Postmodernity Flashcards
What are the 2 key characteristics
Diversity and fragmentation
Rapid social change
Diversity and fragmentation
Greater diversity of cultures and lifestyles - people can “pick and mix” creating their identities and lifestyles from a range of options
Rapid social change
New technology and the electronic media have dissolved old barriers of time and space transformed our patterns of work and leisure and accelerated the page of change
What is family life like in a postmodern society
Less stable but at the same time it gives individuals more choice about their personal relationships
What do modernists such as functionalist and the new right emphasise the Dominance of in industrial society
The nuclear family
What two facts do modernists who believe that the nuclear family is dominant ignore
Individually, people make different decisions based off of family life
There is no greater choice about personal relationships which has increased family diversity
What is the life course
A study of the family that encourages the sociologist to focus upon individual family members and how they make their own choices
Example of life course
Tamara Hareven (1978)
What did Hareven study about
Flexibility and variation within someone’s life such as having a baby, coming out as gay or moving to sheltered accommodation.
Clare Holdsworth and David Morgan (2005)
Examined how young people experience leaving home - what it means to be an adult
What does Hareven favour
Unstructured in depth interviews - best way to uncover the meaning and understand choices
Two major strengths of life course analysis
Focuses on what the family members themselves consider important
Particularly suitable for studying families in today’s society where there is more choice about personal relationships
