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Sociology - Families and Households > Topic 5 - Theorists and Role of the Family > Flashcards

Topic 5 - Theorists and Role of the Family Flashcards

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Sociology 101 flashcards
1
Q

Sociological perspectives - The functions of the family

A
  1. Functionalism - consensus perspective
  2. Marxism - class conflict perspective
  3. Feminism - gender conflict perspective
  4. The Personal Life Perspective
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2
Q

What is a value consensus

A
  • Functionalists
  • Shared set of norms and values
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3
Q

Organic analogy

A
  • Functionalists
  • Body is made up of different interconnected organs, representing the different institutions of society, e.g., the family
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4
Q

4 essential functions to meet the needs of society and its members

A
  • MURDOCK
    1. Stable satisfaction of the sex drive
    2. Reproduction of the next generation
    3. Socialisation of the young
    4. Meeting its members economic needs
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5
Q

Stable satisfaction of the sex drive

A
  • With the same partner preventing social disruption caused by sexual free-for-all
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6
Q

Reproduction of the next generation

A
  • Society needs this to be able to continue
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7
Q

Socialisation of the young

A
  • Into societies shares norms and values
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8
Q

Meeting its members economic means

A
  • Examples include food and shelter
  • Breadwinner providing for his family
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9
Q

A03 Functionalist views

A
  • Other institutions and family types can perform the above functions (MURDOCK agrees but says the nuclear family is the best to do it)
  • Feminists: family oppresses women
  • Marxists: family meets the needs of capitalism not its members
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10
Q

Functional fit theory

A
  • PARSONS
  • Functions a family performs will depend on the society in which it is found
  • Shape or structure of the family depends on the functions it has to perform.
  • Nuclear family: parents and dependent children
  • Extended family: three generations living under one roof = needed to be a self-sufficient unit of production and consumption
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11
Q

Industrialisation

A
  • Britain 18th century: extended family gave way to nuclear family
  • Emerging industrial society has different needs which the extended family could not meet: geographically mobile workforce, socially mobile workforce
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12
Q

Geographically mobile workforce

A
  • PARSONS nuclear family is more compact and easier to move than an extended family
  • Pre-industrial society = people spent their whole lives in the same village
  • Modern industrial society = constantly moving to different parts of the world for work (globalisation)
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13
Q

Socially mobile workforce

A
  • Modern industrial society constantly evolving and needs a skilled workforce = talented people win promotion
  • Status achieved through effort, rather than it being fixed = social mobility, e.g., the son of a labourer may become a doctor
  • PARSONS = nuclear family better than extended family as the son living at home and the father having a higher ascribed status, creates conflict in the work place
  • Solution = adult son leaves home and creates nuclear family, structurally isolated from its kin
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14
Q

A03 PARSONS

A
  • LASLETT argues in pre-industrial society late childbearing age and short life expectancy meant that grandparents were unlikely to be alive afther the birth of their grandchildren = more like a nuclear family
  • ANDERSON = extended family offered support financially and with childcare in the mid 19th century
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15
Q

Loss of functions

A
  • PARSONS
  • When society changed to industrial, the family changed it function
  • E.g., no longer to be a unit of production as work moved into other institutions e.g., schools and health service
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16
Q

What functions does the modern nuclear family perform as a result of loss of functions

A
  • PARSONS
    1. The primary socialisation of children - To equip them with skills and society’s values in order to enable them to cooperate with others and intergrate into society
    2. The stabilisation of adult personalities - The family is a place where adults can relax and release tensions, allowing them to return to work feeling refreshed (warm bath theory)
17
Q

The Marxist perspective

A
  • Society based on class conflict which stems from the unequal class structure between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
18
Q

What are society’s institutions according to Marxists

A
  • Education
  • Media
  • Religion
  • The State
  • Family
19
Q

3 functions of the family according to Marxists

A
  1. Inheritance of property
  2. Ideological function
  3. A unit of consumption
20
Q

Inheritance of property

A
  • Key to determining the shape of society = mode of production (those who and control society’s productive forces) = modern industrial society, capitalist class, mode of production evolves = family evolves
  • Earliest classless society = “primitive communism” no private property and everyone owned the means of production, ENGLES family was a “promiscuous horde” with no restrictions on sexual relationships
  • Industrialised society = private properties and men secured control over production = nuclear family
  • Monogamy = men had to be certain of the paternity of their children to ensure they have legitimate heirs. ENGLES “historical world defeat of the female sex” as it is under males control and became a “mere instrument for the production of children”
  • Overthrow of capitalism will literate women from patriarchal control
21
Q

Ideological function

A
  • Family peforms ideological functions (a set of beliefs that justify inequalities and maintain the capitlist system by persuading people that inequlaity is justified and unchangeable):
    a) Socialising children into the idea hierarchy and inequality are inevitable, e.g, parents have power of their children to get them used to the idea that someone will always be in charge of them in life
    b) ZARETSKY family offers an apparant “haven” from the harsh exploitative world of capitalsim but is largely an illusion as the family does not benefit all members, e.g., based on the domestic servitude of women
22
Q

A unit of consumption

A
  • Capitalism exploits the labour of workers by gaining profit by paying them less than the value of the commodities they produce = family intergral the capitalists to generating profits by consuming these commodities and creating further profit of the bourgeoisie and the explotitation of the proletariat
    a) Advertisers urge families to comsume the latest products
    b) The media target children to pester their parents to spend money
    c) Children who lack the latest clothes or gadgets are mocked and stigmatised by their peers
23
Q

A03 Marxists

A
  • Ignores the wide variety of family structures found in society today
  • Feminists argue Marxists underestimate the power of gender inequalities: more fundamental than class inequalities
  • Functionalists argue Marxists ignore the positive benefits that family performs for its members
24
Q

Feminist view of the family

A
  • Oppresses women
  • Focus on things such as the unequal division of labour and domestic violence against women
  • Gender inequality = socially constructred
25
Q

Liberal feminist views of the family

A
  • They believe in campaigning for equal rights and opportunities, e.g., equal pay act
  • They believe that women’s oppression is being gradually overcome by changing attitudes and through changes to the law, e.g., sex discrimination act 1975
  • Moving towards greater equality, full equality will depend on further reforms and changes
  • Family = March of Progress taken place as more men are nod involved in domestic work and there is more equal balance in the socialisation of children
26
Q

A03 Liberal feminists

A
  • Failing to challenge the underlying cause of women’s oppression and for believing that changes in the law/people’s attitudes will be enough to bring equality
  • Marxist and radical feminists believe that far reaching changes to deep-rooted social structures were needed
27
Q

Marxist feminists

A
  • The main cause of women’s oppression is capitalism, serving this in 3 ways:
    1. Women reproduce the labour force
    2. Women absorb answer
    3. Women are a reserve army of cheap labour
28
Q

Women reproduce the labour force

A
  • Through their unpaid domestic labour by socialising the next generation of workers and maintain the current one
29
Q

Women absorb anger

A
  • Directed at capitalism
  • ANSLEY = women are “takers of shit” who soak up frustration that their husbands feel because they are alienated and exploitated at work (explains male domestic crime against women)
30
Q

Women are a reserve army of cheap labour

A
  • Taken on when extra workers are needed
  • When no longer needed, employers can let them go to return to their primary role of unpaid domestic labour
31
Q

Radical feminists

A
  • Men are the enemy: They are the source of women’s oppression and exploitation
  • The family and marriage are the key institutions in patriarchal society: Men benefit from women’s unpaid domestic worker and their sexual services
  • They dominate women through domestic and sexual violence/the threat of it
  • Patriarchal system needs to be overturned
  • Separatism = The only way for women to be free, living independently of men
  • Political lesbianism = The idea that heterosexual relationships are oppressive because they involved sleeping with the enemy
  • GREER argues “matrifocal” (all female) are the preferred family type
32
Q

A03 Radical feminists

A
  • Liberal feminists (SOMERVILLE) argue radical feminists fail to recognise the fact womens position has improved
  • Argues that heterosexual attraction makes it unlikely that separatism would work
  • SOMERVILLE women have not yet reached full equality
33
Q

Difference feminists

A
  • We cannot generalise about women’s experiences
  • All women have very different experiences of the family and society, e.g., regarding the family as purely negative ignores black women’s experience of racial oppression; black feminists view the black family as a source of support and resistance against racism
34
Q

A03 Difference feminists

A
  • Neglect the fact that all women share many of the same experiences, e.g., the risk of domestic violence and sexual assualt
  • By breaking down the feminist movement into smaller sub-groups you run the risk of watering down the movement
35
Q

The personal life perspective

A
  • PLP argues they all suffer from two weaknesses:
    1. They tend to assume that the traditional nuclear family is the dominant family - ignores the increased diversity of families
    2. They are all structural theories - assume we are all passive puppets manipulated by the structures of society
36
Q

The sociology of personal life

A
  • Influenced by interactionist theory and must start from the POV of the indiviudal and what families/relationships mean to them
  • Take a bottom up approach which emphasises the meaning individuals give to their actions
37
Q

Beyond ties of blood and marriage

A
  • Relationships with friends: may be like a sister or a brother
  • Fictive kin: close friends who are treared as relatives
  • Gay and lesbian chosen families: Supportive network of close friends, ex partners, and those not related through blood or marriage
  • Relationships with dead relatives: who live on in people’s memories and continue to shape identities
  • Relationships with pets: TIPPER found in her study of children’s views of family relationships, children often saw pets as part of the family
38
Q

Donor-conceived children

A
  • NORDQVIST and SMART found that the issue of blood and genes raised a range of feelings where social bonds are more important than blood bonds
  • Difficult feelings that arise from non-genetic parent, e.g., difference in appearance
  • Lesbian couples there were additional problems with non-genetic and genetic mothers and that the donor may be treated as the “real” second parent
  • EVALUATION: The above study shows the value of the PLP as compared with top-down and helps to understand how people define themselves and their relationships instead of imposing traditional definitions of the family based on blood and genes from the outside
39
Q

A03 The personal life perspective

A
  • Accused of taking a broad view
  • Including a wide range of different kinds of personal relationships, we ignore what is special about relationships based on marriage and blood
  • Functionalists argue they ignore the top-down structures that influence behavuour but acknowledge the negative aspects of family, e.g., domestically violent relationship

Sociology - Families and Households (7 decks)

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