Personal Life Perspective on Families

Question 1

What does the personal life perspective say the weaknesses of the other approaches are?

Answer 1

• They assume the nuclear family is the dominant family type, ignoring family diversity
• They are all structural theories, assuming families are manipulated by society to perform functions. Interactionalists and postmodernists argue we have some choice in creating our family relationships

Question 2

What is the sociology of personal life?

Answer 2

Influenced by interactionalists, they argue we must start from the point of view of the individuals concerned and the meanings they give to their relationships and how these shape their actions.

Question 3

How does the personal life perspective contrasts the other perspectives?

Answer 3

• Functionalism, Marxism and feminism all take a ‘top down,’ structural approach
• Personal life perspective is a ‘bottom up’ approach of interactionism. It emphasises the meanings that individual family members hold and how these shape their actions and relationships

Question 4

How does the personal life perspective take a wider view of relationships?

Answer 4

• Relationships are more than just traditional ‘family’ relationships based on blood or marriage ties

Question 5

How could beyond ties of blood and marriage effect the family?

Answer 5

• A women may not feel close to her sister, and may be unwilling to help her in a crisis, but may be willing to help a non-relative, like an elderly women who cohabited with her late father.
• Without knowing the meaning behind these relationships we may not understand how she might act.

Question 6

What does the personal life perspective do by focusing on people’s meanings?

Answer 6

It draws attention to a range of relationships that are important to people but may not be conventionally ‘family.’ These give people a sense of identity, belonging or relatedness

Question 7

Describe relationships that aren’t conventionally ‘family’

Answer 7

• Friends: who may feel like a ‘brother or sister’ to you
• Fictive kin: close friends who are treated as relatives e.g. mum’s friend who you call ‘auntie’
• Gay and lesbian ‘chosen families’: made up of a supportive network of close friends, ex-partners and others who aren’t related by blood or marriage
• Pets: Tipper found in her study of children’s view of family relationships, that children frequently saw their pets as ‘part of the family’

Question 8

What questions do relationships that aren’t ‘family’ raise?

Answer 8

About what counts as family from the point of view of the individuals involved

Question 9

Describe a study on donor-conceived children

Answer 9

• Nordqvist and Smart explored ‘what counts as family shares a genetic like with a relative stranger but not with your partner?
• They found that the issue of blood and genes raised a range of feelings, some parents emphasised social relationships over genetic ones in forming family bonds.
• e.g. Erin, mother of an egg donor-conceived child, defined being a mum in terms of time and effort put into her child: ‘that what makes a mother and not the cell that starts it off.’

Question 10

What were problems faced with donor-conceived children in terms of determining relationships with family?

Answer 10

• Feelings could flare for a non-genetic parent if someone remarked that the child looked like them. Differences in appearance led to parents to wonder about the donor’s identity, and if they counted as family for the child
• When couples knew the donor, they had to resolve other questions about who counted as family. e.g. is the donor-concieved child a (half) sibling to the donor’s other children?
• For lesbian couples, there more problems. Included concerns about equality between the genetic and non-genetic mothers and that the donor might be treated as the ‘real’ second parent

Question 11

Give evaluation in support of the personal life perspective

Answer 11

-Nordqvist and Smart’s study shows the value of this view compared to structural approach, as it helps to understand how people construct their relationships rather than imposing sociological definitions of family (based on blood or genes)
- Recognises relatedness isn’t all positive, unlike functionalism. e.g. people may be trapped in abusive relationships or ones where they suffer everyday unhappiness or lack of respect

Question 12

Give evaluation against the personal life perspective

Answer 12

• Can be seen as too broad, by including a range of personal relationships, we ignore what is special about relationships based on blood or marriage
• Rejects top down views, functionalism. Nevertheless, it does see imitate relationships as providing the function of a sense of belonging.