Families & Households Flashcards
How does Pilcher describe modern, western childhood?
The ‘Golden age’ of childhood.
What is the main feature of Pilcher’s ‘Golden age of childhood’?
Separateness - childhood is a clear and distinct life stage, characterised as innocent and happy, with an exclusion from paid work and different dress.
What quote demonstrates Wagg’s disagreement with Pilcher?
“Childhood is socially constructed. It is, in other words, what members of
particular societies, at particular times and in particular places, say it is. There is no singular universal childhood, experienced by all. So, childhood isn’t ‘natural’ and should be distinguished from mere biological immaturity”
What evidence was found by these sociologists to support the idea that childhood is a social construction, as they take responsibility at a younger age?
1) Punch (2001)
2) Holmes (1974)
Punch (2001) found rural Bolivia that children worked from the age of 5
Holmes (1974)for not letting a child do something found in a Samoan village being
too young was never a reason
Other than taking responsibility at a younger age, how else did Benedict argue that children in non-industrial societies are treated differently?
- Less value is placed on children showing obedience to adults.
- Children’s sexual behaviour is often viewed differently.
How do sociologists argue that childhood is becoming ‘globalised’?
International humanitarian and welfare agencies have exported and imposed on the rest of the world western norms of what childhood should be. For example campaigns against child labour, or concerns about street children.
What three stages of childhood did Aries identify throughout history, in his comparison of art across time?
Middle Ages 10th – 13th Century
- The idea of childhood did not exist - no separation between them and adults socially or legally, with children working from an early age.
The Cult of Childhood 13th Century onwards
- This is when the modern view of childhood starts to emerge. Schools started to specialise in education just for the young, reflecting the influence for the church where children were seen as the ‘creatures of god’. Additionally there is a growing distinction between children’s and adults clothing, and handbooks on childrearing start to emerge
The Century of the Child 20th Century
- We are now in a world that is obsessed with childhood and Aries calls this ‘the century of the child’.
Which sociologist criticises Aries for saying childhood did not exist in the middle
ages, arguing instead that the notion of childhood was ‘different’.
Pollock
What reasons can be given for the changing position of children in society over time?
Laws restricting child labour and excluding children form paid work
The introduction of
compulsory schooling 1880
The growth of the idea of children’s rights
Declining family size and lower infant mortality rates
Children’s development became a subject of medical knowledge
Laws and policies that apply specifically to children
What is industrialisation, and how has it lead to the position of children in society changing?
Industrialisation is the shift from agriculture to factory production and has brought about many of those changes as modern industry needs an educated workforce and so compulsory schooling is needed.
What quote demonstrates DeMause’s ‘march of progress’ view?
“The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of childcare, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorised and sexually abused”
Which two sociologists other than DeMause hold a ‘march of progress’ view on childhood?
Aries and Shorter
Who argues that childhood has become ‘toxic’ and what points do they make to support this?
Palmer (2010):
* Junk food
* Computer games and social media – the ‘electronic village’
* Intensive marketing to children
* Long working hours of parents
* Growing emphasis on testing in education
Which perspectives would argue that childhood is based on conflict/ inequality?
Marxists and Feminists
What evidence is there for children being treated differently based on ethnicity?
Brannen (1994) – Asian parents were more likely than other parents to be strict toward daughters
Bhatti (1999) – found izzat (family honour) could be a restriction on the behaviour of girls
What evidence is there for children being treated differently based on gender?
Hillman (1993) – boys are more likely to be allowed to cross or cycle on roads, use buses, and go out after dark
Bonke (1999) - Girls do more domestic labour especially in lone parent families – 5x more than boys
What evidence is there for children being treated differently based on class?
Poor mothers are more likely to have low birth-weight babies – this is linked to delayed physical and intellectual development.
Working class children are more likely to suffer from hyperactivity disorders and conduct disorders.
Children born into poor families are far more likely to die in infancy, suffer long standing illness, be shorter in height, fall behind at school and be placed on child protection register.
What 5 forms of adult control do child liberationists think children need to be freed from?
Neglect and abuse
Control over children’s space
Control over children’s time
Control over children’s bodies
Controlover children’s access to resources
Who calls the inequalities between adults and children ‘age patriarchy’?
Gittins (1998)
What two strategies did Hockey & James (1993) find that children use to try to resist their status of ‘child’?
- Acting up
- Acting down
What do opponents of child liberationism argue?
Critics of the child liberationist view say that some adult control is needed over
children and it is justified as children cannot make rational decisions.
They also say that whilst a child does remain under adult supervision they are not as powerless as the liberationists claim, e.g. acts such as Children Act and UN convention on the Rights of the Child establishes that children have the legal right to be protected and consulted
What did Postman (1994) argue about childhood?
that it is disappearing at a ‘dazzling’ rate. He says the boundary between childhood and adulthood is becoming increasingly blurred.
How does Opie (1993) criticise Postman (1994)?
They argue that unsupervised childhood games, songs and rhymes still exist.
How does Jenks (2005) criticise Postman (1994)?
Jenks argues childhood is now undergoing a further change as we move from modernity to postmodernity. In modernity adults’ relationships were more stable but in postmodernity relationships are less stable e.g. divorce is more likely to occur.
Wich sociologists support the ‘Child’s Point of View’ perspective on understanding childhood?
Smart (2011)
Mason & Tipper (2008)
Smart et al’s (2001)
What happened to the number of divorces between 1961 and 1969 (and again in 1972).
They doubled
What percent of all marriages now end in divorce
40%
How many petitions for divorce now come from women?
63%, up from 37% in 1946.
What 7 explanations can you give for the increase in divorce rates?
-Changes in the law
-Declining stigma and changing attitudes
-Secularisation
-Rising expectations of marriage
-Women’s increased financial independence
-Feminist explanations
-Modernity and individualisation
What is the perspective of the new right on divorce?
They see the high divorce rate as undesirable because it undermines marriage and the traditional nuclear family which they see as ideal in society.
In their view a high divorce rate creates an underclass of welfare dependent lone
parents who are a burden to the state and who produce deviant boys with no male role
model
What is the perspective of feminists on divorce?
welcome the high divorce rate as in their eyes it is showing that women
are breaking free from patriarchal oppression of the nuclear family.
What is the perspective of postmodernists on divorce?
see high divorce
rates as showing individuals now have more freedom to end a relationship that no
longer meets their needs. They see divorce as a major source of greater family
diversity.
What is the perspective of interactionists on divorce?
aim to look at what divorce means to individuals. Morgan argues
we cannot generalise about the meaning of divorce as it’s different for everyone.
Mitchell & Goody give the example of two people that they interviewed one person
said that the day her dad left was the best day of her life, where as another said she
had never recovered from her dad leaving.
What is the perspective of functionalists on divorce?
argue that a high divorce rate is not a threat to the institute of
marriage as the high rate of re-marriage shows us that people are still committed to the
idea of marriage. Instead it shows us that people simply have a higher expectation of
marriage today
What is the personal life perspective view of divorce?
says that divorce can cause problems like
financial difficulty and lack of contact with children. However Smart (2011) argues
divorce has become normalised and it doesn’t mean that family life is disintegrating
instead it is adapting. Rather than seeing divorce as a social problem it should be
viewed as just another transition in the life course
Marriage rates are at their lowest since when?
1838
In 2019, what percentage of all marriages were re-marriages
14.7%
What is the average age for men and women to get married
32 for women, 34 for men
What 5 reasons can you list for the decline in marriages?
- Changing attitudes to marriage
- Secularisation
- Decline in stigma
- Changing position of women
- Fear of divorce
What could be causing the increase in re-marriages?
The increase in divorces
Which was the fastest growing family type in 2013?
cohabiting couples
How many cohabiting, heterosexual couples are there in the UK (as of 2021)?
about 3.6 million
How many cohabiting, homosexual couples are there in the UK?
about 69,000
What reasons can you give for the increase in cohabiting couples?
- Decline in stigma attached to sex before marriage
- Young people are more accepting of cohabitation
- Increased career opportunities for women: means they have less need for the financial security of marriage.
- Secularisation: young people with no religion are more likely to cohabit than those with a religion
What did Coast (2006) find out about cohabiting couples?
75% of cohabiting couples say that they expect to marry each other.
What does Bejin (1993) argue about cohabiting couples?
it is a conscious attempt to create a more equal relationship than marriage.
What percentage of Gen Z, and what percent of ‘Baby Boomers’ identify as straight? (according to Stonewall (2022))
Gen Z - 71%
Boomers - 91%
What issue arises when trying to compare rates of homosexual couples with those in the past?
stigma and illegality meant that these relationships were often hidden, so the true number is difficult to determine
What evidence is there to suggest a change in societal attitudes towards same sex relationships?
- Male homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967 for consenting adults over 21
- More recently the age of consent has been equalised with heterosexuals
- Opinion polls show more tolerance of homosexuality
- Social policy now treats all couples more equally
- 2002 Right to Adopt
- 2004 Civil Right Partnership Act gave same-sex couples similar legal rights to married
couples in respect of pensions, inheritance, tenancies and property - 2014 same sex couples have been able to marry
What does Weeks (1999) say about same sex relationships?
Weeks (1999) argues same sex relationships are starting to resemble heterosexual
relationships – given their increased social acceptance.
He argues same sex couples create their relationships based on ‘friendship as kinship’
where friendships become similar to kinships - these he describes as ‘chosen families’ as
they offer the same security as heterosexual families.
What do Allan and Crow argue about same sex relationships?
Allan & Crow argue that the absence of legal frameworks such as civil partnerships and
relationships up until recently means that same sex partners have had to negotiate their
commitment and responsibilities more than married couples. This may have made same sex
relationships both more flexible and less stable than heterosexual ones
In 2022, what percentage of households contained only one person?
13%
What percentage of one-person households are aged over 65?
51%
Which demographic are most likely to live alone?
Women over 75 (However, the number of men living alone has grown by more than the number of women living alone in the past decade (likely due to men’s increasing lifespan))
What reasons can you give for the change in statistics for one-person households?
Increase in separation and divorce.
Following a divorce, children are more likely to live with their mother.
The trend toward marrying later means people are remaining single for longer – the people who are single has risen by half since 1971.
People are opting for ‘creative singlehood’ – the deliberate choice to live alone
What does it mean if a couple is LAT
‘Living apart together’ this is a couple who are in a significant relationship, but do not live together.
Duncan and Phillips (2013) found that how many adults are in a LAT relationship?
1 in 10
How many of the people classed as ‘single’ in official statistics are in a LAT?
about half
What percentage of people reported that they see LAT as the ‘ideal relationship’?
20%
In 2021, what percentage of babies were born outside of marriage? What is significant about this statistic?
51% - this is the first year that more babies were born outside of marriage than within.
What is the average age for a woman to have a child? What WAS the average age in 1974?
31, 26 in 1974
What is the average number of children per woman?
2.27 (in 2021)
The later age that women are having children, decrease in family size and increase in those remaining childless are all arguably consequences of what?
Changing position of women.
What percent of families in the UK are lone parent families?
15%
What percent of lone parent families are headed by lone mothers?
84%
A child is how many times more likely to be in poverty than a child living with two parents?
2 times more likely.
What reasons are there for an increase in lone-parent households?
Increase in divorce and separation.
Decline in stigma.
What reasons are there for lone-parent households being mostly female headed?
- The belief that women are by nature suited to an ‘expressive’/ nurturing role.
- Fathers not seeking custody as often as mothers.
- Men may be less willing than women to give up work to care for a child.
What did Renvoize (1985) find that supports the idea of lone parent families being single by choice?
Renvoize (1985) found that professional women were able to support their child without the father’s involvement.
What did Cashmore (1985) find as a reason for women choosing to leave their partner?
Experiencing abuse.
Who sees lone parent families as problematic for society, as they often rely on welfare and are generally female headed, producing (in their opinion) delinquent boys who lack a male role model.
Charles Murray (1984)
What phenomenon does Charles Murray call ‘perverse incentive’
negative behaviour is rewarded and positive behaviour is sanctioned e.g. non- workers get benefits whereas workers are taxed.
How do critics respond to Charles Murray’s view on lone parent households?
Critics argue that welfare benefits are far from generous and lone parent families are instead more likely to live in poverty due to:
- Lack of adequate childcare meaning lone parents often cannot work
-Most lone parents being women (who typically earn less than men)
-Failure of fathers to pay maintenance, especially if they have formed a second family they have to support.
Step families (or ‘reconstituted families’) account for what percent of families with children in Britain?
10%
What did Ferri and Smith (1998) find out about step families?
Ferri & Smith (1998) found that stepfamilies are very similar to first families, and stepparent involvement in childcare is often positive – they are however at greater risk of poverty.
What did Allan and Crow (2001) find out about step families?
Allan & Crow (2001) found that stepfamilies often face problems of divided loyalty with the non- resident parent where tension can occur
What reasons are there for the statistics surrounding step families (or ‘reconstituted families’)
- Increase in divorce and separation
- More children are from the woman’s side because children are more likely to stay with
the mother - Greater risk of poverty because the stepfather may also be supporting other children
- Tensions faced may be due to lack of social norms about how individuals should behave
What percentage of black African and black carribean families are lone-parent households?
24%
