Sociology, Paper2, 2017, Topic A2 Families and Households

Question 1

1. Outline and explain two ways in which changing gender roles within the family may have affected children’s experience of childhood.
   [10 marks]

Answer 1

Indicative Content

Answers may include the following and/or other relevant points:

• parental role-models
• impact of daycare
• quality of relationships with parents
• material conditions (eg of children in lone-parent families and dual-earner families)
• time pressures on parents
• more children without siblings
• patriarchy and age patriarchy
• impact of feminism on socialisation

Sources may include the following or other relevant ones: 
Bonke; 
Dunne; 
Evans and Chandler; 
Gershuny; 
Hood-Williams; 
Kan; 
Nicholson; 
Oakley; 
Pleck; 
Pugh; 
Willmott and Young.

Question 2

Read Item C below and answer the question that follows.

Item C

In the 1950s, most immigrants into the United Kingdom came from Commonwealth
countries such as India and Jamaica. More recently, many immigrants have come
from European Union countries such as Poland. Many immigrants are young adults
seeking work.These migration patterns have affected household structures.

Applying material from Item C, analyse two ways in which migration patterns have
affected household structures in the United Kingdom. [10 marks]

Answer 2

Sources may include the following or other relevant ones: 
Berthoud; 
Modood et al; Peach;
Pryce; 
Rapoport and Rapoport; 
Rendall and Salt.

Question 3

3. Read Item D below and answer the question that follows.

Item D

Functionalists believe the family has its own important role to play in helping society to
function effectively. In each type of society, one particular type of family will be the
norm. This family type will fit the needs both of its individual members and of society
as a whole.

Other sociologists believe that functionalists fail to consider ways in which families are
dysfunctional.

Applying material from Item D and your knowledge, evaluate functionalist explanations of
the role of the family in society.
[20 marks]

Answer 3

Indicative content

Concepts and issues such as the following may appear: 
functional pre-requisite; 
organic analogy; 
stabilisation of the sex drive; 
economic co-operation; 
primary socialisation;
reproduction; 
stabilisation of adult personalities; 
conjugal roles; 
instrumental role; 
expressive role; 
nuclear family; 
breadwinner model; 
familial ideology; 
reproduction of the workforce;
gender role socialisation; 
triple shift; 
domestic abuse; 
stress valve; 
family diversity.

Sources may include the following or other relevant ones: 
Delphy; 
Durkheim; 
Engels;
Fletcher; 
Laing; 
Morgan; 
Murdock; 
Parsons; 
Stacey; 
Zaretsky.