diversity and social change

Question 1

duress

Answer 1

emotional pressure in addition to physical abuse

Question 2

bigamy

Answer 2

the state of being married to two people at the same time. It’s a criminal offence in Western societies.

Question 2

monogamy

Answer 2

the state of only being married to one person at any one time

Question 2

serial monogamy

Answer 2

the practice of engaging in a succession of monogamous cohabiting relationships of opposite-sex couples.

Question 3

same-sex marriage

Answer 3

The marriage of same-sex couples recognised by law as having the same status and rights as marriage of opposite-sex couples.

Question 4

polygamy

Answer 4

a cultural norm which allows spouses to have more than one husband or wife

Question 5

polyandry

Answer 5

a type of polygamy in which a woman can marry more than one husband. It is quite rare compared with polygyny.

Question 6

arranged marriage

Answer 6

a type of marriage organised or arranged by the parents of the couples and/or matchmakers

Question 7

marriage rate

Answer 7

the number of marriages per 1000 people per year

Question 8

leftover women

Answer 8

a term used in China to describe women who are still not married by the age of 27. They are seen to be ‘left on the shelf’

Question 9

forced marriage

Answer 9

a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without his or her consent or against his or her will

Question 10

dual-career/income families

Answer 10

families in which both adult partners pursue a career and in which each contribute income that is important to the family’s standard of living

Question 11

DINK families

Answer 11

‘dual income, no kids’. A term which refers to a couple who both earn an income and do not (yet) have children.

Question 11

remarriage

Answer 11

the act of marrying again after experiencing a divorce

Question 12

cohabitation

Answer 12

the state of living together and having an intimate relationship without being married

Question 13

irretrievable breakdown

Answer 13

when both spouses agree that the marriage is over and that there is no hope that it will ever be revived

Question 14

secularisation

Answer 14

A general decline in religious belief in God and religious practices such as regularly going to church.

Question 15

individualisation

Answer 15

a concept that associated with Beck that refers to a dominant ideology that stresses freedom, from obligation or community pressure and gives people the freedom to look out for themselves first and foremost

Question 16

conflict

Answer 16

a clash of interests that can cause inequality

Question 17

chaos of love

Answer 17

Beck believes that marriage is potentially a battleground, because the institution of marriage demands compromise and selflessness but people often look out for their own interests first.

Question 18

single-parent families

Answer 18

families with children under age of 18 headed by a parent who is widowed or divorced and who has not remarried, or by a parent who has never married

Question 19

reconstituted family

Answer 19

also called a step-family- a family unit where one or both parents have children from a previous relationship but have combined to form a new family

Question 20

blended family

Answer 20

a variation on the reconstituted family that includes, in addition to step-children, the natural children of the remarried couple

Question 21

single-person households

Answer 21

a person living alone

Question 22

organisational diversity

Answer 22

differences in the size or organisation of families. Extended families are obviously larger than nuclear families, which in turn are larger than one-parent families

Question 23

vertical extended family

Answer 23

families composed of three generations that may live under the same roof or in very close proximity who are in frequent daily contact

Question 24

dispersed extended family

Answer 24

extended kin who normally live in geographically scattered nuclear families but who feel a sense of duty and obligation to provide mutual support and assistance to each other in times of need or to het together on symbolic occasions such as Christmas

Question 25

domestic diversity

Answer 25

differences of internal arrangements of families. For example, in some families the mother has a career and goes out to work. In others, the mother stays at home full-time, and in a rare number of families the father stays at home as a full-time carer.

Question 26

dual income/dual career nuclear families

Answer 26

a family in which both adults have a career and in which the wage of each partner makes a significant contribution to the lifestyle of the family

Question 27

cultural diversity

Answer 27

refers to how families might differ in organisation across different societies and across ethnic and religious groups within the same societies

Question 28

dual-heritage children

Answer 28

the children of inter-ethnic marriages

Question 29

inter-ethnic marriage

Answer 29

marriages that take place between people who are from different racial or ethnic groups

Question 30

class diversity

Answer 30

refers to how social class, especially wealth and poverty, may shape family living arrangements and the opportunities for a quality childhood

Question 31

beanpole family

Answer 31

a four-generational type of family that has few extended kin such as aunts, uncles and cousins

Question 32

neo-conventional family

Answer 32

Chester's term for the modern form of nuclear family. According to Chester, most of us will live as a child or adult in this type of family at some point in our lives

Question 33

dependency culture

Answer 33

according to New Right sociologists a way of life characterised by dependency on state benefits

Question 34

underclass

Answer 34

the lowest social stratum in a country or community, consisting of the poor and unemployed. The New Right claim that members of the underclass are most likely to be welfare-dependent and criminal.

Question 35

welfare-dependent

Answer 35

the New Right claim that some individuals are no longer capable of taking responsibility for themselves because they have grown too dependent on state benefits. They are no longer motivated to seek work

Question 36

perverse incentive

Answer 36

an incentive that results in unintended negative consequences; e.g., females may find it advantageous to get pregnant and bring up a child alone rather than get married, because state benefits are generous

Question 37

personal life

Answer 37

Smart believes that, rather than study families, sociologists should study how individuals negotiate their way though their personal lives. By doing this, we can see that a vast range of people beyond immediate kin play important roles in our lives

Question 38

life course

Answer 38

the stages that all human beings go through during their life, covering birth to death

Question 39

empty nest families

Answer 39

households in which only the parents remain once their grown-up children have left home

Question 40

boomerang family

Answer 40

families in which children leave home, but because of circumstances beyond their control they are forced to return to live with their parents as young adults

Question 41

personal communities

Answer 41

a network of close friends and kin (even pets) that a person might regard as closest to them

Question 42

fictive kin

Answer 42

normally, close friends of the family, particularly parents, who have been given the honorary title of 'uncle' or 'aunt'

Question 43

voluntary childlessness

Answer 43

consciously and voluntarily choosing not to have children. It should be distinguished from the state of not being able to have children more medical or biological reasons

Question 44

child-free

Answer 44

the decision usually taken in conjunction with a partner not to have children

Question 45

childlessness

Answer 45

the state of not having children. This may be voluntary or involuntary

Question 46

co-parenting

Answer 46

when a separated, divorced or unmarried couple share the duties of parenting, for example, a child may spend part of a week living with one parent and the rest of the week living with the other

Question 47

bi-nuclear family

Answer 47

children of divorced or separated couples often belong to two nuclear families because their natural parents have remarried or are cohabiting with a new partner

Question 48

surrogacy

Answer 48

the process in which a woman agrees to bear a child on behalf of another woman, either from her own egg fertilised by the other woman's partner, or from the implantation in her uterus of a fertilised egg from the other woman

Question 49

in vitro fertilisation

Answer 49

a medical procedure whereby an egg is fertilised by sperm in a test tube or elsewhere outside the body

Question 50

living apart together (LAT)

Answer 50

a modern household set-up in which a couple who are romantically involved make the decision to maintain separate households rather than move in together

Question 51

failure to launch generation

Answer 51

children who for a variety of reasons have not been able to leave home and therefore still live with their parents despite being adults

Question 52

test-tube babies

Answer 52

children whoa re the product of reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilisation or artificial insemination because their parents cannot conceive naturally for medical reasons

Question 53

hetero-norm

Answer 53

the idea that relationships should be heterosexual

Question 54

decentring of conjugal relationships

Answer 54

a radical feminist idea that rejects the idea that the most important relationship a woman has is with a man. Radical feminists believe that women can have the same quality family relationships with other women and/or gay men

Question 55

families of choice

Answer 55

an idea which suggests that members of our family are who we choose them to be- for example, we might regard close friends as symbolic family members, as well as cats and dogs

Question 56

cult of the individual

Answer 56

an idea very similar to Beck's concept of individualisation. It refers to the increasing trend to put ourselves before others and a desire not to live or mix with others, thus the trend towards living in single-person households

Question 57

empirical

Answer 57

based on experience or observation

Question 58

epistemological

Answer 58

relating to how knowledge of a given subject is obtained