Short Answers Flashcards
Demography
The study of characteristics of human population, such as their size and structure and how these changes happened over time
New Right
A perspective which believe very strongly in traditional values. They tend to be against change and support conservatism within the family
Family Ideology
The view that the family should be particular, e.g. the nuclear family, marriage, male breadwinner etc.
Social Control
The process of persuading, encouraging and enforcing conformity.
Sexual Division of Labour
The distribution of childcare and household tasks according to gender.
Functional Prerequisites
The basic needs of society, such as the need for social order within the family.
Feminization of the Economy
An economical trend that began in the 1990s, whereby the majority of newly available jobs were aimed at women.
Consensus
A common agreement on shared values in society.
Ascribed Status
A status which is inherited and passed on through generations.
Symmetrical Family
A nuclear family in which both spouses preform equally important roles with the family. e.g. housework, childcare, paid work.
Sexual Division of Labour
The division of both paid work and domestic labour into men and women’s jobs.
Nuclear Family
A family group consisting of two generations, e.g. parents and children; living in the same household.
Ideological State Apparatus
The transmission of ruling class ideologies through the medium of institutions like the education system, mass media etc..
Secularization
The process whereby religious thinking, practice and institutions lose social significance.
Privatized Nuclear Family
A home centered family hat has little contact with extended kin or neighbours.
Modified Extended Family
A family type where related nuclear families, although living apart geographically they still maintain regular contact. additionally offering mutual support, e.g. telephone calls, e-mails and letters.
Child-Centered
Treating the needs of children as priority.
Communes
Self-contained and self-supporting communities, where all members of the community shares the property, childcare, house-hold task and living accommodation.
Irretrievable
Broken down forever or, unable to recover.
Monogamy
The practice of only having one partner. (marriage)
Serial Monogamy
A series of long-term relationships.
Bean-pole Family
A multi-generation extended family, in a pattern which is long and thin. (dominant in Asian households)
Domestic Labour
Mainly referred to the isolation of female in tradition roles of the family e.g. housework and childcare.
Expressive Leader
Parsons’ term for the female function of mother/housewife. The nurturing, caring and emotional role. Functionalist view that women’s role is ‘natural’ through biology.
Geographically Mobile
The ability to move quickly around the country. Linked to the nuclear family and reason for the decline of extended families according to functionalists.
Extended Kinship Networks
Relationships between family members beyond the nuclear family, e.g. grandparents, cousins and aunts and uncles.
Household
A social group sharing a common residence.
Feminism
The view that examines the view that women are disadvantaged within family (society in general). Women’s views are ignored withing society.
Socialisation
the process of learning the culture of society - norms and values withing a society both primary and secondarily.
Cereal Packet Family
A stereotypical view of the family seen as a privatized nuclear family with a monogamous relationship. Also a male breadwinner and a household wife caring for their two natural children.
Triple Shift
Refers to women undergoing a full-time career whiles still being mostly responsible for the emotional care of children and domestic labour. (Duncombe and Marsden (1995)
Double Shift / Dual Burden
Refer to women taking on the role of a career outside of the home and still mainly responsible for providing domestic labour in the home.
Segregated Division of Labour in the Home
A traditional sexual division of labour in which women take responsibility for housework and mothering. Men take the role of the breadwinner, and head of the household.
Mutual Economical Support System
A system where family members work to support each other.
Instrumental Role
Parsons term for the male breadwinner. The providing role in the family. e.g. natural leader, aggressive and competitive.
Extended Family
A family in which sons and daughters live in the same neighbourhood as their parents, that see each other regularly. An extended family offers basic and various types of support for the nuclear family. (financial or emotional)
Industrialisation
The Process in the 18th-19th century in Britain where societies moved from agricultural production to industrial manufacturing. Creating cities, changing family structures; social experiences and relationships.
Emotional work
Refers to the burden on women to spend most of their time soothing emotions of partners and children.
Empty-Shell Marriage
A marriage in which the partners no longer love each other but stay together, usually for the sake of the children.
Reconstituted Families
A family where one or both partners have previously married, and bring children with them from previous marriage. Also known a ‘step families’.
Conjugal Roles
The role played by both male and female partners to share the same roles within the home.
