Personal Life Perspective (PLP)

Question 1

What is the focus of the PLP?

Answer 1

• Critical approach
• look at independent feelings
• micro view
• interactionists and postmodernism

Question 2

Briefly explain Staceys outlook

Answer 2

• looked at accepting family diversity and what family ‘means’ to the individuals
• studied the divorce-extended family
• looked at fictive kin - made up family

Question 3

Briefly explain Clarke’s outlook

Answer 3

• looked at what marriage means to people
• every couple has its own arrangements, expectations and meaning
• focus on how people feel about their relationship
• marriage isn’t something you have it’s something you do
• focus on interactions and roles

Question 4

Briefly explain Nordqvist and Smart’s outlook

Answer 4

• looked at donor-conceived families

- found that the issue of blood and genes raised a range of feelings for the members of those families

Question 5

Briefly explain Leach’s outlook

Answer 5

• a runaway world
• the nuclear family is isolated
• stress can become too much for a family to deal with on its own
• compared the family to an overloaded electrical circuit
• the privacy of family life hides violence and fear

Question 6

Briefly explain Laing’s outlook

Answer 6

• Psychological trauma and abuse within families can lead to the development of mental disorders
• such as schizophrenia as a coping mechanism

Question 7

What are the criticisms of the PLP?

Answer 7

• view could be too broad
• very extreme in some cases
• ignore wider social factors such as class, ethnicity and gender (leach and Laing)
• too negative - families can be safe places