Year One: Family And Household Diversity

Question 1

What is the cereal packet family?

Answer 1

The cereal packet family is a functionalist concept which argues that the idealised version of the family is the nuclear family of mother, father an two children. This is an idea based on the 1950s version of the family and household, ignoring the fact that the families have changed in structure and diversity.

Question 2

What are the beliefs surrounding the cereal packet family?

Answer 2

It is the best, most desirable and most common form of family and household arrangement

Question 3

Why do people believe that the cereal packet family is the best type of family?

Answer 3

Often promoted in advertising and other parts of the media, with family-size breakfast cereals, toothpaste and a wide range of other consumer goods

Question 4

Which groups of sociologists see the cereal packet family as the most desirable type of family in Britain?

Answer 4

New Right theorists and functionalists

Question 5

What role does the man play in a cereal packet family?

Answer 5

Instrumental role: main breadwinner; responsible for family discipline

Question 6

What role does the woman play in a cereal packet family?

Answer 6

Expressive role: nurturing; looking after the home (housework) and taking primary responsibility for childcare

Question 7

How was the cereal packet family viewed in the 1950s?

Answer 7

Seen as a nurturing, caring and loving institution- a safe and harmonious refuge from an uncaring outside world

Question 8

Why is the cereal packet family misleading?

Answer 8

There continue to be many important changes in family patterns and there is a wide range of family types and household arrangements in contemporary Britain

Question 9

How does changing family patterns in contemporary Britain affect the cereal packet family?

Answer 9

The growing diversity of relationships that people live in shows that the traditional family life is being eroded as people constantly develop new forms of relationship and choose to live in different ways

Question 10

What % of households contained a married/ civil partnership or cohabitating couple with dependent children in 2013?

Answer 10

21%

Question 11

What % of households are lone parents families?

Answer 11

11%

Question 12

What % of households are traditional cereal packet families accountable for?

Answer 12

5%

Question 13

What was the reason for classic extended families? What reasons are there for the disappearance of them?

Answer 13

Living in traditional working-class communities meant that there was little geographical or social mobility
Children remained in the same area when they got married and people stayed there for several generations
This created a close knit community life
Living close meant a constant exchange of services

Such extended family life declined in the second half of the twentieth century as traditional industries closed down and people were forced to move away in search of new employment

Question 14

What is the modified extended family?

Answer 14

Related nuclear families perhaps geographically far apart maintain regular contact and mutual support through modern communication and easy transportation

Question 15

What did Brannen mean by the beanpole family?

Answer 15

The family tree is ‘thinner’ and ‘less bushy’
The elderly are living for longer due to increased life expectancy
Younger generations have less children

Question 16

What are the main reasons for the increase in family diversity today?

Answer 16

1. Increase in government funded research into the different types and structures that exist within families in the UK today
2. Changes in social attitudes towards the role and function of the family
3. The impact of reproductive technologies
4. The introduction of legislation and laws relating to families
5. The Labour Market
6. The influence of Feminism

Question 17

What did the Rapoports study? Research method?

Answer 17

The five types of family diversity
Used an extensive review of existing research (literature review)
An analysis of the 1980 census where UK families were asked about the makeup of their household
completed by every household

Question 18

What was a strength of the Rapoports’ research method?

Answer 18

Highly representative due to large scale sampling

Question 19

What was a weakness of the Rapoports’ research?

Answer 19

Although broad, the data was superficial and neither revealed of the reasons why changes in families had happened, nor the emotional impact on peoples lives

Question 20

What did the Rapoports find?

Answer 20

They found that families had diversified in a number of ways. They identified a number of ways in which family life was diverse in contrast to the idea that the nuclear family was the clear norm that identified five clear types of family diversity

1. Organisational
2. Cultural
3. Class
4. Life course
5. Cohort

Question 21

What is the conclusion of the Rapoports’ findings?

Answer 21

The Rapoports were functionalist sociologists They were therefore optimistic about the capacity of the family to evolve into new forms. As society changes increased family Diversity was a healthy change resulting from societal shifts

Question 22

Explain Organisational diversity

Answer 22

This refers to the way a family might organise itself in terms of the roles people perform, for example, traditional male dominated families and more symmetrical ones
Variations of family structure, household type and differences in the division of labour within the home

Question 23

Explain Cultural diversity

Answer 23

Families differ in terms of their beliefs and values. Some ethnicities placing a greater emphasis on family than others, some preferring different gender roles et cetera

Significant variations by ethnicity in the case of South Asian families, both Hindu and Muslim, there was a tendency for families to be more traditional and patriarchal, and extended families also more likely
African Caribbean households were much more likely to be matrifocal, reflected in the much higher rates of single parent families amongst Afro-Caribbean households

Question 24

Explain Social Class diversity

Answer 24

Richer/poorer households experience family life differently. Availability of resources, quality of housing, leisure opportunities, etc. all impact the nature of families and family life
Differences in terms of how children were socialised middle-class families are much more pro school for example and in terms of support networks. Working-class families are more likely to be embedded within a modified extended family network whereas middle class families were much more likely to be isolated, reflecting the increase geographical mobility of wealthier families

Question 25

Explain Life Course diversity

Answer 25

There are also differences which result from the stages of the life-cycle of the family newly married couples without children for example, have a different family life to those whose children have achieved adult status, one point to try and keep in mind here is that individuals today go through more stages of the life course than they would’ve done in the 1950s

Question 26

Explain Cohort diversity

Answer 26

A cohort of individuals refers to those born in the same year or part of years. Such individuals may well have had a shared experience of historical events which could’ve influenced a family life. For example, couples entering into marriage. In the 1950s would’ve had an expectation that marriage was for life and traditional gender roles were the norm but by the 1980s, all of this had changed

Question 27

What sociologists are evaluations for Rapoports?

Answer 27

Chester
Thane

Question 28

What does Chester argue?

Answer 28

Recognises that there has been an increase in family diversity, but believes this is overstated by the Rapoports
Increases in family diversity are not necessarily negative
Most significant shift in diversity is the move in dominance of traditional nuclear/convention to neo-conventional family
Individuals are not choosing to live in alternatives on long-term basis
Nuclear family remains the ideal to which most people aspire

Question 29

What does Thane argue?

Answer 29

Rather than criticising the idea that the nuclear family is in decline, Thane challenges the idea that the nuclear family was ever the ‘norm’ in the first place
Family diversity was the norm up until WW2, brief period of thirty years 1940s to 1970s nearly everyone got married and lived in nuclear, now we are returning to greater diversity
Abnormal period after WW2 with higher marriage rates
Statistical research such as data gather by the Census evidences a wide variety of family diversity within pre-war society. For example in the 1930s 15% of women did not marry and in the early 18th century 24% of marriages were end by the death of a partner