Theorists - Family Diversity Flashcards
Key Theorist - Chester (1985): Neo-Conventional Families
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- There has been an increase in family diversity, but it is not very significant.
- Family diversity is exaggerated.
Key Theorist - Chester (1985): Neo-Conventional Families
HOW CAN THIS THEORY BE EVALUATED?
- Willmott and Young are in support, and argue that:
1) Apart from the above, Chester sees no change.
2) Most people are choosing to stay in alternative families on a permanent basis.
3) Most people aspire to the TNF based on marriage.
4) The main reason why some people are not part of the TNF currently is due to the life circle.
Key Theorist - Rappaports and Rappaports (1982): Family Diversity
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- There has been an increase in family diversity and this is significant and that there are five types of family diversity.
Key Theorist – Rappaports and Rappaports (1982): Family Diversity
WHAT ARE THE FIVE TYPES OF FAMILY DIVERSITY ACCORDING TO THIS THEORY?
Organisational diversity Cultural diversity Social class diversity Life stage diversity Generational diversity
Key Theorist – Rappaports and Rappaports (1982): Family Diversity
WHAT DOES ORGANISATIONAL DIVERSITY REFER TO (INCLUDING AN EXAMPLE)?
The way that families are organised.
Example:
- Some couples have joint conjugal roles and two wage earners, whilst others have segregated conjugal roles and one-wage earner.
Key Theorist – Rappaports and Rappaports (1982): Family Diversity
WHAT DOES CULTURAL DIVERSITY REFER TO (INCLUDING AN EXAMPLE)?
- Idea that different cultural, religious and ethnic groups have different family structures.
Example:
- Higher proportion of female headed lone-parent families among African-Caribbean households and a higher proportion of extended families among Asian households.
Key Theorist – Rappaports and Rappaports (1982): Family Diversity
WHAT DOES SOCIAL CLASS DIVERSITY REFER TO?
- Differences in family structure are partly as a result of income differences between households in different social classes.
- There are class differences in child-rearing practices.
Key Theorist – Rappaports and Rappaports (1982): Family Diversity
WHAT DOES LIFE STAGE DIVERSITY REFER TO?
GIVE AN EXAMPLE.
- Family structure differ depending on the stage reached in the life cycle.
Example:
- Young newlyweds, couples with dependent children, retired couples whose children have grown up and left home and widows who are living alone, will all have different family structures.
Key Theorist – Rappaports and Rappaports (1982): Family Diversity
WHAT DOES GENERATIONAL DIVERSITY REFER TO?
GIVE AN EXAMPLE
- Older and younger generations have different attitudes and experiences which reflect the historical periods in which they have lived.
Example:
- They may have different ideas about the morality of divorce or cohabitation.
Key Theorist - Stacey (1998): Postmodern Families
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Greater family choice and freedom has benefitted women.
- It has enabled women to free themselves from patriarchal oppression, and shape their family arrangements to meet their needs.
- One of the new family structures is the ‘divorce extended family’. Members of this family are connected by divorce rather than marriage.
- The key members in the ‘divorce extended family’ are often female, and may include former in-laws, such as a mother and daughter-in-law or a man’s ex-wife and his new partner.
- Postmodern families are diverse, and their shape depends on the active choices people make about how to live their lives. This includes choices about whether to get divorced, cohabit or come out as gay.
Key Theorist - Stacey (1998): Postmodern Families
WHAT DID THEY FIND THROUGH THEIR STUDY?
1) Women have been the main agents of change in the family. For example, many of the women she interviewed, rejected the traditional housewife-mother role.
2) Many of the women had worked, returned to education as adults, improved their job prospects, divorced and remarried. These women created new family types to suit their needs.
Key Theorist - Stacey (1998): Postmodern Families
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- It is pointless trying to make large scale generalisations about ‘the family’ as if it were a single thing.
- Instead, a family is simply whatever those involved choose to call their family.
- Families are flexible with unclear boundaries.
Is critical of modernist theories who believe the family is a concrete structure.
Key Theorists - Giddens and Beck: Family
WHAT HAS INFLUENCED THESE THEORISTS?
The postmodernist argument about society
Key Theorists - Giddens and Beck: Family
WHAT HAVE THESE THEORIES DONE WITH THE POSTMODERNIST ARGUMENT ABOUT SOCIETY?
Applied some of these to understanding family life.
Key Theorists - Giddens and Beck: Family
WHAT DOES THEIR INDIVIDUALISATION THESIS ARGUE?
- Traditional social structures such as class, gender and the family, have lost their influence on people.
- In the past, people’s lives were defined by fixed roles that largely prevented them from choosing their own life course.
- Individuals in today’s society have less fixed roles to follow.
- People have become free from traditional roles and structures, leaving them with the freedom to choose how to live their lives.
Key Theorist - Giddens (1992): Choice and Equality
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- In recent decades, the family and marriage have been transformed by more choice and a more equal relationship between men and women.
- Personal relationships inevitably become less stable due to choice.
- The ‘personal relationship’ is a kind of rolling contract that can be ended by either partner. This increases family diversity by creating more lone-parent families, one-person households and reconstituted families.
- Same sex families are leading the way to towards new family types and more equal relationships because same-sex couples aren’t influenced by tradition as much as heterosexual couples.
- Same-sex couples have been able to develop relationships based on choice rather than traditional roles, creating a family type which suits their needs.
Key Theorist - Giddens (1992): Choice and Equality
WHAT REASONS DO THEY GIVE FOR THE INCREASED EQUALITY BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN? GIVE AT LEAST TWO EXAMPLES
1) Contraception has allowed sex and intimacy rather than reproduction to become the main reason for the relationship.
2) Women have gained greater independence as a result of feminism and greater educational and work opportunities.
3) In the past, traditional family relationships were held together by external forces such as laws around marriage, and the powerful norms against divorce and sex outside of marriage. He describes this as the ‘pure relationship’.
4) Couples in today’s society, are free to define their relationship by themselves, rather than acting out roles that have been defined by law or tradition.
5) The key feature of a ‘pure relationship’ is that it solely exists to satisfy each partner’s needs. The relationship is only likely to survive if both partners think it should.
6) Nowadays, couples stay together because of happiness, love and a sense of attraction, and not because of tradition, a sense of duty or because of the children.
Key Theorist - Beck (1992): Negotiated Family
WHAT DOES BECK ARGUE ABOUT SOCIETY NOWADAYS?
- We now live in a ‘risk society’ where tradition has less influence, and people have more choice, and as a result are more aware of the risks.
