Sociology- Personal life perspective

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  • Created by: Daisymac
  • Created on: 28-02-19 17:01
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  • The personal life perspective on families
    • What do they say about Marxists and feminists
      • Argues that Marxist and feminist theories suffer from two weaknesses
        • They tend to asume that the traditional nuclear family is the dominant family type
          • Ignores the increased diversity of families today
        • They are all structural theories
          • They all asume that families and their members are simply passive puppets manipulated by the structure of society to perform certain functions
      • In order to understand the family today, we must focus on the meanings its members give to their relationships and situations, rather than the functions
    • What
      • Strongly influenced by interactionist ideas argues to understand the family, we should start from the individuals point of view and the meanings they give to their relationships
        • Contrasts to Functionalism,Marxism and feminism, who take bottom down approach
    • Beyond ties of blood and marriage
      • The personal life perspective also takes a wider view of relationships than just traditional family
      • EG. may not wat to help your sister but maybe an elderly neighbour
      • By focusing on peoples meanings, the PLP draws our attention to a range of other relationships that are important to people
      • People who may be important
        • Relationships with friends
        • Fictive kin- Close friends treated like relatives
        • Gay and lesbian chosen families- Supportive network of friends or others
        • Relationships with dead relatives- In memories
        • Relationships with pets- Tipper 2011 found children saw pets as part of the family
    • Donor-conceived children
      • Nordqvist and Smart found that the issue of blood and genes raised a range of feelings
      • Some parents= Emphasised importance of social relationships over genetic ones
      • May be problems such as people questioning why donar children and parents don't look similar
    • Evaluation
      • Nordqvist and smarts study illustrates the value of the personal life perspective as compared with top down, structural approaches
      • Accused for taking too broad a view --> By including a wide range of personal relationships, we ignore what is special about blood relationships
      • good as it recognises the relatedness is not always positive.  EG- DV

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