family Flashcards
Cicero
the family is the seed bed of the state which is the ‘basis of society’
Primary socialisation methods
- manipulation: guilt or fear
- canalisation: dressing, hobbies to push for certain behaviour
- conditioning: punish (sanctions) and rewards
nuclear family
a married couple with their own children
extended family
aunts, uncles, and cousins
beanpole family
multigenerational: grand parents and great grand-parents
lone parent family
the most common family is the matrifocal one: lone parent is a mother of the children
reconstituted family
two nuclear families have split up and merged to form a new family
increased due to increased divorce and decreased marriage
empty nest family
a couple who had children but they have now left the family home
Murdock (functionalist)
found four functions of the family across a survey from 250 societies
1. educational: primary socialisation
2. economic: pooling resources and ensuring all have what they need
3. reproductive: produces next generation
4. sexual: all sexual relationships are controlled and stable
- gender roles are socially constructed and both men and women have specific functions
1. men who are physically stronger must be breadwinners
2. women who are naturally more nurturing must take care of the home and children
Parsons (functionalist)
organic analogy: institutions work together for society, like organs do for the body
argued that Murdock’s functions could be transferred to other institutions but the family still had two irreducible functions
1. primary socialisation: taught children the norms and values associated with their family/community
2. stabilisation of adult personalities: prevents adults from behaving in disruptive or dysfunctional ways
functional fit theory: each family is created to fit society at the time
warm bath theory: a man that comes home from work, his family provides him with stress relief which prevents dysfunctional and disruptive behaviour such as adultery
functionalist perspective on divorce
negative thing, children will not receive adequate primary socialisation
decrease in social order, lead to anomie for adults as well as children, hard to replace the unit of family
divorce is on the failure on social institutions for not have providing adequate socialisation
Willmott and Young (Functionalist)
based on social surveys, found that families were becoming symmetrical and men and women were performing similar roles, men and women both did paid work, domestic work and childcare and spent more leisure time together
ignores glass ceiling in the workplace for women
Functionalism criticism
ignores the darker side of the family, outdated, too deterministic
Engels (Marxist)
the family ensuring that wealth remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie through inheritance
- bourgeoisie owned all the wealth and resources and passed it down to the next generation of rich capitalists
- rich remained rich and poor remained poor
Zaretsky (Marxist)
evaluates warm bath theory, gave proletarian men something they could control and a space where they could be the “boss”, workers would tolerate the powerlessness because they had this private domain
sees family as a unit of consumption which meant that the family serves an economic function, consumers goods and services signifies a family’s wealth and status and mass media and advertising fed on this, children used their pester power to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, families spend more money and create profits for the bourgeoisie
families preserve capitalism as they weaken the position of the workers, because workers have to now think of providing for those dependent on them, and will not be willing to wait for better employment or go on strike
Fran Ansley’s (Marxist-feminist)
men’s frustration towards capitalism is misdirected towards women making women ‘the takers of shit’
Althusser (Marxist)
imbalanced structure that teaches its members to accept imbalances of power in wider society
- husbands taught to obey employers
- wives taught to obey husbands
- children taught to obey parents
family produces submissive individuals that will benefit capitalism
Marxist criticisms
- ignores other families besides the nuclear family
- overly deterministic
- ignores positive function
- ignores women
Ann Oakley (feminist)
conventional family = nuclear family=cereal packet family
this image of a family is presented in media and worked as a form of social control, people were expected to live in these families, and this controlled by making it harder to live alternative lives
arrangement of free labour works in the favour of men, childcare and housework duties do not finish at the end of the day while men can clock out and relax
evaluated Willmott and young and found that 70% of housework women did and whatever tasks men did were ‘cherry-picked’ and were small and once-in-a-while things
Duncombe and Marsden (feminist)
developed the idea of the triple shift where emotional work is added to domestic work and paid work
