Family diversity! Flashcards
What do the New Right believe about the family?
Nuclear family = ideal family type
What views do conservatives hold on the family?
- Most natural - married couple (heterosexual)
- Instrumental and expressive roles (based on biology)
What family type does the New Right HATE?
lone parent households (especially led by the mother)
Why does the New Right HATE lone-parent mothers?
- Can’t be role models to their sons - leads to educational failure, delinquency and social disintegration
- Can’t discipline children properly
- More likely to be poor - dependency culture (Murray)
Which type of partnership do New Right realists believe is the best to raise children?
Married couples - Benson (2006) - 20% cohabiting relationships breakdown vs 6% marriages - most stable!
Why does Benson say that marriages are more stable than cohabiting couples?
Former - have a commitment more likely to stick to it and be responsible vs cohabiting - can avoid commitment and responsibility?
What is the New Right’s solutions to society and the family being broken?
Return to traditional views and values
Anti-divorce, gay marriage and easier access to welfare - undermines the family
- Anti-welfare (dependency culture)
What is the neo-conventional family according to Chester (1985)?
Move away from instrumental and expressive roles to dual earner households where both partners take on the instrumental role
True or false: Chester states that not much has changed in terms of family diversity?
True - most people end up in a nuclear family
State three reasons why Chester believes that the nuclear family is still the most dominant family type
- Most people live in a family headed by a married couple
- Cohabitation has increased, but is often used as a stepping stone to marriage (nuclear family)
- Most marriages continue until death and a lot of people re-marry
What do postmodernists believe about the family?
No longer live in a stable and predictable society - the family has become fragmented
What does Stacey (1998) say postmodernism has enabled women to do?
Free themselves from patriarchal relationships - they rejected the housewife role and went to work, university and divorced/remarried
What is the individualisation thesis?
Traditional social structures that used to govern our relationships have lost influence leading to increased choice
What is life-course analysis?
Explores the meanings individuals give to relationships rather than impose the sociologist’s meanings onto them
What research method is for the life course analysis?
Unstructured interviews
According to Giddens (1992) how has choice and equality affected relationships?
People are free to define relationships themselves, free from the constrains of society
Why have changes occurred in relationships according to Giddens?
Contraceptives - relationship is based around sex and intimacy rather than reproduction (Durkheim)
What are pure relationships?
Relationships based on couples meeting each other’s emotional and sexual needs - people stay together because they want to, not because of society or familial pressure
What is the downside of pure relationships?
Rolling contract - people can more or less leave at their will rather than stay committed - leads to more diversity
What does Giddens see same-sex couples as?
Pioneers for family diversity since they do not conform to heterosexual norms of modern society
What is Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s (1995) view of the negotiated family?
Don’t conform to traditional norms but negotiate what works for each family member - equal relationship
What is the zombie family?
Appears to be real but is dead, people seek stability when reality is very unstable (risk society)
What are the critiques to the postmodernist view on family diversity?
Overexaggerates the amount of choice people have in society (Budgeon 2011)
May and Smart - Ignored structural issues - ethnicity, class and gender
Einasdottir (2011) - lesbianism is tolerated but heteronormativity still exists - leading to people not coming out
What is the connected thesis?
Smart - people live within existing relationships and person histories which informs our relationship choices - limited choice
