personal life perspective-family Flashcards
What is the life course?
an alternative way of studying family life, known as life-course analysis, has emerged recently and focuses on researching the meanings that individuals give to life choices, events and decisions.
What does Hareven say?
states that roles and relationships within families change as our life-course evolves (other theories don’t acknowledge this)
How has the life-course changed?
Green- there is no fixed, common path through life course in contemporary society. That doesn’t mean our life-course is any less significant to us, however…
Why might studying “personal life” be a better approach then just studying the family?
Smart-it fits with modern society, families have changed and evolved so no longer fit with traditional theories. Therefore, it has a much more modern approach which focuses more on individuals within the family.
What does Smart say about dead relatives and pets?
Tipper- concluded that children frequentley see their pets as “Part of the family”
dead relatives continue to shape identities and they affect their actions.
What does Misztal say about memories?
peoples memories of other people can shape their identity, memories provide important information about family relationships and used to create and reinforce as well as change identities.
What does Rustin mean by biography?
photos, videos, objects from home can create history of someone’s life and relationship.
What are the problems of using photos, diaries, objects etc for research into family life, what may be the value of using these sources?
do not show the history behind things as they may have been staged.
However, diaries will be useful as they will show a personal experience at the time helping to create a background/history of the child
What does Gillis mean by the family we “live by”?
people create certain perceptions of their families via social media, people attempt to “live by” these ideals and aspire for their family to be that. Create own family.
The word “Meaning” is repeated in all above studies. Why do social action theories stress the importance of this term?
it show that family life is not the same for everyone and people interpret family experiences differently proving different meanings are applied to it.
What does Carsten argue?
more and more people are favouring chosen family members rather than seeing biological relatedness as primarily significant.
What is the chosen family?
first begin in the LGBTQ community, represents gay, lesbian couples of families or families that chose to involve ex- couples etc.
How can we challenge the personal life perspective of the family?
ignores speciality of blood-related families and marriage relationships.
rejects other perspectives such as functionalism.
too broad view of families
