Sociology Of Personal Life, The Traditional Family And The Changing Life Course Sociologists Flashcards
Allan and Crow
Life course
In the 20th century up until 1960s there was a fairly standard life course for most individuals within the institution of marriage.
When children left home they had more time for leisure/ time with grandchildren
Levin
Life course
Life course was compulsory as there were strong social norms prescribing that this was the way to live.
Family unit took on the socially accepted format of the ‘cereal packet family’
Allan and Crow and Levin
Life course
Since late 1960s and early 1970s major changes in peoples lives and huge chances in personal relationships and forms of family and households.
Post modernist - Lewis
Typical family
Individuals have greater freedom to choose their behaviour rather than being regulated by an externally imposed public moral code.
There is no longer such thing as the ‘typical family.’
May
Personal relationships
Personal relationships are so diverse both in the family and beyond it that it would be more appropriate to study the sociology of personal life rather than families which are no longer at the centre of very many peoples lives and relationships.
Chambers
The individualisation thesis
Individualisation has been a central explanation for key changes in ideas about love, commitment family decline and for the development of new kinds of personal relationship.
Beck-Gernsheim
Individualisation thesis
Describes individualisation as the process whereby traditional social relationships, bonds, customs, values and beliefs used to strongly regulate peoples lives have been losing more meaning and influence.
Gabb
Relationships
Relationships outside the family can affect relationships in the family
Baumann
Individualisation thesis
The world of growing individualisation and change, kinship networks are frail and human bonds are weak.
People are searching for security.
Leading to growth in a wide diversity of family and personal living arrangement.
Focus has moved from the family to the individual.
Beck-Gernsheim 2
Individualisation thesis
The underlying cause of this individualisation is a modern medicine e.g. contraception and artificial insemination which enables sexuality and reproduction to be separated from each other.
Beck-Gernsheim 3
individualisation thesis
Suggests that it’s no longer clear who is part of the family as there is no longer talk of husbands and wives, parenthood and family names.
Beck-Gernsheim
Confluent love
Points out that growing individualisation that love rather than economic necessity guides people approaches relationships.
Argues love is changing away from ‘romantic love’ to ‘until the next best thing’ (confluent love).
Giddens
Confluent love and pure relationships
Individuals choose to stay together to meet their emotional and sexual needs.
Chambers
Confluent love and pure relationships
Relationships aren’t necessarily permanent and don’t involve long term commitment and stability enforced by external pressures such as demands of parents and wider kin established by social traditions.
Giddens
Marriage
People marry for the sake of love, divorce for the sake of love and engage in an endless cycle of hoping, regretting and trying again
Giddens
Same sex couples
Sees same sex couples as leading the way producing more democratic and equal relationships
Weston
Same sex couples
Found same sex couples created supportive families of choice from among friends, lovers and biological kin.
Smart
Individualisation thesis
Individualisation exaggerates the extent of family decline.
People’s lives and family ties still involve strong social and emotional bonds and connections.
People haven’t been cut free from external social rules and pressures - they are still influenced by factors such as social class, gender, ethnicity.
The view of contemporary life presented in individualisation theory isn’t based on any research into contemporary family life and doesn’t match life experiences of he majority of families or the experiences of family life shown in sociological studies
Chambers
criticisms of theories of individualisation, Confluent love and pure relationships
Agrees with Smart that aspects of traditional life haven’t declined.
Just because the cereal packet family has declined doesn’t mean people are free to do whatever they want, most people are committed to the values surrounding their conduct passed down by their culture, history, parents and communities.
Chambers and Smart
Criticisms of individualisation thesis
Individualisation only fits a small group of white heterosexual middle class and some same sex couples and ignores social class and ethnic differences and in some same sex relationships there is continuing fears of public hostility in some communities.
Beck
Changing families, households and personal lives - uncertainty and choice
The growth of the ‘negotiated family’ which doesn’t conform to traditional norms but varys according to wishes and expectations of members
Smart
Connectedness thesis
We are fundamentally social beings whose choice is always made within a web of connectedness.
Finch and Mason
The connectedness thesis
Individuals can negotiate relationships to some extent they are also embedded within family connectedness and obligations that restrict their freedom of choice which challenges the view that even couple relationships are ‘pure relationships’ that we can walk away from at will.
Morgan - interactionists
Meaning of a high divorce rate
WE cant generalise the meaning of divorce because every individuals interpretation of it is different.
Michell and Goody - interactionists The meaning of a high divorce rate
One interviewee described the day her father left as the best day in her life whereas another said shed never recovered.
Smart - personal life perspective
The meaning of a high divorce rate
Divorce has become normalised and family life can adapt to it without disintegrating. Divorce should be seen as one transition amongst others in the life course.
Rodgers and Pryor
Impact of divorce on children
Divorce alone doesn’t cause problems but occurred under association with other factors which affected the outcomes when divorce occurs
Rodger’s and Pryor 2
Impact of divorce on children
Those children who managed to avoid problems were largely unlikely to suffer from divorce.
Bernardo’s
Impact of divorce on children
Studies concluded divorce may be less damaging to children than living with parents in constant conflict
Smart
Step-parents
No ‘handbook’ on how to be a good step-parent as a ‘new etiquette is still emerging’
Morgan - New Right
Decline in marriage
Expressed concern about the decline of marriage seeing it as centrally important to society, morality and social order.
Claims that married men are more likely to be employed than unmarried men and earn 10-20% more because of their commitment to social obligations underpinning marriage motivates them to work harder than any other male group.
Morgan - New Right
Growth of cohabitation
Refers to cohabitation as ‘marriage lite’ because she claims cohabiting couples are less happy and less fulfilled than married couples.
Beaujouan and NiBrhrochain
Meaning of cohabitation
Less marriages ending in divorce by the 5th anniversary as it ‘screens out’ weaker relationships
Weeks
Sam sex relationships
Sees gays as creating families based on the idea of ‘friendship as kinship’ chosen family networks.
Morgan
Same sex families
Objects same sex marriage as it indicates a rejection to Christian values and general moral decline
Einasdottir
Same sex families
While many gays and lesbians welcome the opportunity to have their partnerships legally recognised others fear it may limit the flexibility and negotiability of relationships
Levin
LATS
New family form where individuals in a long term committed, intimate relationship define themselves as a couple and are seen as such by others yet choose to live in separate households from their partners
Duncan and Phillips
Growth of LATS
Widespread acceptance of divorce and cohabitation contributes to the growth of LATS
Hasky
LATS
2002-3 2 million LATS which was 30% of all men and women aged 16-59
Levin
Reasons for LATS increase
- Increase in divorce and separation - LATS relationship are an acceptable way of dealing with fallout of previously broken relationships.
- Growing individualisation
- Changes in the labour market - travel/ move for work.
- Modern technology - internet and virtual relationships - close contact can be maintained between partners.
Duncan and Phillips
Meaning of LATS and pure relationships
Found LATS are subject to the same expectation about commitment and fidelity as marriage and cohabitation
Levin
Main reasons for choosing LATS over marriage and cohabitation
- Responsibility and care for others such as children living at home or elderly parents.
- Practical reasons - for partners working in different places LATS avoids conflicts.
- Risk - dont want to repeat past mistakes
Funk and Kobayashi
Meaning of LATS
Protected personal independence, habits and identity allowing each other to pursue interests and hobbies, reducing sacrifices, accommodation compromises and obligations.
Relationships rooted in mutual satisfaction and emotional support are unburdened by structural, practical and legal commitments that make ending marriage/ cohabitation traumatic and difficult.
Silva - Feminist
Highly critical of New Right attacks on lone parents arguing they are patriarchal attempts to force women back into traditional roles of housewife’s and homemaker undermining gender equality.
Spencer and McCready
The classic extended family
Found the classic extended family still common amongst small communities of travellers, traditional working class communities and South Asian communities
Berthound
South Asian Communities
Tend to be larger than other UK families in terms of number of children in the family home and multigenerational extended family units.
The extended family uses centres on the male side of the family with grandfathers, sons, grandsons and their wives and unmarried daughters.
Chamberlain
Modified extended family
The extended family survives because it performs important functions.
Bell
Modified extended family
Research in Swansea found both working class and middle class families had emotional bonds with kin and relied on them for support.
Finch and Mason
Obligations to relatives
Over 90% of people had given or received financial help and about half cared for a sick relative.
Found that the principle of reciprocity or balance was important - people felt that help received should be returned to avoid feelings of indebtedness.
Miraz
Carribean Families
Low marriage rates reflect high value black women place on independence
Ballard
South Asian families
Extended family ties provided an important source of support amongst migrants 1950s and 1960s
Epstein
South Asian families
Found that arranged marriages tend to grow more stable as time goes on while love marriages are more likely to deteriorate
Charles
Social class diversity
Study of Swansea found that the classic extended family was practically extinct even in the working class.
Heath
Clipped wing generation, shared households and families of choice
Young people are now less likely to follow traditional route of living at home, leaving school, going to a job/ higher education and then settling down into relationships/ marriages in their own home.
Allan and Crow
Life cycle and life course diversity
In contemporary societies the traditional family life cycle and life course have changed dramatically.
UK Household longitudional study on LATs
- Covers 40,000 households.
- REsearchers tracked relationsips and meantal health of people aged 60 and above from 2011-2013.
- Couples that meet aged 60 and above have better-well being when in a LATS.
- LATS is most beneficial for women.
