Personal life and social action

Question 1

What is the personal life perspective?

Answer 1

An alternative way of studying family life, known as life-course analysis
- emerged recently, focus on researching the meanings that individuals give to life choices, events and decisions

Question 2

What is the life course?

Answer 2

Life-course refers to the events that take place throughout an individuals life and how they assign meanings to them.

Question 3

How do most people experience a very similar family life course, what does this look like?

Answer 3

1- born into a nuclear family
2- adult children leave home and start a heterosexual relationship
3- get married
4- have children and begin a nuclear family

Question 4

What does Hareven say about the family and their life-course?

Answer 4

States that roles and relationships within families change as our life-course evolves
(other theories don’t acknowledge this)

Question 5

What does Green say about how life-course has changed?

Answer 5

There is no fixed, common path through life-course in contemporary society. This doesn’t mean our life course is any less significant to us

Question 6

What are LATs as an alternative to marriage?

Answer 6

Couples who are in a committed relationship with each other without cohabitating
- partners live far away from each other
(different countries) (same city under separate addresses)

Question 7

What does Clark say about the meaning of marriage?

Answer 7

Marriage means different things to different couples

Question 8

Why might studying personal life be a better approach than just studying the family?

Answer 8

It fits with modern society as families are constantly changing and evolving so no longer fit with traditional theories

Question 9

What does Carsten say?

Answer 9

RELATIONALITY
- relationships that define us as individuals are becoming less likely or be based of law and science
- people favouring chosen family members rather than biological relatedness as primarily significant in comparison to before

Question 10

What did Tiper find in her study of children?

Answer 10

Frequently viewed pets as ‘part of the family’
- important for showing the change in family values

Question 11

What does Carol Smart say?

Answer 11

• personal life is neutral and flexible
• beyond marriage and biological kin
• bonds between people
• memory
• shared possessions
• personal/intimate relationships even though they are not conventionally defined as family
• all kinds of relationships- pets, friends, dead relatives

Question 12

What key concept does Misztal discuss?

Answer 12

Explore memories
- values shape what they remember
- influenced by diaries, letters, photos (important sources of research)
- selective in what we remember
- how we create/reinforce bonds/change identities

Question 13

Why does Misztal believe that memories are key to understanding personal relationships?

Answer 13

It shows how the person views the family as they will remember it differently depending on whether they view it as a positive or negative experience

Question 14

What concept does Rustin discuss?

Answer 14

Biography
- photos, videos, objects from home
- different interpretations of family history and meanings
- family is not one set of shared experiences

Question 15

What does Rustin mean by biography?

Answer 15

Photos, videos, objects from home that create a history of someone’s life and relationships

Question 16

What are the problems of using biographical sources?

Answer 16

They do not show the history behind things as they may have been staged (Photos)
- Diaries may be useful as they will show a personal experience/perspective at the time helping to create background/history of the child

Question 17

What concept does Gillis doscuss?

Answer 17

We create our own family identity
- more important than the reality of life
- ‘live with’ ‘live by’
- use social media to create an ideal image
- imaginary which demonstrates the meaning they give

Question 18

What does Gillis mean by the family we ‘live by’?

Answer 18

People we may not live with but choose to live by and follow them as role models
- friends, dead relatives

Question 19

What does ‘chosen family’ mean?

Answer 19

First began in the LGBT community, represents gay/lesbian couples or families that choose to involve ex-couples etc

Question 20

How can we challenge the personal life perspective of the family?

Answer 20

X ignores the speciality of blood-related families and marriage relationships
X rejects other perspectives such as functionalism
X too broad views on the family

Question 21

Th sociology of personal life perspective

Answer 21

• ‘bottom up’ approach of interactionism
• meaning that individuals hold
• how their meanings shape their actions and relationships

Question 22

Beyond ties of blood and marriage

Answer 22

• wider view than ‘traditional’ family
• relationship wit friends
• sense of belonging and relatedness
• gay and lesbian ‘chosen families’
• pets or dead relatives

Question 23

Donor-conceived children

Answer 23

• some parents emphasised importance of social relationships over genetic ones forming family bonds
• defining mum in terms of effort and time invested not the biological cell they came from
• lesbian couples, concerns over the equality of genetics, the ‘real’ second parent
• choose to be single parents

Question 24

What is a strength of the personal life perspective?

Answer 24

Understand how people view and construct their own relationships rather than imposing traditional sociological definitions of the family
(blood/genetics)