Family policies

Question 1

How do policies effect the family?

Answer 1

• by laws surrounding divorce, adoption, contraception, marriage, abortion, and child protection

Question 2

How do functionalists see social polices and the state?

Answer 2

• See the state as acting in the interest of society as a whole
• Society is built on harmony and value consensus
• Social policies are implemented in everyone’s interests

Question 3

How do Marxists see social polices and the state?

Answer 3

• see social policies as working in the interest of the ruling class and exploiting the working class

Question 4

How do postmodernists such as Donzelot see social polices and the state?

Answer 4

• policies help with “policing of the families”

- state uses social workers, health visitors and doctors to control and change families

Question 5

How do feminists see social polices and the state?

Answer 5

• argue that men are the main beneficiaries of social policies

Question 6

How do new rights see social polices and the state?

Answer 6

• argues the state polies encourage changes that go against tradition, helping undermine the nuclear family

Question 7

What types of policies did the New Right want?

Answer 7

• want polices which emphasise individual freedom and reduce state intervention

Question 8

How does the New Right view the role of family policy?

Answer 8

• favour traditional heterosexual nuclear families as they believed this family type provides the foundations of society
• They were against homosexual couples as they believed they should maintain heterosexual nuclear family

Question 9

What types of policies did the New Labour want?

Answer 9

• Policies that were concerned with social liberalism and belief in supporting and controlling families

Question 10

How does the New Labour view the role of family policy?

Answer 10

• wanted equality in both genders and accepted wide range of family types
• wanted to help low-income and poor families

Question 11

When were the New Right in power?

Answer 11

• Thatcher: 1979 > 1990
• Major: 1990 > 1997
• (COALITION GOVT) Cameron and Clegg: 2010 > 2015
• Cameron: 2015 > 2016
• May: 2016 > 2019
• Johnson: 2019 > present

Question 12

When were New Labour in power?

Answer 12

• Blair: 1997 > 2007

- Brown: 2007 > 2010

Question 13

What policies did the Conservative government (1979 - 1997) implement?

Answer 13

• The Child support agency 1993, established to ensure absent fathers paid maintenance for the upbringing of their children
• Thatcher banned promotion and teaching of homosexuality to emphasise that it was not an acceptable family type (The local government act 1988 - Section 28)
• Prime Minister, John Major, urged a ‘back to basics’ approach, which he put forward as traditional family values

Question 14

How did the conservative government see divorce and did they make it easier or harder?

Answer 14

• Defined divorce as a social problem and said that the parents responsibility must be continued for their children
• They did make divorce easier and gave illegitimate children the same rights as those born to married couples

Question 15

What policies did the New Labour government (1997 - 2010) implement?

Answer 15

• Child Tax Credits
• Paid (2 week) )Paternity leave
• Civil Partnership Act (2005)
• Adoption and Children’s Act (2002)
• Equal age of consent between same sex relationships
• Repeal of Section 28 (2003)
• Sure Start and Education Maintenance allowance

Question 16

What policies did the Coalition government (2010-2015) implement?

Answer 16

• shared parental leave, partner spilt the maternity leave allowance between themselves to allow women to go back to work earlier
• same sex marriage (2013), partners of the same sex could marry
• crime and education polices targeted parents with anti social behaviour or withdrawing students from school during term time
• Austerity polices, such as benefit caps, 2 child limit for benefits and bedroom tax, impacted on low wage and lone parent families