Family Diversity

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  • Created by: evekav
  • Created on: 11-02-21 17:01
What do modernists believe?
See modern society as having a clear cut, fairly fixed and predictable structure. They see the 'best' family type as the nuclear family as it slots into this structure and helps to maintain it by performing essential functions.
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What did Parsons describe the 'functionalist fit' to be?
He sees the nuclear family as uniquely suited to meeting the needs of modern society for a geographically mobile and a socially mobile workforce. He notes two 'irreducible functions' - primary socialisation of children and the stabilisation of adult perso
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How do functionalists view the family?
They argue because the family can perform these functions, we can generalise about the type of family we find in modern society (nuclear family).
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How do functionalists view families other than the nuclear one?
They consider any other family type to be dysfunctional, abnormal or even deviant, since they are less able to perform the functions required of the family.
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What do the New Right believe?
They are firmly opposed to family diversity, they have a conservative and anti-feminist perspective.
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What do the New Right believe about the family?
Believe the the nuclear family is 'natural' and based on fundamental biological differences between men and women. They oppose most changes like cohabitation and gay marriage,
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What do the New Right see lone parents as?
*Lone mothers cannot discipline their children properly
*Lone-parent families leave boys without an adult male role model resulting in delinquency and social instability
*Such families are likely to be poorer and a burden on welfare and taxpayers.
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What did Benson (2006) find about cohabitation vs marriage?
Analysed data of 15,000 baby's parents-finding that over the first 3 years rate of family breakdown was much higher among cohabiting couples-20% compared to 6% of married couples.
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Why does Benson argue marriage is more stable?
It requires a deliberate commitment to each other but cohabitation allows partners to avoid commitment and responsibility.
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What do New Right thinkers and Conservative politicians argue about family and society are 'broken'?
*Only a return to traditional values can prevent social disintegration and damage to children
*Regard laws and policies (easy access to divorce or gay marriage) as undermining the conventional family.
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What does Ann Oakley (1997) argue to criticise the New Right?
Argues they wrongly assume husbands' and wives' roles are fixed by biology, instead studies show great variation in the roles they each perform in the home. Argues the New Right view is a negative reaction against feminist campaign for women's equality.
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What do feminists argue to criticise the New Right?
Argues the conventional nuclear family is based on the patriarchal oppression of women and is a fundamental cause of women's inequality-they state it prevents women working and keeps them dependent on men.
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What do other other critics argue?
That there is no evidence that children in lone-parent families are more likely to be delinquent than those who brought up in a two-parent family of the same social class.
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What does Smart (2011) point out about cohabitation?
It may be poverty that causes the breakdown of relationships, rather than the decision not to marry.
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What did Chester (1985) argue?
Recognises there is an increase in family diversity. The only important change is a move from the dominance of the traditional or conventional nuclear family, to what he describes as the 'neo-conventional family'
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What does Chester (1985) define the neo-conventional family as?
'A dual earner family in which both spouses go out to work' this is similar to the symmetrical family described by Young and Willmott.
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What does Chester argue about alternates to the nuclear family?
He argues most people are not choosing to live in alternates to the nuclear family on a long term basis, and the nuclear family remains the ideal to which most people aspire.
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How does Chester think the life cycle affects family diversity?
He states people aren't part of the nuclear family due to the life cycle - many people currently living in a one-person household were either part of a nuclear family in the past or will be in the future.
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What patterns did Chester identify?
*most people live in a household headed by a married couple
*most adults marry and have children
*most marriages continue till death
*cohabitation has increased
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What is the difference between Chester's and Functionalists' view?
Chester sees a change from a conventional to a neo-conventional nuclear family where both spouses play an instrumental or breadwinner role.
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What did Rhona and Robert Rapoport find?
Family diversity is of central importance in understanding family life today.
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What did Rapoports believe we have moved away from?
Moved away from the traditional nuclear family as the dominant family type to a range of family types.
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What do Rapoports believe this change has shown in society?
Cultures and lifestyles are more diverse and family diversity reflects greater freedom of choice and widespread acceptance of different cultures.
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Do Rapoports see family diversity as positive or negative?
They see it as a positive response to people's different needs and wishes.
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What are the 5 types of family diversity that Rapoports identifies?
*Organisational Diversity
*Cultural Diversity
*Social Class Diversity
*Life-stage Diversity
*Generational Diversity
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What is Organisational Diversity?
This refers to differences in the ways family roles are organised. Eg joint conjugal roles.
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What is Cultural Diversity?
Different religious, ethnic and cultural groups have different family structures. Eg there is a high proportion of female lone-headed parent families among African-Caribbean households.
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What is Social Class Diversity?
Differences in family structure are partly due to gaps in income levels between households of social classes.
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What is Life-stage Diversity?
Family structures differ according to the stage reached in the life cycle. Eg young newlyweds, retired couples and widows living alone.
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What is Generational Diversity?
Older and younger generations have different attitudes and experiences that reflect historical periods which they lived. Eg different views on the mortality of divorce or cohabitation.
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What do postmodernists (David Cheal) believe?
That we no longer live in a modern society and we have entered a new, chaotic, postmodernist stage where there is no longer one single and dominant family structure.
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What do postmodernists state about family structures?
They have become fragmented into many different types and individuals now have much more choice in their lifestyles, personal relationships and family arrangements.
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What did Judith Stacey (1998) argue about postmodernist families?
Greater freedom and choice has benefitted women and enabled them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression.
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What did Stacey find in her life history interviews?
Many women had rejected the traditional housewife-mother role and returned to work and education, improved job prospects, divorced and re-married.
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What did Stacey call the new family structure she found?
The 'divorce-extended family' - members are connected by divorce rather than marriage, members are usually female including former in-laws.
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What did David Morgan (1996;2011) argue about postmodern families?
It is pointless making large-scale generalisations about 'the family' as functionalists do. He believes a family is simply whatever arrangements those involved choose to call their family.
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What did Beck and Giddens find?
They explored the effects of increasing choice upon families and relationships. This has become known as the individualisation thesis.
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What is the individualisation thesis?
It argues that traditional social structures such as class, gender and family have lost much of their influence over us.
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What does the individualisation thesis argue?
In the past, people's lives were defined by fixed roles that largely prevented them from choosing their own life course. But individuals today's society have fewer certainties or fixed roles to follow.
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What did Beck (1992) find about the individualisation thesis?
He puts it the 'standard biography' or life course that people followed in the past has been replaced by the 'do-it-yourself biography' that individuals today must construct themselves.
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What did Giddens (1992) argue about choice and equality?
In recent years the family and marriage have been transformed by greater choice and a more equal relationship between men and women.
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What does Giddens argue this choice has come from?
*contraception-allowing sex and intimacy rather than reproduction to be the relationship's existence.
*women's independence-means greater opportunities for education and work.
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What have these changes caused?
Today's couples are free to define their relationship themselves, rather than acting on the roles of society's traditions.
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What does Giddens say now holds relationships together?
The choice and equality of intimate relationships.
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What does Giddens describe a 'pure relationship' to his research?
As a typical of today's late modern society, in which relationships are no longer bound by traditional norms.
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What does Giddens state the key feature of a pure relationship?
It is that it solely exists to satisfy each partner's needs, consequently the relationship is likely to survive so long as both partners agree its in their best interests to do so.
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Consequently, what are individuals free to do?
Free to choose to enter and to leave relationships as they see fit and become part of the process of the individual's self-discovery/identity and a way of establishing 'who we are'.
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Why does Giddens state that this relationship means there is less stability?
Because there is more personal choice so there is no permanent commitment in the relationship, meaning there is an increase in family diversity such as lone parent families, step families and so on.
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What does Giddens see same-sex relationships as?
Leading the way towards new family types and
creating more democratic and equal relationships.
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Why does Giddens believe this?
Same-sex relationships aren't influenced by heterosexual 'norms' so same-sex couples are able to develop relationships based on choice rather than traditional roles.
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What did Weston (1992) find about same-sex couples?
They created supportive 'families of choice' among friends, former lovers and biological kin.
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What did Weeks (2000) find about same-sex couples?
Found friendship networks functioned as kinship networks for gay men and lesbians.
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What did Beck (1992) argue we now live in?
In a 'risk society' where tradition has less influence and people have more choice therefore we are more aware of the risks because making choices involves calculating risks and rewards of options.
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What does Beck argue the patriarchal family has been undermined by?
*Greater gender equality-challenged male domination.
*Greater individualisation-people's actions are influenced by calculations of self-interest than obligations to others.
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What does Beck and Beck-Gernsheim call their new type of family?
The 'negotiated family'.
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What is the 'negotiated family'?
They do not conform to the traditional family norm, but vary according to the wishes and expectations of their members who decide what's best for themselves by negotiation.
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Why is it argued the 'negotiated family' is less stable?
Because individuals are free to leave if their needs are not met, as a result this instability leads to greater family diversity.
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What does Beck describe the 'zombie family' to be?
The family appears to be alive, but in reality, it is dead. People want the family to be a haven of security but today's family cannot provide this because of its own instablilty.
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Who are examples of Personal Life Perspective (PLP) sociologists and what do they believe?
Carol Smart (2007) and Vanessa May (2013)
They agree there is more family diversity but they disagree with Beck and Giddens' explanation of it.
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What do they believe about the individualisation thesis?
They state it exaggerates how much choice people have about family relationships today.
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What does Budgeon (2011) note on this?
It reflects the neoliberal ideology that individuals today have complete freedom of choice however traditional norms that limit people's relationship choices have not weakened as much as the thesis claims.
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What else does PLP criticise about the individualisation thesis?
They state the thesis wrongly sees people as disembedded, 'free-floating', independent individuals. It ignores the fact that our decisions and choices about personal relationships are made within a social context.
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What does the PLP point out about Beck and Giddens about their background?
Their view is simply an idealised version of a white, MC man, they ignore the fact that not everyone has the same ability as this priviledged group to exercise choice about relationships.
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What alternative does Smart put forward against the individualisation thesis?
The connectedness thesis.
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What does Smart argue about the connectedness thesis?
We are fundamentally social beings whose choices are always made 'within a web of connectedness'
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According to the connectedness thesis, what does Smart argue we live in?
Within networks of existing relationships and interwoven personal histories which strongly influence our range of options and choices in relationships.
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What did Finch and Mason's (1993) study find?
Although individuals can to some extent negotiate the relationships they want, they are also embedded within the family connections and obligations that restrict their freedom of choice.
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What does Finch and Mason's findings challenge the notion of?
The pure relationships-families usually include more than just the couples that Giddens focuses on, and even couple relationships that we can walk away from at will.
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What are the examples of the structures that limit choices that we create for ourselves?
*After divorce, gender norms generally dictate women should have custody of the children-can limit their opportunity to form new relationships.
*Men generally get paid more than women.
*Powerless than women and children means lack of freedom.
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What does May argue?
These structures are not disappearing but being reshaped.
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What does Einasdottir (2011) argue about the power of structures?
While lesbianism is now tolerated, heteronormativity means that many lesbians feel forced to remain 'in the closet' and limits their choices about relationships and lifestyles.
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Overall, what does the PLP argue about greater diversity and choice?
They do not see increased diversity as simply as a result of greater freedom of choice, as Beck and Giddens do. Instead it emphasises the importance of social structures in shaping freedoms people have to create diverse families.
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Card 2

Front

What did Parsons describe the 'functionalist fit' to be?

Back

He sees the nuclear family as uniquely suited to meeting the needs of modern society for a geographically mobile and a socially mobile workforce. He notes two 'irreducible functions' - primary socialisation of children and the stabilisation of adult perso

Card 3

Front

How do functionalists view the family?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

How do functionalists view families other than the nuclear one?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What do the New Right believe?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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