Sociology Revision; Family and households

Functionalism Ideas

• Murdock- 4 Functions of the family; Sexual, Reproductive, Education and Economic.

Sexual: Healthy sex life, Controlled sex life. Reproductive: Producing the next generation. Economic: Man works, Women house keeps, taxes paid, food and shelter. Educational: Primary socialisation and norms and values.

• Parsons- 2 Functions of the family; Primary Socialisation and Stabilisation of Adult Personalities.

Primary Socialisation: Primary socialisation typically occurs during childhood and is when a child learns the attitudes, values and actions appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture.Stabilising Adult Personalities: Warm bath theory; the idea that the family provides a relaxing environment for the stresses of the day to be relieved.

Functionalism KeywordsContigual rolesReconstituted families Consensus theoryWillmott and Young (Symmetrical families)MurdockParsonsTraditional Idealistic FunctionsEducationEconomic SexualReproductiveOld FashionedWarm bath theoryPrimary SocialisationNuclear/Cereal Packet familiesInstrumental Expressive

BreadwinnerHomemakerMonogamyStabilising Adult PersonalitiesPositive

New Right

• Policies: Government and Conservatives• The Media: Daily Mail, The Telegraph

Murray: Underclass

New Rabble: Long term unemployment, Welfare dependent and single mothers on benefits. This is bad and dangerous for society.

New Victorians: Respective middle class, married, good socialisation, work and pay taxes. Good for society.

Similar to Functionalist. They believe that the nuclear family is correct and disagrees with reconstituted and single parent families.

New Right Keywords

PoliciesMediaConservativesDaily MailNew RabbleNew VictorianMurrayUnderclassNo Dark sideSocial PoliciesLawsTraditional RolesIdeal Family typeMulticultural SocietyImmigrationRacistBiasedGeographical Mobility

Extended FamilyConsensusPositive

Feminist IdeasLiberal Feminist:

Not strictPositiveNew Man: A man who helps with childcare and with the jobs around the house.Can have partnerships in marriage.

Sue Sharpe: Women’s Aspirations

Radical Feminists:

StrictMen can benefit from family life more than women.Marriage can be prisonDivorce allows escapeNegative

Ansley: “ Women are takers of shit”

Marxist Feminist:

Benston: “Slaves of wage slaves”Women produce the next generation of workersWomen used in capitalism to produce the next generation of workers

Black Feminists:

Ethnicity is just as important of genderEthnicity can add complication

e.g Asian- Arranged Marriages (Tradition)

Feminist Keywords

LiberalRadicalAnsleyBenstonAnn OakleySue SharpeDual burden/Triple shiftPatriarchalAndrocentricUnrealistic expectationsWarm bath theoryInequality Black FeministConflict

Marxist Ideas• Marxist theorise the family from the capitalist perspective and can

therefore explain conflict in the family.

• The Ruling class (Bourgoise) own the means of production and exploit the working class (Proletariat).

• Marxist adopt the critical view of the role of the family in society.

• Marxist link the ideology to the role of the family.

• Marxist see the nature and the role of the family as directly connect to the needs of the economy- Economic determinism.

• Marxist focus on the negative and exploitative aspects of the family.

• Marxist do not acknowledge the positive benefits of the family life for individuals and society.

• Engels believed that the marriage should be monogamous so the property can be passed on to the rightful heir.

Criticisms of Marxism

Marxists ignore positive aspects of family life

Marxists fail to consider the diversity of family life

Parents seem to have lost their ability to control children

The view that the family creates an obedient workforce ripe for exploitation is too deterministic

Radical Psychiatry

Leach: Nuclear Family is too isolated and lacks support from extended family. Also it puts pressure on the parents who lack emotional support from other members of the family leading to adults taking anger out on children.

Laing: The family can cause mental illness, stress, depression and anxiety. Children and parents can spend too much time together therefore the children feel suffocated.

Cooper: Parents teach children to be obedient. Family is a microcosm of society whereby:

Parents: Capitalist boss

Children: Worker

Marxist Keywords

EngelsBourgoise Proletariat CapitalistNegativeRuling classAbusiveCommunismMonogamous SocialisationMarxDomestic LabourExploitativeUnit of consumption Ideology

Family Overview

Like Family Dislikes Family

Functionalists; Murdock and Parsons

Feminists; Oakley, Benston and Ansley

New Right Marxists: Marx and Engels

LIKE: Nuclear and Cereal Packet Families

Radical Psychiatrists; Laing, Cooper and Leach

HATE: Reconstituted and Single/Lone Parents

Social PoliciesPartnerships:

Divorce Reform Act 1969: Easier for divorce. Radical Feminists believe that divorce is an escape from marriage.

Civil Partnership Act 2004: It means that homosexual couples are allowed to get married.

Domestic Violence:

1991: Rape within marriage became illegal.

Work:

Equal Pay Act 1975: It now means that women and men are paid the same.

Sex Discrimination Act 1975: The Sex Discrimination Act means that men and women are seen as equal in jobs and in marriage.

Maternity leave and Paternity leave is now equal between men and women.

It has now became illegal to fire a women who is pregnant.

Education:

Free up to the age of 18Compulsory

Benefits:

Disabled:

Disability living allowance

Single Parent:

Family allowanceChild Tax CreditCSA: Child Support AgencyHousing benefit

Secularisation

Secularisation: Is the declining influence of religion in society.

The Church seems to have little influence on society and wider communities.

Secularisation has been noted in participant levels in the recent years. There has been a decline in the amount of people who attend church on a regular basis.

Nuclear Marriage rates are in decline. This could be caused by secularisation because couples may choose not to marriage or get a divorce even though their religion is against it because it is not promoted as much in today’s society.

Immigration

The cultural life of Britain has been greatly enlarged by the mass immigrations of the 1950s and 60s.

Through immigration we are able to learn about different cultures and religious beliefs.

e.g Arranged and forced marriages mainly occur in Eastern countries. However due to immigration we have learnt about them in the past 50years.

Also, through immigration, we as a society are able to look at generational changes. For example there would be a change of behaviour if you are the 2nd or 3rd generation rather than if you were 1st generation. The customs and beliefs of the country of origin become more diluted because of influences in the new country.

Immigration: Moving into a new country /society.

Emigration: Moving out of a new country/society into another.

CHANGING PATTERNS OF MARRIAGE, COHABITATION, SEPARATION, DIVORCE, CHILD-BEARING AND THE LIFE COURSE!

Marriage and Cohabitation

• While there has been a fall in marriage rate and growth within cohabitation, marriage is still the most common form of partnership.

• In 2004/05 half of men and women were married while only one in ten was cohabitating.

• The term ‘serial monogamy’ has been used to describe the pattern of marriage in the UK.

Serial Monogamy: Is when a marriage occurs over and over again with several different partners. Marriage-Divorce-Marriage-Divorce etc.

Separation and Divorce

Divorce is defined as the legal termination of a marriage.

About 40% of marriages will end in divorce.

Women are more likely than men to petition for divorce and have a divorce granted to them: Dual/Triple burden?

Main reasons:

• The legal changes which makes divorce easier, simple, quicker and cheaper.

• Changing attitudes towards divorce: less stigma for getting a divorce.

• Growing expectations of marriage; particularly for women. • Growing independence for women; women have higher

aspirations ( Sharpe, Feminist)

Changes in Family Structure• There has been a growth in ‘reconstituted’ and ‘reordered’ families.

Two common reasons for heading a lone-parent household :

1. Single lone motherhood (Women who have never married or cohabited and who have children).

2. Divorce or separation where the children stay with their mother.

There was a rise in the numbers of ‘singletons’. Single-person households include:

• Young people who live alone.• Divorced or separated people who still live on their own. • Pensioners living alone (increasing life expectancy, especially for

women has added to the number of elderly widowed people living alone)

There has been an increase in ‘empty nest families’ as children grow up and leave home. However there is evidence to suggest sons are returning home or staying the family longer because of the cost of living.

Child Bearing• The fertility rate has fallen, leading to smaller families and there has been a

growth in child-less and child-free families. This means that fertility has fallen below the rate to keep the population stable.

• Childless: A couple who cannot conceive a child naturally.• Childfree: A couple that chooses not to have children but can.

The reasons for the decline in the fertility rate and increase in the average age of motherhood include:

• The fall in infant mortality rate• Greater availability of reliable and safe contraception• Later marriage• The higher cost of raising children• The increase in the number of women in higher education

Recent years there has been a increase in the number of women giving birth in their 30’s and 40’s which has had an impact on the overall birth rate.

Higher rate of teenage single parenthood and a decline in the stigma if being lone parent, particularly unmarried mother.

Childhood and changes in the status of children!

Social Construction of childhood

• Childhood is socially constructed by adults. Children are defined as such and there are expectations and attitudes attached to how children should behave and treated.

• Notions of childhood have changed over time. In the past, children ‘needed’ to be controlled by adults.

• Childhood today is often viewed as time of innocence, vulnerability and dependence when adults are responsible for care and protection.

• Many sociologists see childhood as a social construction rather than a natural state.

Social Construct: ideas about what childhood is according to time and location.

Linked to Aries’ ‘mini adult’.

Sociologists

Postman: A sociologist who believed in the death of childhood was linked to:

Access to internet; porn, social networking sites etc.

Clothes

Knowledge and availability of drugs and alcohol

Child Abuse

Pilcher: Pilcher believed that childhood and adulthood should be keep separate and are very separate stages of life. This is evident through the way laws are set out demonstrating what children can and can’t do. Other differences which show the divide are the clothes and products which are created for the children (e.g books, toys and food).

Aries: Aries called children ‘mini adults’. Aries said that the ‘idea of childhood did not exist’.

Children worked from a very early age to help provide economic benefits. They were an economic asset.

They were given the same rights, duties and skills as adults.

There was no distinction between children and adults with laws as children were facing severe punishments as they were considered adults.

Differences between societies In some societies, children work long working hours, often in appalling conditions for low wages. Some aspects of the way children are treated at work has been described as slavery.

Children have different responsibilities for caring for younger siblings or even maintaining the family, which can be considered difficult for children at such a young age.

In societies with a high rate of HIV/AIDS, many children are orphaned and left to care for younger siblings and other members of the family.

Another aspects of childhood in war-torn countries is that some children are forced to become soldiers and are brutalised into killing people.

Shortened Childhood

There are many boundaries between adulthood and childhood. Children, particularly, girls sometimes dressed in a sexualised clothes from a young age.

It has been suggested that there have been a ‘loss of innocence’ through exposure to ‘adult’ issues such as sex and death through the mass media and increasingly the internet and web blogs expose young children to sensitive topics.

Postman: A sociologist who believed in the death of childhood was linked to:

Access to internet; porn, social networking sites.

Clothes

Knowledge and availability of drugs and alcohol

Aries called children ‘mini adults’.

Child Abuse

Children suffer cruelty from adults and each week one child dies as a result of injuries caused by parents or carers.

Children are most likely to be abused by someone in their family or someone they know.

Every Children Matters; is a idea that the government put in place after the death of Victoria Climbie and Baby P. Both of these cases highlighted the failure between authorities and agencies not working together as they should.

There is a child protection register which alerts social workers to children who are vulnerable to abuse from their parents or carers.

DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS IN THE UK SINCE 1900!

Important definitions

General Fertility Rate: the number of births per 1,000 women of child-bearing age (15yrs-44yrs).

Birth Rate: the number of live births per 1,000 of the population per year.

Death Rate: the number of deaths per 1,000 of the population.

Infant Mortality Rate: the number of deaths of infants under the age of 1 per 1,000 births per year.

Demography: The study of population statistics and trends or changes in population size and structure.

The population of Britain is aging because life expectancy is increasing. Life expectancy is higher in higher social classes. By 2020, over half the population will be over 50.

Reasons for decline in fertility and birth rate

Widespread availability of reliable contraception has enabled people to plan their fertility more easily than in the past.

There is growing childlessness among particular groups of women- such as highly qualified women.

More children are being born who survive into adulthood therefore women tend to have fewer children.

The cost of having children is increasing. They are no longer a economic asset to the family.

Women are going out to work. (Aspirations- Sue Sharpe)

Change in attitudes.

Women are delaying having children to focus on career.

Reasons for overall decline of the death rate Improvements in medical knowledge and health care.

Improvements in health and safety at work.

Better diet and environmental living conditions.

Improved maternity and antenatal care.

Better housing conditions and less overcrowding.

Reasons for decline in family size

Widespread use of reliable contraception.

Women working outside the home having careers- changing women’s role in the family.

Changing attitudes- smaller family is more desirable as cheaper.

Cost of having a large family.

No longer economic needs for the children to go out and have paid work to help support the family. Economic burden rather than economic asset.

Effects of an ageing population

Welfare benefit budget would need to increase to be able to support old age pensions.

Pressure on the NHS; budget and the amount of bed and available medical needs.

The older generation would be staying in jobs longer meaning no jobs for the youth.

Housing and care homes would run out of space and not be able to accommodate for everyone.

DIVERSITY OF FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURES!

Ethnic Variations

South African Heritage: Men and Women are more likely to marry earlier, have high rates of marriage and arranged marriages (especially among Muslims and Sikhs), low separation and divorce rates.

Higher fertility rates have been found among Pakistani and Bangladesh women. Their families are more likely to be larger with the women as full time mothers and family arrangements are patriarchal. They are likely to have grandparents or other members of the family living with them.

Families of black Caribbean heritage have low rates of marriage and high levels of single parent households. Also high rates of separation and divorce.

Class Variations

The traditional working class families are more likely to have segregated conjugal roles, closer kinship networks and patriarchal family arrangements.

The middle class family is more likely to have joint conjugal roles, with women in full time paid employment. Willmott and Young suggest a ‘symmetrical family’ where men and women roles are seen as equal. However Ann Oakley questions this view of the family.

Extended Family

There has been a shift to smaller and more isolated nuclear family with having less and less face-to-face contact with relatives. Although many keep in contact through phone, internet, and email.

Families linked to the Indian heritage keep close contacts with their extended members of their family. They tend to have the extended members live with them in the same household. Also it is common that they marry young and remain living with relatives.

GENDER ROLES, DOMESTIC LABOUR AND POWER RELATIONSHIPS!

Key Ideas

Roles in the family have been linked to the move from extended to nuclear with men and women developing more specialised roles after industrialisation. Evidence suggests that women spend more time than men doing and taking much more responsibility with domestic arrangements such as cooking and cleaning.

Research conducted by Willmott and Young, suggested that men and women were beginning to play more equal conjugal roles in the family and that a symmetrical family was emerging. However, Ann Oakley questioned their validity of the research and found evidence that contradicted their views.

Evidence from the British Attitudes survey suggests that housework and childcare still emerged as gendered activities. Women still carry out tasks such as cooking, cleaning and shopping. Whereas men would carry out more creative tasks such as repairing.

Power relationships within a family have still been characterised by feminists as patriarchal, with men having decision making power over the women and children.

There has been a change in the way that research into conjugal roles and the domestic division of labour has been carried out. Older research tended to be qualitative and relied on statistical results of interviews and observations. However it has emerged that domestic tasks are not simply carried out as jobs but relate to conceptions of masculinity and femininity and how identities are formed.