Families Key Words Flashcards
Apollonian image of the child
Sees children as being born good but requiring the good aspects of their nature to be coaxed out of them sympathetically.
Beanpole family
The beanpole family is a 21st century version of the extended family: with a long thin structure, the beanpole family has strong ties but lives apart. There aren’t many children per family, but inter-generational ties are strong.
Birth rate
The number of live births per 1000 of the population per year.
Care gap
A shortage of capacity to care for family members eg. the problems produced when mothers from less developed countries emigrate in search of work but leave their children behind.
Cereal packet image of the family
The image of the family often presented in marketing as a conventional heterosexual nuclear family.
Child-centred
A situation in which the interests of children are put before the interests of adults.
Cohabitation
Living together in an intimate relationship without being married.
Confluent love
Love that is dependent upon partners benefiting from the relationship rather than unconditional love.
Conjugal roles
The roles of husband and wife within marriage (can also be cohabiting).
Death rate
The number of deaths per 1000 of the population per year.
De-differentiation
A decline in the importance of differences between things eg. between age groups.
Demographic revolution
A situation in which fertility rates and death rates decline as people come to expect lower rates of mortality and therefore have less children.
Dependency ratio
The number of people in non-economically active age groups (children & retired) relative to the size of the population of working age.
Developmentalism
The view that childhood consists of a series of stages in which children develop progressively.
Dionysian image of the child
Sees children as pursuing their own desires, which can lead to them acting in evil ways.
Disengagement
The gradual withdrawal of people from social roles eg. older people when they retire
Division of labour
The way in which jobs are divided up between 2 or more people - who does which sees them as opposite.
Dysfunctional families
Families which do not function well for family members or in fulfilling social roles eg. they fail to socialise children adequately
Economic base
In Marxist theory the foundation of society consisting on the economic system
Empty-shell marriage
A marriage where the partners continue to live together to live together but the emotional well-being and happiness of others.
Extended kinship network
The interrelationships between people related by blood or marriage regardless of whether they live together.
Familistic gender regimes
Sets of government policies which support which support traditional nuclear families in which husbands are the main breadwinner and wives do most of the domestic work.
Family career-core
The most basic family unit consisting of a mother and child/children.
Fertility rate
The number of live births per 1000 women aged 15 to 44 per year.
Friendship networks
Groups of friends who interact with one another without living together.
Gender regimes
Sets of government polices which make assumptions about the roles of men and women in family life.
Geographical mobility
The movements of people of different regions or countries.
Global chains of care
The interrelationship between migration and care when families are split up as a result of migration or other factors.
Globalisation
The process by which geographical distance and national boundaries become less important as different parts of the world become more interconnected.
Heteronorm
The belief that all sexually intimate relationships should be based on heterosexuality.
Ideological state apparatus
Parts of society which encourage people to accept the values favoured by the ruling class and which help to maintain capitalist society.
Illegitimacy
Children born to unmarried parents.
Individualism
An emphasis upon the desires or interests or individual people rather than those of wider social groups.
Individualistic gender regimes
Sets of government policies which do not assume that husbands and wives will follow traditional roles and which accommodate the choices made by individuals regardless of whether they are male or female.
Infant mortality rate
The number of children dying before their first birthday per 1000 of live births per year.
Kinship networks
Interrelationships between people related by blood or marriage whether or not they live together.
Life course
The development of and change in people’s lives lives over periods of time. Unlike life-cycle the life course does not have fixed and predictable stages.
Life-cycle
The stages of life eg. childhood, young adulthood and old age, which are predictable and assumed to be experienced in the same way by different people.
Malestream
To feminists, something which is mainstream and male-dominated or biased in favour of men.
Matrifocal family
A family headed by the mother where she is not co-resident with a male partner.
Metanarrative
A ‘big story’ about how the world works and how people should live their lives eg. a political theory or religion.
Net migration
The difference between the numbers entering and leaving a country (to live for some time & not a holiday).
