Family theorists

Question 1

Morgan

Answer 1

Cohabitants have less children. Cohabitation is becoming more common.

Question 2

Jewson

Answer 2

Highlights the importance of the biomedical model and improving surgical practises.

Question 3

Hirsch

Answer 3

Argues that an ageing population and lower retirement ages leads to financial strain.

Question 4

Lawton

Answer 4

highlights the importance of the 2011 removal of mandatory retirement ages limits the economic hinderance of an ageing population.

Question 5

Cummings

Answer 5

Disengagement theory - the idea that the elderly disengage with society and society disengages with them.

Question 6

Vincent

Answer 6

Argues that only the w/c elderly are a financial burden because of society’s unequal distribution of wealth.

Question 7

Said

Answer 7

Cultural imperialism

Question 8

Beck

Answer 8

Globalised Risk society?

Question 9

Eriksen

Answer 9

People are more transient less likely to stay in one country and assimilate to one culture.

Question 10

Chester

Answer 10

Cohabitation has become a stepping stone to marriage.

Question 11

Coast

Answer 11

75% of cohabiting couples aspire to marriage

Question 12

Beck (marriage)

Answer 12

Global risk consciousness. 50% of marriages end in divorce and people are aware of this so don’t risk it.

Question 13

Giddens

Answer 13

Argues that confluent love is society’s norm and relationships are like a rolling contract to be renewed. Therefore, cohabitation and serial monogamy is better suited.

Question 14

Parsons

Answer 14

Argues that structural differentiation means that the family has lost some functions and marriage is no longer a practical necessity

Question 15

Fletcher

Answer 15

A functionalist who argues that people, mainly women, now expect more from marriage.

Question 16

Murray

Answer 16

Argues that divorce is a product of society’s moral degradation. He argues that divorce and the creation of SPF means that an underclass is developing based off of people reliance on the welfare state. He calls this ‘dependency culture.’

Question 17

Lyotard (divorce)

Answer 17

Secularisation and the weakening of meta-narratives in society means that secularisation has made divorce more common.

Question 18

Mclanahan & Booth

Answer 18

SPF are more likely to face poverty and crime not because of moral degradation but society’s suitedness to a two parent model

Question 19

Donzelot

Answer 19

Donzelot has a Foucauldian critique of social policy o n the family he argues that the regulations and policies target the w/c acting as a form of social control he calls the policing of the family.

Question 20

Levin

Answer 20

Levin argues that LAT are a challenge to the traditional nuclear family and form for three main reasons … existing responsibilities to another family, practical reasons, and avoidance of risk

Question 21

Beck (childbearing patterns)

Answer 21

Argues that as society is more child centered people have less children in order to dedicate more time and resources to fewer children.

Question 22

Delphy (childbearing patterns)

Answer 22

Destigmatisation of contraception and the legalisation of abortion has given women more freedom to choose.

Question 23

Lyotard (childbearing)

Answer 23

If you take Lyotard’s idea that meta-narratives in society are eroding and that secularisation has occurred it can be applied to why more children are being born outside of marriage at nearly half.

Question 24

Allan & Crow (SPF)

Answer 24

SPF’s have increased as there is less of a stigma surrounding them.

Question 25

Burghes & Brown

Answer 25

In a small study found that most SPF aspire to form a two parent one.

Question 26

Talcott Parsons (Gender roles)

Answer 26

Expressive and instrumental

Question 27

Talcott parsons (functions of the family)

Answer 27

To stabilise the adult personality
To socialise children

Question 28

Talcott Parsons (Nuclear family)

Answer 28

Is both socially and geographically mobile and therefore best suited to industrial society.

Question 29

Murdoch (Nuclear family)

Answer 29

Studied 250 societies and found the nuclear family in all of them therefore claiming it was universal.

Question 30

Murdoch (4 functions)

Answer 30

Sexual
Reproductive
Economic
Educational

(SREE)

Question 31

Willmott and Young

Answer 31

Symmetrical family
Joint conjugal roles divided by gender (Red roles and blue roles).
4 stages of the family development Pre-industrial, early industrial, symmetrical, asymmetrical.
Argued that asymmetrical families would occur through the process of ‘stratified diffusion’ and that upper class values would trickle down.

Question 32

Dunscombe and Marsden

Answer 32

The ‘triple shift’ –> Paid labour, emotional labour, and unpaid housework.

Question 33

Hareven

Answer 33

Life course analysis

Question 34

Engels

Answer 34

the monogamous nuclear family acts as a vehicle for inheritance

Question 35

Morgan (Engels counter)

Answer 35

The nuclear family can be found in native societies that do not have a capitalist system in place.

Question 36

Zaretsky (5 functions of family)

Answer 36

Socialise capitalist workers
Reproduce the workforce
Women as reserve labour force
Unit of consumption
Safety valve

Question 37

Somerville (Safety valve counter)

Answer 37

Argues that Marxists ignore the harm that occurs within the family and how it is often not a safety valve.

Question 38

Althusser

Answer 38

The family is an ideological state apparatus and part of the wider capitalist super structure.

Question 39

Benston

Answer 39

Women provide unpaid domestic labour.
Men can’t strike as they are the instrumental providers for their families.

Question 40

Ansley

Answer 40

Women are “the takers of shit” and provide emotional support for men and carefree sex.

Question 41

Greer

Answer 41

Argues that all 3 female roles in the family of mother, daughter, wives, are oppressive and matrilocal households are the solution as men and the patriarchy are the enemy.

Question 42

Gittens

Answer 42

Childhood is socially constructed as it can be altered by three key factors (Gender, ethnicity, class).

Question 43

Aries

Answer 43

Childhood is socially constructed as it did not exist in the middle ages. There was a lack of legal distinction between children and adults, children worked like adults, and were presented like them in art.

Question 44

Child Poverty Action Group

Answer 44

2 million children in poverty in the UK.

Question 45

Statham and Owens

Answer 45

A disproportionate amount of black children are in protective custody supporting Gittens idea that childhood can be affected by race or ethnicity.

Question 46

Brannen & Bhati

Answer 46

Girls from Asian cultures are more likely to be strictly controlled and participate in household chores.

Question 47

Jens Bonke

Answer 47

Girls do more chores than boys particularly in lone or single parent families where it is 5x more.

Question 48

Furedi

Answer 48

Argues that a change in social norms has occurred and now ‘good’ parents now aim to protect and control their children instead of stimulate them.

Question 49

Sue Palmer

Answer 49

Toxic childhood syndrome –> The idea that rapid technological and cultural shifts are bad for children for example the decline of outdoor play and it’s links to obesity, rising screen time amongst young children, a decline in listening and learning skills from shortened attention spans.

Question 50

Postman

Answer 50

Cultural erosion between children and adults from marketing and the media.

Question 51

Margo

Answer 51

Supports the view of Postman arguing that children are getting earlier access to adult themes and thus the experience of childhood is shortened.

Question 52

Gittens (childhood control)

Answer 52

Age patriarchy: Children are blocked and excluded from certain places and from doing certain things and are controlled.

Question 53

Firestone

Answer 53

Blocking children from paid work leaves them entirely dependent on their parents.

Question 54

Wagg & Punch

Answer 54

Studied Children in rural Bolivia where paid work often impeded their education. Compare this to the Western world where legislation blocks this type of interaction.

Question 55

Katz

Answer 55

Katz’s ethnographic study of both Sudanese and NYC children shows how the effects of Neo-liberal policies has transgressed geographic borders, children had their childhoods effected by poverty in similar ways despite their different environments.