G672

Fmily life and social networks are in decline as  people choose not to subscribe to traditional rules of behaviour creating their own patterns of living. 

Survey of households and snowball interveiws.  Found changes in patterns of mariage and parenting reflected national trends.

Only 0.5 had 3 generations in one house. over half were married.

Wanting to explore why secluar couples wanted to marry in churches.

Methods: informal interveiws through snowball effect quallative daa. 25 couples 15 who either had/plannin to have a church wedding. The other 10 married in regestory offices. All white exept one couple. Wives talked most.

Key findings: They wanted to marry in a church because

1. its  traditional

2. Influence of what parents want

3. Aesthetic conditions.

It had very little to do with religeous beleifs.

There are 6 distinct ellements of family diversity in Britian.

1. Cultural diversity

2 .Lifecycle - level of income if children dependent or grown

3. Organizational dieversity.- Variations in family structure household type, division of labour i.e the different between dual worker and SPF familys.

4. Cohort- when the family was i.e 1980's mass unemployment

5.Social class- i.e cultural capital male and female relationships

6.Sexual diversity- gay parents and hetro parents

Methods: 12 familys interveiwed 71 family mambers from these familys including members from four generations cross section of social classess however all familys were from the south. (Not representative)

Found that familys are like a beanpole now not like a bush.

They argue that married life is based on individualism. Individualism is the extent to which an individual makes choices about their own life. In pre industrial societies your choices were limited as tradition was seen as more important than choice however this did give people a lot of stability. In post modern society there is too much choice so people retreate to their bubble of love in the absense of security.  But this choice causes conflict in the family in 3 ways

1.Demands of the capetalist workplace

2. too much choice

3. End of clear cut gener roles

Parsons beleives that the family has become more specialised through Stratified diffusion it now has 2 irretreviable functions.

1. Primary socialisation of children

2. Stabalisation of adult personalities.(i.E WARM BATH THEORY)

There are other functions such as social control, reproduction and economic (creates a workforce).

Evaluation

he doesn't think of other social classess.agegroups.gender beleives in biological determainsm

In modern capetalist society work is alienating people and is providing litttle fufillment any more which is putting increasing pressure on the family to meet this need for fuffillment which is a standard the fmily cannot live up to.

He observed housewives in the 70's finding that they kept the capetalist state alive by providing free domestic labour and through socialising children into capetalist values such as hierachy. He summarises the marxist veiw of the family.

Reproduces new wage slaves

Consume products of capetalism

provide emotional support for workers

Socialise children to accept inequality.

She beleives that many feminists havent achnolaged the changes made by women in the last 50 years such as women having more choice than ever in how they live their lives.

She says that because of hetro atraction and need for companionship hetro familys will never dissapear however niether will the conflicts endemic to current hetro unions. These issues will lead to more women cohabiting she beleives what is needed is a practical realistic aproach to feminism where feminists focus on changing legislation.

She wants legislation to change to make jobs fit around family life many jobs still based on male breadwinner

evaluation

Not backed up by detailed imperial evidence

she is being practical and making feminist aproachable to all women.

"Women are domestic slaves" Methods:

semi structured interveiws 40 housewifes both middle and working class questions open such as "how satisfying do you find housework?"

She beleived that domestic work isn't achnolaged as real work with the intro of household devices such as hoovers just meant the standard was higher.

Found many women felt lonelly isolated and unfufilled.

The loss of innocence

He argues that childhodd is dissapearing because

1. The growth of t.v means that there are no secrets from children any kore "unlimited acess to the adult world"

2. Sociall blurring children are becoming more and more adult like in dress speach and behaviour their games are disapearing.

Criticisms.

no real evidence many recent studies suggest the opposite i.e furredi