Key Sociologists - Family Flashcards
Ann Oakley - Conventional Families
Feminist. Conventional families. Dual burden.
Renowned for her work on conventional families, Oakley introduced the concept of the “dual burden,” highlighting the unequal distribution of domestic responsibilities within households.
Delphy and Leonard - Familiar Exploitation
Feminists. Domestic labour.
Emphasised the patriarchal structures that underpin gender inequalities in domestic life.
They believe that women are exploited as a direct cause of the patriarchy rather than by capitalism.
Rapoport and Rapoport - British Families in Transition
They founded the five stages of family diversity.
This husband-wife duo contributed extensively to the study of family diversity, highlighting the varied forms and functions of families across different cultures and societies.
Zaretsky - Capitalism, the Family and Personal Life
Marxist. Family serves as a haven from capitalist alienation.
The family acts as a ‘cushioning’ to the blow of a capitalist society.
Argued that the family serves as a haven from the alienation and exploitation of the capitalist system.
Family serves capitalism through women’s unpaid labour, being units of consumptions and inheritance.
Parsons - The social structure of the family
Functionalist. Warm bath theory.
The primary socialisation and the stabilisation of adult personalities, and the provision of emotional support as being a positive.
Wilmott and Young - The Symmetrical Family
Functionalists. Symmetrical Family.
First Stage: Pre-industrial family
Second Stage: Early Industrial Family
Third Stage: Symmetrical Family
Fourth Stage: Asymmetrical Family
Pioneers of the “symmetrical family” theory, Wilmott and Young proposed that contemporary families are evolving towards more egalitarian structures, where roles and responsibilities are shared more equally between partners.
