Extra Information & Sociologists for Media and Family for A*: Mixed and Helpful for Revision Purposes

Question 1

Applying material from Item B, analyse two arguments against the view that childhood is a fixed, universal stage.

Topic: Childhood

Question 2

Social Construction of Childhood

Answer 2

✩ Jane Pilcher argues that childhood is not a universal stage.

✩ Eurocentricsm

✩ Childhood is separate to childhood in other parts of the world.

✩ For example, in Samoan villages, children do adult work.

✩ In the west, children are protected by laws and sexual behaviour is viewed differently as seen in laws such as the Education Act of 1996.

✩ Could link to Aries and Shorter’s March of Progress view.

Question 3

Jenkins - View of Childhood

Answer 3

✩ Postmodernism is just changing into a different form.

✩ Nature of childhood is changing due to shift to a post modern society - childhood is more unstable as a result.

Question 4

What sociologist is associated with Instrumental Marxists?

Topic: Ownership and Control of Media.

Answer 4

✩ Curran

Question 5

What did Sullivan find?

Topic: Couples

Answer 5

✩ Found women now do less domestic tasks and men do more traditional ‘feminine’ domestic tasks and hence their division of labour is now more equal/

Question 6

What did Gittens find?

Topic: Childhood

Answer 6

✩ Argues that there is an age patriarchy of adult domination that keeps children subordinate.

✩ Asserts control in terms of their time, space and bodies.

Question 7

What did Smart find?

What perspective of the family was Smart?

Topic: Theories/Family Diversity

Answer 7

✩ Personal life perspective of the family

✩ People are free to construct their own individual network of family.

✩ The choices they make in terms of relationships are influenced by their family, history, previous personal experiences…

Question 8

What did Smart find?

Topic: Childhood

Answer 8

✩ Children’s views and experiences are changing, meaning childhood is not fixed nor universal.

✩ Children have become actively involved in making the situation of the world better for everyone. e.g. kids in politics, voices now heard.

✩ Diverse multiples childhoods exist within a single society as children can express their point of view.

Question 9

What did Brass and Kabir find?

Topic: Demography

Answer 9

✩ Argues that the trend to smaller families began not in rural areas, where IMR first began to fall, but in urban areas where infant mortality rate remained higher for longer.

Question 10

What did McKeown find?

Topic: Demography

Answer 10

✩ Argues that improved nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates, and was particularly important in reducing the number of deaths from TB.

✩ Better nutrition increased resistance to infection and increased the survival chance of those who did become infected.

Question 11

What did Tranter find?

Topic: Demography

Answer 11

✩ Over 3/4 of the decline in death rate from 1850 to 1970 was due to the fall in the number of deaths from infectious diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis.

✩ These used to be the most common cause of death among infants, children and young adults.

Question 12

What did Aries find regarding childhood before 19th century?

Topic: Childhood

Answer 12

✩ In pre-industrial society, childhood did not exist.

✩ They were instead ‘little adults’ who would take on responsibilities as young as 7.

✩ In the eyes of the law, 7-8 year old children were seen as criminally responsible and could be tried for crime with the same punishment as adults.

Society did not regard children as objects of love and devotion as

✩ High levels of mortality rate
✩ Children had to work for the family unit to survive e.g. in mines

Question 13

What did Aries find regarding childhood after 19th century?

Topic: Childhood

Answer 13

✩ Around the middle of 19th century, Aries argued that due a fall in the infant mortality rate as a result of improvement in diet and sanitation, coupled with the increasing affluence of the middle classes, attitudes of middle class parents began to change as they started to regard children as objects of love and devotion.

Question 14

Why is Aries’ work helpful for understanding childhood?

Topic: Childhood

Answer 14

✩ This work is valuable as it shows how ideas about children and their social status has changed over time, demonstrating that childhood is a social construct.

Question 15

What did Hirsh find?

Topic: Demography

Answer 15

✩ Hirsh argues that the ageing population presents financial questions as to how this period of older age will be funded.

Question 16

What does Donzelot argue?

Topic: Social Policies

Answer 16

✩ Argues that social workers, health visitors and doctors use their knowledge to control and change families.

✩ He calls this ‘the policing of families’.

✩ Surveillance is not targeted equally at all social classes.

✩ For example, poor families are much more likely to be seen as ‘problem families’ and as the causes of crime and anti-social behaviour.

✩ These are the families that professionals target for ‘improvement’.

Question 17

What did Oakley’s study find?

Topic: Studies on Housework/ Domestic Division of Labour

Answer 17

✩ Some evidence of husbands helping out at home.

✩ No trend towards symmetry.

✩ Only 15% had high level of participation in housework and only 25% in childcare.

✩ Husbands only do pleasurable aspects of childcare

✩ Women left with more time for housework.

Question 18

What did Gershuny find?

Topic: Domestic Division of Labour

Answer 18

✩ Women working full time has led to a more equal division of labour

✩ Working women now spend less time doing housework than other women.

Question 19

What did McRobbie and Thorton argue?

Topic: Moral Panics

Answer 19

✩ McRobbie and Thorton argue that new media has radically changed the relationship between the media and their audience and as a result undermined the overall impact of moral panics.

Question 20

What did Barrett and McIntosh find?

Topic:

Answer 20

✩ Men control the family’s income and have the power to make decisions about how it is spent.

✩ Men gain far more from women’s domestic work than they give back in financial support.

✩ Financial support provided to wives is unpredictable and often comes with strings attached. E.g. spent on children rather than their wife’s own need or leisure.

✩ Men usually make the decisions about expenditure on important items.

Question 21

What did Drew find in terms of gender regimes?

Matter of fact, what even are gender regimes?

Topic:

Answer 21

✩ Drew, a feminist, uses the concept ‘gender regimes’ to describe how social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality in the family and at work.

Familistic Gender Regimes:

✩ Policies are based on a traditional gender division between a male breadwinner and female housewife and carer.

✩ For example, in Greece there is little state welfare or publicly funded childcare.

✩ This means that they must rely heavily on support from their extended kin or husband.

Individualistic Gender Regimes:

✩ Policies are based on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same.

✩ For example, in Sweden, policies treat husbands and wives as equally responsible for domestic tasks and being a provider.

✩ E.g. Good quality welfare services, equal opportunities policies and state provision of childcare

✩ This means that women are less dependent on their husbands and have more opportunities to work and become financially

Question 22

What is Difference Feminism, and what are key terms associated with them?

Answer 22

✩ Not all women live in nuclear families, and we cannot generalise women’s experiences as all women have different experiences.

✩ They argue that minority-ethnic, working-class women are the most discriminated against people in society. 

✩ Black women are discriminated against twice as much as white women in society.

What key-terms are associated with difference feminists?

✩ The seemingly impenetrable barrier that prevents the progression of members of ethnic minorities into senior management jobs. Gender pay gap is huger among ethnic minority women according to statistics.

Question 23

What is a maternal wall?

Answer 23

✩ The maternal wall is a term referring to stereotypes and various forms of discrimination encountered by working mothers and mothers seeking employment.

✩ e.g. maternity leave; people would say ‘they should not be paid the same amount as a working man, because they have time-off for their child.’ or ‘women with children and caregiving responsibilities are less committed to their careers and thus should be paid less’.

Question 24

Asian families

Question 25

Black Families

Question 26

What did Rapport find?

Outline all family diversity that were discovered and elaborate upon the meaning of each diverse feature of modern families.

Answer 26

✩ Diversity is the key to understanding family life as the nuclear family is no longer dominant.

✩ Britain has now becoming a pluralistic society, whereby families have a greater degree of choice and accept other family forms.

✩ Society is now responsive to different needs and wants.

5 types of family diversity have been suggested by Rapport and Rapport:

✩ Organisational Diversity: This refers to the way a family might organise itself in terms of the roles people perform (e.g. traditional male-dominated families and more symmetrical ones)

✩ Cultural Diversity: Families differ in terms of their beliefs and values. One example of this is between different ethnic groups, with some ethnicities placing a greater emphasis on family than others, some preferring different gender roles, etc.

✩ Social Class Diversity: Class differences in terms of availability of resources, quality of housing, leisure opportunities, etc. all impact the nature of families and family life.

✩ Life-Stage Diversity: We do not live in the same family structure for the whole of our lives e.g. We can go from a nuclear family to an empty-nest family, when the child grows up and moves out for university.

✩ Generational Diversity: There is also change over time and what is the norm, in terms of family life, for one generation, is not for the next. As such, great grandparents and grandparents may have had several siblings, and later generations have far fewer; more recent generations are more likely than their parents and grandparents to divorce or to be single parents.

Question 27

What inequalities among the old have been found by Pilcher in terms of class and gender differences?

Answer 27

✩ According to Pilcher, class and gender differences still important in old age, and affect ability to create own identity.

How, you may ask?

✩ Class still affects old age as the m/c have better pensions and more savings and have a higher life expectancy due to having a higher quality of life.

✩ Gender still affects old age as women have lower earnings and career breaks and have less pensions than men. They are also still subject to sexism as well as ageism, which may have affected their earnings and therefore their pensions.

Question 28

According to Postmodernists, how are old people’s experiences now becoming better?

Answer 28

✩ The idea of fixed-life stages have broken down and consumption is now a key to identity rather than age.

How, you may ask?

✩ Hunt argues that we can choose lifestyle/identity regardless of age.

✩ The old are now used in the market for rejuvenation products e.g. targeted by Dove.

✩ Stereotypes of old have broken down:

Media portray old people positively e.g. cool on Instagram reels for dancing.

Question 29

How does ageism negatively affect old people’s experiences?

How is this supported by Marxist perspective sociologist Phillipson?

Answer 29

Ageism occurs as a result of ‘structured dependency’

✩ Old excluded from paid work - unable to gain jobs, laid off or told to retire.

✩ Economically dependent on state/family.

Phillipson: Marxist perspective

✩ Old are of no use anymore to capitalism as they are not productive and cannot contribute to the labour force.

✩ Care falls to family, especially women, who have to take on this extra burden.

✩ Capitalist system not doing enough to help old people as they are seen as unproductive and there is this idea that they should not be helped as they are going to die soon anyway.

Question 30

What is China’s One Child Policy?

Answer 30

✩ Rapid growth led to the government discouraging couples from multiple children; to stick to only one child per family.

✩ Complying brings extra benefits while those who do not comply must pay back their allowances and pay fines.

✩ Lasted until 2015.

Question 31

What happened in Communist Romania’s policies regarding family?

Answer 31

✩ In order to drive up declining population in the 1980s, Romania restricted contraception and abortion laws.

✩ Legal age of marriage was also reduced to 15 years old.

Question 32

What is Nazi Family Policy?

Answer 32

✩ Radically-pure families to breed the ‘Master Race’

✩ Women removed from workforce and confined to ‘Children, Kitchen and Church’.

✩ 375,000 disabled people were sterilised as they were viewed as ‘unfit’ to breed.