Families & Households: Family diversity Flashcards
Functionalism & Parsons ‘functional fit’
-Parsons sees the NF as uniquely suited to meeting the needs of modern society for a socially/geographically mobile workforce & performing irreducible functions (primary socialisation & stabilisation of adult personalities).
-Other families might be described as dysfunctional, abnormal.
The New Right - Traditional NFs
-NR like the conventional patriarchal family consisting of married couple, dependant children & breadwinner husband and homemaker wife.
-NR oppose most changes in family patterns: cohabitation, gay marriage, lone parenthood.
-They argue that lone parent families are harmful:
> lone mothers cannot discipline properly.
> leave boys without make tile model leading to education failure & delinquency.
> poorer and welfare state dependant.
Modernism & the NF
Functionalism & NR are modernist as they see modern society as having a fairly fixed, clear cut and predictable structure and see one ‘best’ family type, to perform society’s essential functions.
The NR: Cohabitation versus marriage (Benson)
-Analysed data on parents of over 15,000 babies and found the first 3 years of the baby’s life, rate of family breakdown was higher among cohabiting couples (20%, 6% with married couples).
-Argues couples are more stable when married, breakup less.
-Argues this is because of the deliberate commitment.
-Argues only returning to ‘traditional conservative values’ can prevent disintegration among children & regard laws such as easy access to divorce as undermining conventional family.
The NR: Criticisms of the NR
-Oakley feminist argued NR wrongly assume that husbands and wives roles are fixed by biology but cross cultural studies show otherwise.
-Feminists argue that this NF is based on patriarchal oppression of women and causes gender inequality & dependancy.
-Critics argue there’s no evidence that children in lone parent houses are more delinquent than others in their social class.
-Some people see cohabitation as a temporary phase rather than alt to marriage.
-Smart says poorer groups are likelier to cohabit.
Modernism & the NF: Chester: the Neo-conventional family (1985)
Defines neo-conventional family as a dual-earner family which is the only significant change in his view.
-Chester argued that many people aren’t part of a nuclear family at any one time because of the life cycle.
-Many one person household’s were previously married and part of an NF.
-Chester identified patterns;
> most people live in a married couple headed household.
> most adults marry and have kids.
> most marriages continue until death.
> cohabitation increased before marriage.
> births outside marriage has increased but most are jointly registered.
Argues the extent and importance of family diversity has been exaggerated.
Modernism & the NF: The RapoPorts - 5 types of family diversity
Argue that diversity is important in understanding familg type today and that families in Britain have adapted to a pluralistic society where cultures are more diverse reflecting a greater freedom of choice today.
They see this as a positive response to people’s different needs and wishes and not as abnormal or a deviation from a ‘proper’ NF family.
The 5 types of family diversity (Rapoports)
Organisational diversity: refers to differences in ways family roles are organised (some have joint conjugal roles).
Cultural diversity: different cultural, religious & ethnic groups have diffeent structures (more lone parent families in African-Caribbean’s).
Social-class diversity: income differences can mean different child-rearing practices.
Life-stage diversity: family structured differ according to the stage reached in the life cycle (young couple, widows).
Generational diversity: older and younger generations have different attitude and experiences reflecting historical periods in which they’ve lived.
Postmodernism & Family diversity (Cheal)
In this view, individuals have no real choice about the pattern of family life.
-Cheal says society has entered a new, chaotic postmodern stage.
-No single stable family and families are fragmented due to choice.
(More freedom to meet needs, but also a greater risk of instability).
-Due to diversity, people can ’pick and mix’ creating identities, subcultures and lifestyles.
-Due to rapid social change, new tech and electronic media, patterns of work has changed and life is less predictable and constantly changing.
Stacey: Postmodern families (1998)
Argues freedom/choice has benefited women freeing them from oppression.
-Used history interviews and did case studies of postmodern families in California and found women have been the main agents of changes in the family.
-E.g. Many women she interviewed rejected homemaker role, returned to education, created new families better suiting their needs.
Stacey’s PM families: Divorce-extended families
-Members connected by divorce rather than marriage, key members are usually female and may include former in laws such as mother in law, ex wives etc.
-Stacey said that in a case study, Pam Gamma created this (married young, divorced and cohabited then remarried and formed divorce extended family with first husband’s cohabiting partner Shirley, due to her kids in first marriage).
-Helped each other financially and domestically.
-Thus, Morgan argued it’s pointless to try to make large scale generalisations about ‘the family’ as if it were a single thing, when really it depends on who you ‘call’ your family.
Postmodernism & family diversity: Life course analysis (Hareven)
Uses in depth, unstructured interviews exploring the meanings that individual familg members give to relationships they have.
Similarly, Holdsworth & Morgan examine what it means for young people to leave home and become independent.
2 strengths:
> focussed on what family members themselves consider as important.
> particularly suitable for studying families where there’s more choice about personal relationships.
Postmodernism & family diversity: The individualisation thesis (Beck & Giddens)
Argues traditional social structures such as class, gender & familt have lost much of their influence over us.
-In the past, people’s lives were defined by fixed roles that largely prevented them from choosing their own life course.
-We’ve now been ‘disembedded from these roles and the ‘standard biography’ or life course that people followed in the past has been replaced by the ‘do-it-yourself biography’ that individuals must construct for themselves.
Giddens: choice & equality (1992)
Family & marriage have been transformed by greater choice & and a more equal relationship between men and women because:
-contraception allowing sex and intimacy rather than reproduction to become the main reason for the relationships existence.
-women have gained independence as a result of feminism & because of greater opportunities in education & work.
Giddens argues in the last, relationships held together by external forces (laws governing marriage) but today couples define themselves due to easy accessibility to divorce.
Giddens: choice & equality - The pure relationship
Intimate relationships nowadays are based on individual choice and equality.
-He sees this relationship as typical of today’s late modern society where a key feature is to satisfy each partner’s needs & as a result the relationship survives as long as each partner thinks it’s in their own interests to do so.
-Stay together because of love, sex, happiness rather than children or tradition.
-Insiivudals are free to choose to enter and leave relationships as they see fit and they become part of an individuals self-discovery.
-Less stability since it’s kind of a “rolling contract” now which can be ended by either partner due to less commitment. This leads to lone parents families, step families etc.
