family diversity Flashcards
In order from most likely to conform to social pressure>individual choice, what are the 7 key features of family diversity?
MOST LIKELY TO CONFORM
-Traditional nuclear family
-Neo-conventional family*
-Matrifocal family (female headed)
-Creative singlehood
-Pure relationships*
-Divorce extended family*
-Same-sex couples as pioneers*
INDIVIDUAL CHOICE
What is creative singlehood?
The deliberate choice to live alone.
What does Stacey argue?
Greater freedom and choice has benefited women, it has enabled them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression.
What is the divorce extended family? STACEY
-Members are connected by divorce, rather than marriage.
-Key members are usually female and former in-laws.
What did Stacey find?
What did this create?
-In a case study in postmodern families in California, she found that women rather than men have been the main agents of changes in the family e.g. many of the women she interviewed rejected the ‘expressive’ role.
-Creating new types of family better suiting their needs e.g. the divorce extended family.
What does Giddens argue?
Choice and equality holds relationships today=’pure relationship’, no longer law, religion, social norms and tradition.
What is a key feature of pure relationships?
What happens as a result?
-It exists solely to satisfy each partners needs>the relationship is likely to survive only so long, as both partners think it is in their own interest to do so.
-Couples stay together because of love, happiness, sexual attraction, rather than tradition or for the sake of tradition.
-Individuals are free to chose to enter or leave relationships as they see fit.
What does Giddens note will happen as there is more choice? How does this lead to greater family diversity?
Personal relationships will become less stable.
Relationships can be ended by either partner at any time, rather than a permanent contract>creating more lone-parent, one-person, and step families.
How does Giddens see same-sex relationships as? Why? What happens as a result as this
-Pioneers (first to explore something), the leading way towards new family types and creating more democratic and equal relationships.
-This is because same-sex relationships are not influenced by tradition, like heterosexual relationships are.
-As a result, same-sex couples have been able to develop relationships based on choice, rather than traditional roles.
What is the individualisation thesis?
Traditional social structures e.g. class, gender and family have lost much of their influence over us.
What does the individualisation thesis say about people’s lives in the past? In contrast to now…?
In the past, people’s lives were defined by fixed roles that largely prevented them from choosing their own life course e.g. everyone was expected to marry and take up their appropriate gender role. In contrast to now, individuals in today’s society have fixed roles to follow.
The individualisation states we have become freed from..?
Traditional roles and structures, leaving us with more freedom to choose how we lead our lives.
What is a limitation of the individualism thesis?
Ignores the importance of structural factors, e.g. social class inequalities and patriarchal gender norms, in limiting and shaping our relationship choices.
What is the connectedness thesis?
We live within networks of existing relationships, which strongly influence our range of options and choices in relationships.
What caused the connectedness thesis to emerge?
Reflecting on the criticisms of the individualistic thesis, sociologists proposed an alternative thesis.
