Family - key theorists

Question 1

What did Murdock say about the family?

Answer 1

Four functions:
>Sexual
>Reproductive
>Socialisation
>Economic
The nuclear family is universal

Question 2

What did Murray say about the family and social policy?

Answer 2

> Benefit payments are too generous to lone parents
This creates a ‘dependency culture’
Benefits provide ‘perverse incentives’ to rewards irresponsible behaviour
Fathers abandon their families
Welfare spending should be cut

Question 3

What did Parsons say about the family?

Answer 3

> Biological roles - instrumental and expressive
Functional fit - extended multifunctional (pre-industrial) to nuclear specialised functions (industrial) - allows geographical and social mobility
Two irredicible functions:
1. Primary socialisation
2. Stabilisation of adult personalities

Question 4

What did Oakley say about the structure of the family?

Answer 4

> Found that in cross cultural comparisons there is variation in the roles that men and women perform in the family - it is not fixed by biology
Sees the New Right as a negative reaction to feminist campaigns for equality
Criticised Young and Willmott for saying the family is symmetrical
Only 15% of husbands participate in housework, fewer than 20% in childcare

Question 5

What did Zaretsky say about the functions of the family?

Answer 5

> The family provides an ideological function
The family is a ‘haven’ from capitalism
The family is based on the domestic servitude of women

Question 6

What did Dobash and Dobash say about power relationships in the family?

Answer 6

> They found that violence was triggered when husbands felt their authority was being challenged.
They conclude that marriage leigitimates violence by giving power to men.

Question 7

What did Duncombe and Marsden say about domestic labour in the family?

Answer 7

Women are not only expected to carry a dual buden, but a triple shift - domestic labour , paid work and emotion work.

Question 8

What did Gershuny say about domestic labour in the family?

Answer 8

Couples are adapting to to women working full-time, establishing a new norm of men doing more domestic work.

Question 9

What did Young and Willmott say about domestic labour in the family?

Answer 9

Saw a long term trend towards join conjugal roles and the symmetrical family
>Women now go out to work
>Men help with housework and childcare
>Couples spend leisure time together

Question 10

What did Pahl say about power relationships in the family?

Answer 10

Identified two types of control over family income:
>Allowance system - where men work and give their non-working wife an allowance from which they budget to meet the family’s needs.
>Pooling - where partners work and have joint responsibility for spending

Question 11

What did Aries say about chidhood?

Answer 11

> In medieval Europe the idea of childhood did not exist
Childen were not seen as havign a different nature from adults
Work began from an early age
Children were ‘mini adults’ with the same rights, duties and skills as adults.
Childhood began to emerge from the 13th Century - education, ‘creatures of God’, growing distinction
The 20th Century was the century of the child and the emergence of the ‘cult of childhood’

Question 12

What did Donzelot say about childhood and social policy?

Answer 12

> Observed how theories of child development that began to appear from the 19th Century stressed that children need supervision and protection
Argues that social policies ‘police the family’ and is a way of the state exercising control over families

Question 13

What did Palmer say about childhood?

Answer 13

Rapid technological and cultural changes are damaging children’s development e.g. junk food, computer games and intensive marketing to children, testing in education, long hours worked by parents. As a result, children are deprived of a genuine childhood.

Question 14

What did Postman say about childhood?

Answer 14

Childhood as we know it is disappearing. Children are becoming more like adults - gaining similar rights and acting in similar ways e.g. clothing, leisure, even crime

Question 15

What did Punch say about childhood?

Answer 15

Children of 5 in rural Bolivia are expected to take on adult work and responsbilities without question.

Question 16

What did Blaikie say about ageing?

Answer 16

The rise of consumer culture has led to people being able to choose a lifestyle and identity regardless of theor age - in a postmodern age people can buy ‘body maintenance’ or ‘rejuvination’ goods through which they create their identities e.g. Botox/ cosmetic surgery

Question 17

What did McKeown say about demographic trends of the last 100 years?

Answer 17

Mckeown argued that improved nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates, and was particularly important in reducing the number of deaths from TB. Better nutrition increased resistance to infection and increased the survival chances of those who did become infected.

Question 18

What did Pilcher say about inequalities in old age?

Answer 18

> Class - The middle class have better occupational pensions and greater savings from higher salaries. Poorer old people have a shorter life expectancy and suffer more infirmity (making it more difficult to maintain a youthful self-identity).
Gender - Women’s lower earnings and career breaks as carers mean lower pensions. They are also subject to sexist as well as ageist stereotyping, for example being described as ‘old hags’.

Question 19

What did Townsend say about society’s attitude towards older people?

Answer 19

Negative attitudes towards the elderly in society is due to the socially constructed idea that the old age is a period of dependency

Question 20

What did Berthoud say about ethnic variations in marriage?

Answer 20

> 3/4 of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are married by age 25 compared with 1/2 of white women
British African Caribbeans are least likely to get married
8% of married couples in the UK today are made up of people from different ethnic backgrounds
People of South Asian backgrounds are least likely to marry outside their ethnic or religious group

Question 21

What did Chester say about increasing family diversity?

Answer 21

> There is some increased diversity, although the nuclear family remains dominant
Now both partners work
the nuclear family remains the norm that people aspire to
Cohabitation is temporary
Most divorcees remarry

Question 22

What does Smart say about the connectedness thesis?

Answer 22

> Traditional patriarchal norms and structural inequalities still limit people’s choices about relationships, identities and families
We make decisions about relationships within a social context which challenges Gidden’s idea about the ‘pure relationship’

Question 23

What does Stacey say about postmodern families?

Answer 23

> Women have greater freedom and choice
Many reject the traditional housewife/mother role
New family structures have emerged called ‘divorced extended families’ where people are connected by divorce rather than marriage
The key members are female and include former in-laws

Question 24

What does Weeks say about chosen families?

Answer 24

> People in same-sex relationships create families based on the idea of ‘friendship as kinship’
These chosen families provide the same security and stability as hetereosexual families