Family Diversity Flashcards
Functionalism view
- Modernism refers to that society is fixed, structured and predictable
- The Nuclear family suited to meeting the needs of a modern society, because of the families ability to perform the reduced functions, therefore we can genaralize the type of family we can find in modern society which is the nuclear family
- Other families are dysfunctional and abnormal
The New Right View
- Conservative and opposed to family diversity
- There is one correct family type of the traditional patriarchal nuclear family
- Lone parents cannot discipline their children leaving their children without an adult male role model, they are likely to depend on welfare states
- The main cause of lone parent families is cohabiting couples
- The cereal packet family have established that the nuclear family is ideal and normalized in society
- However there is no evidence that says a child is more deviant in a lone parent families
- However Chester, argues the majoritive of couples cohabitating plan to get married
- Cohabitation creates instability as they are not committed to the family
Chester
Neo-Conventional Family
- Chester recognizes that there has been increased family diversity in recent years, he does not see this as negative and the nuclear family is still dominant
- Most people do not choose lone parent families and people still aspire to be in an nuclear family which is conventional
- The neo-conventional family is the dual earner family where both spouses work
- Chester argues that the family life cycke is why people are not apart of the nuclear family
- Many people living in one person households were either apart of the nuclear family in the past or future
- The family life cycle refers to the way families change throughout life stages
- Chester criticies statistics on household composition because they are misleading, there are five patterns he found to show there has been little change regarding family diversity
1. Families are headed by married couples
2. Divorce has increased but people remarry and it continues until death
3. Children are reared by adult parents
4. Cohabitation has increased but is only temporary
5. Most births are jointly regsitered which suggests they are in a couple
Evaluation using Chester:
- New Right exaggerate family diversity, diversity is not an issue
- The nuclear family is still dominant
- Chester and functionalist differ as both partners play the instrumental role
- Chester is more realistic combining the nuclear family and contemporary society
Life Course =
- Family diversity is inevitable because of the life course
- Life course is focussed on the idea of how an individuals life should unfold
- A change in the life course has meant that individuals no longer follow traditional expectations for their life course
The Rapoports
- Family diversity has greatly increased and is important in society
- Families have adapted to a pluralistic society as cultures and lifestyles are diverse
- Family diversity reflects greater freedom of choice and the widespread acceptance of cultures.
- Diversity is a positive response to people’s needs and not abnormal as the New Right argues
- The nuclear family is no longer dominant
There are now 5 types of family diversity
C = Cultural
L = Life Stage
O = Organisational
G = Generational
S = Social Class
Post Modernism
The late 20th century, society has entered a new postmodern phase which is characterised by:
1. Diversity and fragmentation with more cultures and lifestyles
2. Rapid Social Change of new technology making life less predictable
- Family life is therefore less stable giving people more individual choice about their relationships and is more diverse
- Cannot generalise about the family
Postmodernism and family diversity
- There is a lack of structure to society meaning there is greater diversity and no longer bound by societal structures
- Cheal believes that there there is no longer a single dominant family type in a postmodern society, family structure have become more fragmented as individuals have more choice, this has led to family diversity and less predictability
Judith Stacey = Postmodern families
- Research found that greater freedom and choice which benefit women enabling them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression and create families that benefitted their needs
- Stacey conducted life history interviews, she found women were the reasons for changes in the family
- Women reject traditional housewife roles choosing varied life paths and identified a new type of family, the divorce extended family connect members through divorce which is characterised through choice
- Postmodern families are diverse and shapred by active choice people make about their lives and how they want to live it, their family is their choice.
Morgan = Family Practices
- Generalisations about the family cannot be made, a family is simple what people do rather than a concrete structure
- Family practices describe how we create our sense of being a family member which is shown through the actions of doing things
- He argues the family and other relationships have become less clear cut, the boundaries between them have become blurred because today’s society is fragmented
Post-modern families =
- Sociologists are able to carry out the Life Course Analysis to understand why individuals make choices in their lives, they establish why people make their life choices when they have
**Hareven’s Life Course Analysis = **
- Explores meaning that individual family members give to their relationships and the choice they make throughout life. This approach recognizes that there is flexibility and variation in people’s lives
The individualisation thesis =
- Gidden and Beck explore the effects of increasing individual choice upon families which is the individualisation thesis
- They argue traditional social structure such as class, gender and family have lost their influence over people. They now have more choice
- We are disembedded from traditional roles which leaves us with freedom of living our lives.
- Giddens argues the family has been transformed by greater choice and equal relationships between gender, this transformation has occured because of contraception and feminism
- A pure relationship is a relationship not bound by traditional values and in the relationship to meet one another’s needs
Beck = Risk Society
- Beck argues we now live in a risk society where traditions have little influence over lives which are now characterised by choice. We have so much choice that we are now aware of the risks and rewards certain choices have which is a risk consciousness
- Beck argues family diversity is not a simple matter, people look at choices and then see the risks
- Personal choices are informed by what they see going on in society
The negotiated family =
- Today’s risk society contrasts with modern society of the past with its stable nuclear family and gender roles, the stability and predictability of modern society changed by:
1. Greater gender equality
2. Greater individualism
- These trends have led to a new type of family that replaces the patriarchal family, the negotiated family
- Negotiated families do not conform to traditional family norms but vary according to the wishes and expectation of their members, they decide what is best for them by discussion and enter on an equal basis
Beck = The Zombie Family
- Beck argues that in today’s uncertain risk society, people can turn to their family for stability and security. However family relationships are at greater risk and uncertainty to they cannot provide this
- The family appears to be alive but in reality is dead
Personal life perspective
- Personal life sociologists Smart and May agree with Beck and Giddens that there is more family diversity however they criticsed the individualisation thesis
- Firstly it exaggerates how much choice people have over their family relationships as they dictated by money
- It ignores that decisions about family relationships are made within a social context and people have consequences for decisions
- It ignores the importance of structural factors such as class and gender, they ignore that not everyone has the same ability as the privelleged group to exercise choice
The Connected thesis = - Smart believes that we live within the networks of existing relationships and personal history impacting our options and choice in relationships
- Finch and Mason believes that people cannot just end relationships and walk away from them
- Vanessa May argues the connected thesis is better at understanding family diversity as it focusses on social structure which limits our choice
- Heteronormativity also limits choice as it is the norms and expectation to be in a heteronormal relationship as a man and women
