Family Diversity

Question 1

What is the new right perspective on families

Answer 1

The new white believe that the nuclear family is the ideal type of family. Where partners are married as it is the most stable environment to raise children.

Question 2

The new right perspective on families
Welfare state and lone parent families

Answer 2

The new right is Anti welfare state because they claim that it encourages higher levels of single parenthood, and is a cause of the growth of lone parent families

Question 3

The new right perspective on family
Lone-parent family

Answer 3

The new are concerned about the growth of lone parent families and they see these families as harmful to children. They think that mothers can’t discipline children properly and boys are left without an adult role model and attracted to delinquency

Question 4

The new right perspective on family
Cohabitation vs marriage

Answer 4

The right believe that the cohabiting of couples is the main cause of loan, parent families.

Question 5

The new right perspective on families
Cohabitation vs marriage
Harry benson and Family breakdown

Answer 5

He analyse data on parent of over 15,000 babies and found over the first three years of the babies life The rate of the family breakdown was higher among cohabiting couples.

Question 6

The new right perspective on families
Cohabitation vs marriage
Harry Benson and stability

Answer 6

Harry claims that married couples are more stable as it requires deliberate commitment, unlike cohabiting couples that avoid commitment and responsibility.

Question 7

The new right perspective on families
The view that the family and society are broken
New right, thinkers and conservative politicians

Answer 7

They argue that only the return of traditional values like marriage can prevent social disintegration and damage to children. They also argue that laws and policies enable easy access to divorce are undermining the conventional family.

Question 8

The new right perspective on families
Criticism to the new right
Ann Oakley 1997

Answer 8

Argues that the right wrongfully, assume that men and women roles are biologically fixed, and also believes that the new rights view of family’s is a negative reaction against feminist campaigns and female equality.

Question 9

The new right perspective on families
Criticism to the new right
Feminists

Answer 9

They argue that the ideal family favoured by the new right is based on patriarchal oppression of women and a cause of gender inequality.

Question 10

The new right perspective on families
Criticism to the new right
Children as delinquent in lone parent families

Answer 10

Evidence shows that there is no way of known whether the children from lone parent families are more likely to be delinquent.

Question 11

The new right perspective on families
Criticism to the new, right
Carol, Smart, 2007

Answer 11

Argues that poverty may cause family breakdowns, rather than couples, choosing not to marry.

Question 12

Functionalist perspective
Nuclear family and functions

Answer 12

the nuclear family is uniquely suited to meeting the needs of modern society by performing two functions, primary socialisation of children and stabilisation of adult personalities, which contribute to stability and effectiveness of society.

Question 13

Functionalist perspective on family
The effectiveness of nuclear families performing the essential functions

Answer 13

We can generalise about the type of family that we will find in modern society, which is the nuclear family with a division of labour. Other families are considered dysfunctional, abnormal and deviant as they are less able to perform the functions.

Question 14

Chester: the neo-conventional family
Robert Chester on family diversity

Answer 14

He’s recognised that there has been increased family diversity in the recent years, but he does not regard this as significant or in a negatively. the only important change is a shift from the dominance of the traditional families to neo conventional families

Question 15

Chester: the Neo conventional family
Chester and the conventional family

Answer 15

The conventional family is the type of nuclear family described by new right and parsons with its division of labour between a male bread winner and a female homemaker.

Question 16

Chester: neo conventional family
What is a neo conventional family?

Answer 16

The Neo conventional family is described as a dual earner family. Where both spouses go to work, this is similar to the symmetrical family described by young and Wilmott

Question 17

Chester: Neo conventional families
Nuclear family as the ideal family

Answer 17

Chester suggests that most people are not choosing to live in alternatives to nuclear families, such as lone parent families on a long-term basis, and the nuclear family remains the ideal to which most people aspire

Question 18

Chester: neo, conventional families
Everyone once being in a nuclear family

Answer 18

Although many people are not part of a nuclear family at any one time Chester argues this is due to the life cycle, many people who are currently living in a one person household were either part of nuclear family in the past, or will be in the future.

Question 19

Chester: Neo, conventional families
statistics on households as misleading

Answer 19

Statistics on household composition are misleading, because they are mainly in snapshot of a single moment in time, and don’t show us the fact that most people will spend a majority part of their lives in a nuclear family

Question 20

Chester: Neo, conventional families
Evidence of little being changed, patterns found by Chester

Answer 20

• most live in a household, headed by a married couple
• most adults Marry and have children
• Cohabitation has increased but for most it’s temporary before marrying or remarrying.

Question 21

Chester: neo, conventional family
Chester and functionalists

Answer 21

They both see the nuclear family as dominant. However, the difference is that Chester sees a change from a conventional to a neo conventional nuclear family which functionalists don’t see.

Question 22

Rapoports: five types of diversity
Rona and Robert Rapaport, and diversity

Answer 22

They argue that diversity is of central importance in understanding family life today, and believe that we have moved away from traditional nuclear families as the dominant family to arrange a different types, and this reflects the greater freedom of choice.

Question 23

Rapoports: five types of family, diversity
First type

Answer 23

The organisational diversity: refers to the differences in ways. Family roles are organised. Some couples have joint conjugal roles while others have segregated conjugal rolls.

Question 24

Rapoports: five types of family, diversity
2nd type

Answer 24

Cultural diversity: different cultural, religious and ethnic groups have different family structures. There’s a higher proportional female headed loan, parent families among African Caribbean households, and a higher proportion of extended families among Asian households.

Question 25

Rapoports: five types of family, diversity
3rd type

Answer 25

Social class diversity: differences in family structure are partly the result of income differences between households of different social classes.

Question 26

Rapoports: five types of family, diversity
4th type

Answer 26

Life stage diversity: pharmacy structures differ, according to the stage, reached in the life cycle.

Question 27

Rapoports: five types of family, diversity
5th type

Answer 27

Generational diversity: older and younger generations have different attitudes, and experiences that reflect the historical period in which they have lived. They may have different views about the morality of divorce or cohabitation.

Question 28

Postmodern and family diversity
Postmodern view of family, diversity
David Cheal

Answer 28

Post-modernists view that we no longer live in modern society with its predictable, orderly structures, such as the nuclear family and society has entered a new chaotic postmodern stage.

Question 29

What is Postmodern society

Answer 29

There is no longer one dominant stable family structure, such as a nuclear family,instead family structures have become fragmented into many different types and individuals have more choice in their lifestyles, personal relationships and family arrangements

Question 30

Postmodern society and the family
Diversity and fragmentation

Answer 30

Society is increasingly fragmented with greater diversity of cultures and lifestyles. There is a collection of sub coaches and people can create their identities and lifestyles from a wide range of choices.

Question 31

Post modernsociety and the family
Rapid social change

Answer 31

New technology and electronic media has dissolved old batteries of time and space and transformed our patterns of working and leisure and accelerated the pace of change.

Question 32

Post modernism and family diversity
Advantages and disadvantages of greater diversity and choice

Answer 32

It gives individuals greater freedom to plot their own life course by choosing the kind of family and personal relationships. However, the greater freedom means greater risk of instability.

Question 33

Postmodern families
Judith Stacey and greater freedom and choice for women

Answer 33

The greater freedom has benefited women as it is enabled them to freed themselves from patriarchal oppression to shape their family arrangements to meet their needs.

Question 34

Postmodern families
Judith Stacey and greater freedom and choice for women
Use of interviews

Answer 34

She used life history interviews to construct a series of case studies of postmodern families in silicone Valley, California, and found that women rather than men have been the main agents of changes in the family.

Question 35

Postmodern families
Judith Stacey and greater freedom and choice for women
The type of women she interviewed

Answer 35

Many of the women had rejected the traditional housewife role, had worked, returned to education as adults improving their job, prospects, divorced and remarried. these women had often created new family types that better suited their needs.

Question 36

Postmodern families
Judith Stacey and greater freedom and choice for women
Divorce extended family

Answer 36

Family, whose members were connected by divorce rather than marriage. The members are usually female and they include former in-laws, such as mother and daughter-in-law’s, or man’s ex-wife and his new partner.

Question 37

Postmodern families
Judith Stacey and greater freedom and choice for women
Divorce extended family cases

Answer 37

The cases illustrate, the idea that postmodern families are diverse, and that their shape depends on the active choices People make about how to live their lives.

Question 38

Postmodern families
David Morgan

Answer 38

is pointless to make large scale generalisations about the family, as if they were a single thing. Instead sociologist should focus their attention on how people create their own diverse family, lives and practices

Question 39

The individualisation thesis
Anthony Giddens, and Ulrich, Beck

Answer 39

Traditional social structures such as class, gender and family have lost much of their influence over us, and according to the thesis in the past peoples lies were defined by fixed roles but today society have fewer such certainty of fixed roles to follow.

Question 40

The individualisation thesis and becoming free from traditional roles

Answer 40

The thesis claims that we have become freed from traditional roles and structures, leaving us with more freedom to choose how we lead our lives.

Question 41

The individualisation thesis
Rick Beck, and the standard biography of life

Answer 41

the standard biography of life course that people followed in the past has now been replaced by the do it yourself biography the individuals today must construct for themselves and this change has implications for family diversity

Question 42

Anthony Giddens, choice and equality
Family and marriage being transformed by greater choice and equality

Answer 42

The transformation has occurred because of contraception allowing sex and intimacy to become the main reason for the relationships existence. women have gained independence as a result of feminism and the greater opportunities of education and work.

Question 43

Giddens choice inequality
The result of the transformation made to marriage and family

Answer 43

The basis of marriage and the family has changed and in the past traditional family relationships together by external forces, such as the law, but now couples are free to define their relationships themselves.