Topic 3 - Family Diversity

Question 1

Functionalist

Answer 1

• PARSONS

Question 2

Expressive role

Answer 2

• Mother
• Domesticity, emotions, and raises the children

Question 3

Instrumental role

Answer 3

• Father
• Economic capital and provides for the family

Question 4

What is the best family type according to functionalists and the new right

Answer 4

• Nuclear family

Question 5

Why is the nuclear family the best fit

Answer 5

• Primary socialisation
• Stabalisation of adult personalities

Question 6

The New Right perspective

Answer 6

• Conservative
• Anti-feminist
• Opposes family diversity

Question 7

What family type does The New Right perspective see as harmful and why

Answer 7

• Lone parent families
• Lone mothers cannot properly discipline their children
• Lone parent families leave boys without an adult male role model = educational failure, delinquency, and social instability
• Depend on the state

Question 8

Cohabitation versus marriage

Answer 8

• The New Right
• Major cause of lone parent families is the collapse of the relationships between cohabiting couples
• BENSON higher rate of family breakdown in the baby’s first three years in cohabiting couples (20%) comaped to married couples (6%)
• Marriage offers stability as it involves commitment, lower rates of divorce then breakups

Question 9

A03 The New Right

Answer 9

• OAKLEY (feminist) roles are biological = looks at cross cultural studies that show variation in the roles played by men and women and says The New Right view is a negative reaction against the feminist campaign
• No evidence to suggest children in lone-parent families are more likely to be brought up as delinquent
• Rate of cohabitation is higher amongst poorer social groups (SMART = poverty causes breakdown of relationship)
• Commitment is subjective
• Feminisits argue the nuclear family is based on patriarchal oppression and the main source of gender equality

Question 10

Midway theory

Answer 10

• CHESTER: Neo-conventional family
• Diversity in the family is not a negative change
• Neo-conventional family has displaced traditional nuclear family with both parties being earners (dual earners)
• Family diversity has been exaggerated: people do not choose to live alternatives to the nuclear family (lone parent) and they do aspire for a nuclear family
• Whether they are in a nuclear family or not depends on their life cycle and statistics tell us what is happening at the moment (snapshot problem)

Question 11

Patterns providing evidence to CHESTER’s argument

Answer 11

• Most people live in a household headed by a married couple
• Most adults marry and have children and are reared by 2 natural parents
• Most marriages continue until death (divorce has increased but most divorces remarry)
• Cohabitation has increased but is mostly temporary before marrying or re-marrying

Question 12

The Rapoports: five types of family diversity

Answer 12

• Organisational diveristy
• Cultural diversity
• Social class diversity
• Life stage diversity
• Generational diversity

Question 13

Organisational diversity

Answer 13

• Differences in the way families are organised
• Some joint conjugal, dual earners, and some segregated conjugal with one earner

Question 14

Cultural diversity

Answer 14

• Different cultural, religious, and ethnic groups have different family structures, e.g., extended families in Asian households

Question 15

Social class diversity

Answer 15

• Differences in family structure are partly the result of income differences between households of different social classes
• Class differences in child rearing

Question 16

Life stage diversity

Answer 16

• Family differs dependant on the life cycle, e.g., young newlyweds, couples with children, retired couples, and widows

Question 17

Generational diversity

Answer 17

• Older and younger generations have different and experiences that reflect historical periods in which they have lived, e.g., they have different views about morality of divorce

Question 18

Postmodern and family diversity

Answer 18

• CHEAL says there is far more diversity
• We no longer live in a modern society that has a clear and distinct structure but a chaotic, fragmented post-modern era
  YES greater individual choice and freedom to plot their own life course
  NO greater freedom of choice means a greater risk of instability as these relationships are more likely to break up

Question 19

Postmodern families

Answer 19

• STACEY argues greater freedom has benefitted women the most and are the major agents in shaping the family to meet their needs and break the patriarchal oppression, e.g., women reject housewife role and instead they work, return to education, divorce, and re-marry
• “divorce extended family” whose members are connected by divorce rather than marriage, usually female and may include former in-laws
• MORGAN pointless to make generalisations about families, must understand it is whatever arrangements those involved choose to take
• HAREVEN Life course analysis = in-depth unstructured interviews to understanf the meanings individual family members give to their relationships and the choices they make at various points in their lives

Question 20

The individualisation thesis

Answer 20

• BECK and GIDDENS
• Traditional social structures such as class, gender, and family have lost their influence over us
• People have become freed/disembedded from traditional roles and structures which leaves us to choose our own life course

Question 21

The pure relationship

Answer 21

• GIDDENS
  1. Contraception has allowed sex and intimacy rather than reproduction to become the main reason for the relationships existance
  2. Women have gained independence as a result of feminism and because of greater opportunities in education and work
• People have far more freedom and what holds a relationship together is no longer law, religion, social norms or traditional institutions but now based on choice and equallity

Question 22

What is a pure relationship characterised by

Answer 22

• Exists to satisfy each partners needs
• Only survive as long as it serves both partners interests and very unstable
• Stay together because of love and happiness not out of a sense of duty

Question 23

What couple leads the way towards more equal relationships

Answer 23

• GIDDENS
• Same-sex couples
• Influenced by tradition in the same way heterosexual couples have
• Able to negotiste their relationships and create structures that suit their own needs
• WESTON found same-sex couples created families of choice from friends, former lovers, and biological kin

Question 24

Risk society

Answer 24

• BECK
• Tradition has less influence and people have more choice, this results in people being more aware of the risks as making choices involved calculating risks and rewards
  2 main changes that have undermined the traditional family:
  1. Greater gender equality - challenged male domination, women noe expect equally at both home and work
  2. Greater individualisation - people’s actions are now influences by their own self-interests rather than a sense of duty
  = The negotiated family

Question 25

Zombie category

Answer 25

• BECK
• In this risk society people turn to the family for security but the family are subject to even greater risk
• It appears to be alive but in reality is dead

Question 26

A03 Individualisation thesis

Answer 26

• SMART and MAY (PLP)
• Criticise individualisation thesis due to:
  1. Exaggerates how much choice people have. BUDGEON notes this reflects neo-liberal ideology that we have complete freedom of choice when in reality traditional norms limit peoples choices
  2. Wrongly sees people as disembedded and free-floating it ignores that choices and decisions are made in a social context
  3. Ignored the structural factors such as class inequalities, patriarchal gender norms in limiting our relationship choices

Question 27

The connectedness thesis

Answer 27

• SMART argues we are social being whose choices are made “within a web of connectedness”
• We live within networks of existing relationships that strongly influence our decision and range of options
• Families are much more than just the couple and cannot be walked away from at will

Question 28

Power structures

Answer 28

• BECK and GIDDENS argue that structures which once dictated our behaviour have now disappeared
• MAY argues these strcutures are not disappearing but are being re-shaped
• E.g., women may now have greater rights in relation to work, voting, divorce, education but this does not mean “they have it all”
• PLP still values the importance of social structures in shaping the freedoms many people now have such as patriarchy and social class