the behaviour of
men and women

Question 25

Types of Feminists

Answer 25

● Liberal
○ Discriminatory policies force women into an inferior social class that restricts their
rights to fully participate in society, they attempt to change social policy
● Socialist
○ Status of women based on inequalities roots in the division of paid and unpaid
labour, challenge capitalism and the patriarchal model
● Radical
○ Power issues always exist when a male-female relationship is involved, argue
that the only way to correct this is the development of female culture

Question 26

Family Life Cycle Theory

Answer 26

● Look at the behaviour demonstrated by individuals or families at various stages.
● Examines the biological, psychological and social & cultural factors that influence
development.
● Stages are marked by normative events: life, marriage, the birth of children etc.
● Some families will face non-normative events (death of a child, that will present unique
challenges).

Question 27

Theorists

Answer 27

Theories are essential tools when conducting research and, like any tool, should be suited to
the task and used appropriately.
● Theory refers to positions and ideas intended to explain something.
● Not facts – just attempts to explain evidence
● In social sciences, theories define patterns and trends, not rules or absolutes.

Question 28

Erik Erikson

Answer 28

● Erik Erikson believes we are pushed through various stages in life by our social and biological clocks. Our developmental tasks in adolescence are to form an identity and acquire independence.

Question 29

Jane Loevinger

Answer 29

● Autonomous Self - a complex concept that includes being a self-reliant person who
accepts oneself and others as multifaceted and unique
● Self aware level
○ Begin to understand and accept individual differences and to distinguish the
variations in feelings and opinions that make us unique
● Conformist stage
○ Tend to view life in stereotypical ways and as black and white, in an attempt to
classify human experience so that they can see where they belong in society
● Conscientious stage
○ They are able to appreciate others as individuals in reciprocal relationships

Question 30

Daniel Levinson

Answer 30

● Proposed that the era of early adulthood lasts 25 years
● During the period from the age of 22-28 the individual is entering the adult world
● He believes the “meshing of oneself in the world” is part of life structure.

Question 31

Klaus Riegel

Answer 31

● Suggests development in adulthood occurs not in predictable stages but as individuals
adjust in response to the interaction of both internal and external changes
● Internal biological clock and a changing external social clock
● Klaus Riegel examines development through changes in one dimension requiring
adjustment in another dimension. Therefore, he focuses on external dimensions.(which
are individual/psychological dimensions) He proposed that internal and external changes
must occur for adults to develop.

Question 32

Leonard Pearlin

Answer 32

● Attempts to rationalise how development can be unique to each individual yet appear to
occur in a common pattern
● Meaning race, gender, intelligence, family and education all play a role in how one
deals with developmental tasks, also having social support networks is important to
the stability and transition into adulthood, furthermore, the timing of stress is important
in determining the severity of psychological distress.

Question 33

Rites of Passage

Answer 33

● Rites of passage are stages of life marked by distinguishable rituals
● Rites of passages marks our progress from one status to another

Question 34

What is an Ego?

Answer 34

● Freud proposed the concept of an ego which is the understanding of oneself
● We all have an idea of who we are and this idea of oneself begins in infancy as we begin
to view ourselves as separate individuals

Question 35

Socialisation for Adulthood

Answer 35

● Adulthood requires a shift in our attitude, behaviour and outlook
● Adulthood also requires a change in our relationships with parents, friends, colleagues,
and society
● We are socialised into these new adult roles
● Resocialization: transition to a new role and we are then socialised in this new role
● Anticipatory Socialisation: allows people to learn and practise role behaviour before
actually taking a new role

Question 36

Symbolic Interaction Theory and Identity Formation

Answer 36

● We use a sense of who we are based on feedback from others
● We use the manner in which people react to us as an evaluation from who we are
● These external evaluations form who we are
● Like a mirror that reflects accurately what we look like, so do the responses of others
reflect who we are
● However, at times we distort what we see in a mirror just like we distort the responses of
other

Question 37

Sternberg and the Love Triangle

Answer 37

● Love is composed of 3 interdependent components
○ Intimacy - feelings of closeness, connectedness, bondedness
○ Commitment - remain with someone and move toward shared goals
○ Passion - feelings and desires that lead to physical attraction, romance, etc
● A relationship based on a single element is less likely to survive than one based on 2 or
more
● Allows for 7 types of love
○ Liking
○ Infatuation
○ Empty
○ Romantic
○ Companionate
○ Fatuous
○ Consummate

Question 38

Divorce

Answer 38

A marriage, valid or not, is dissolved (The Catholic Church does not grant divorces)

Question 39

Annulment

Answer 39

the judicial pronouncement declaring a marriage invalid

Question 40

Catholics and Marriage

Answer 40

● Catholics believe Marriage is a personal covenant
● A spiritual and emotional union which mirrors the one between God and his church
● Genesis 2:18,21-24
○ We see the first wedding
○ Marriage is God’s idea designed and instituted by the Creator
○ At the heart of God’s design for marriage is companionship and intimacy
○ Marriage is a partnership

Question 41

Anthropology

Answer 41

Anthropology is the study of human behaviour in societies; it is the study of culture, arts, beliefs, habits, institutions and endeavours that are characteristics of a specific
community, society and nation.

Question 42

Functional requisites

Answer 42

basic functions that must be carried out for societies to survive and thrive

Question 43

The Pace of Development (Clocks)

Answer 43

Chronological Clock
Biological Clock
Psychological Clock
Social Clock

Question 44

Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development

Answer 44

One’s identity emerges and matures in a series of eight stages
There is a dilemma at each stage
He believes that if you do not overcome the dilemma and move past it, you will have difficulty later in life
Individuals must be “ready” to move onto the next stage of development
One’s biological and social clock pushes them through the stages
Identity development reflects the process of the psychological clock

Question 45

Full Ego Development

Answer 45

Involves autonomous self which involves being a self-reliant person who accepts oneself and others
Loevinger’s stages are determined by the psychological clock
Full ego development may take a lifetime

Question 46

Three Stages Important for
Young Adults

Answer 46

Conformist Stage
Views life as black and white
Uses stereotypes to help identify issues
Individuals try to determine where they belong
Self-Aware Stage
One tries to understand and accept individual differences
One begins to distinguish differences in feelings and opinions of themselves and others
Conscientious Stage
Able to appreciate others as individuals in reciprocal relationships