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families and households Flashcards

1
Q

What is a family?

A

A group of people related by kinship ties (blood, marriage, adoption etc)

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2
Q

What is a household?

A

Living with a group of people that share the same address and living arrangements or living alone

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3
Q

What is the difference between a family and a household?

A

Most families will live in a household but not all households are families

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4
Q

What do functionalists say the role of the family is?

A

Creating value consensus, integrating individuals into society which develops social solidarity - consensus view

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5
Q

What type of family did Murdock claim was universal?

A

Nuclear

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6
Q

What did Murdock claim the 4 functions of the family are?

A

Economic function
Reproduction
Socialisation
Having sexual relationships

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7
Q

Why are these functions beneficial?

A

Keeps society functioning, caring for the ageing population, creating social order, maintaining healthy relationships

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8
Q

What is monogamy?

A

Practice of having one partner
Norm in Western societies

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9
Q

What is serial monogamy?

A

Practice of having a series of monogamous relationships or marriages

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10
Q

What is an arranged marriage?

A

Families take a leading role in choosing the marriage partner but both people are free to choose whether they want to enter the marriage

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11
Q

What is a forced marriage?

A

A marriage where one or both people do not consent to the marriage , pressure and abuse is used

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12
Q

What is a civil partnership?

A

A legal recognition to the relationship of same sex couples, giving civil partners equal treatment to married couples

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13
Q

What are same sex marriages?

A

Marriage of same sex partners

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14
Q

What is polygamy?

A

Marriage to more than one person at the same time (unisex)

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15
Q

What is polygyny?

A

One husband and two or more wives

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16
Q

What is polyandry?

A

One wife and two or more husbands

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17
Q

Why is functionalism useful in understanding families and households?

A

Views it as a positive unlike marxism and feminism
Murdock’s research is representative

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18
Q

Is Murdock accurate to say the nuclear family is universal?

A

No, some children don’t live with their parents - due to care, grandparents, friends etc
Postmodernists criticise functionalists as the nuclear family is no longer diverse enough

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19
Q

What did Parsons focus on when looking at the family?

A

how the family had changed from premodern to modern society

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20
Q

What did Parsons argue family was for in pre-industrial societies?

A

most tasks such as hunting, farming, education, looking after the sick or elderly members of the family

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21
Q

What was developed in modern society that now performed these functions?

A

Specialised institutions

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22
Q

What did Parsons argue were the two essential functions of the family?

A

Primary socialisation and stabilisation of adult personalities

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23
Q

How does the family aid primary socialisation?

A

Children are encouraged to internalise the norms and values of society. Families are factories producing human personalities. Usually occurs in the household

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24
Q

How does the family stabilise adult personalities?

A

The family is a source of comfort
Achieved by the gendered division of labour
Aka the warm bath theory
Men play the instrumental role - meeting the economic needs but dealing with pressures making the personality unstable
Women play the expressive role - stabilising the mans personality and managing the emotional needs of the family

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25
Q

What family type does Parsons argue is the most suitable one for an industrial society?

A

Nuclear

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26
Q

What two needs does a nuclear family meet for an industrial society?

A

The need for geographical mobility (moving to find jobs) and the need for social mobility (adult son moves out to establish his independence and avoids tension of power with the father)

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27
Q

Is the family really like a warm bath?

A

Forced marriages
1/4 women experience domestic violence
Female genital mutilation (FGM)
sexual abuse
sibling abuse
women now also play the instrumental role
divorce rates are increasing

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28
Q

Are roles in the family natural?

A

Gender roles were reversed in Mead’s study - women were more aggressive and took on more traditionally manly roles and vice versa
Parsons wrongly assumes husbands and wives roles are fixed by biology - cross cultural studies show great variation
Out of date - rise in the symmetrical family

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29
Q

What was Murray (New right thinker) concerned with?

A

The breakdown of the traditional nuclear family and the loss of the ‘golden age’ of traditional family life and values

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30
Q

What evidence is there of the breakdown of the traditional family?

A

Lone parent families, same sex families, biracial families, increasing divorce rates, children in foster care, births outside of marriage, increase in cohabitation and step families

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31
Q

What class depends on state benefits?

A

The underclass

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32
Q

Who does Murray blame for the existence of the underclass?

A

The government for giving over generous welfare benefits (perverse incentives) creating a dependency culture

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33
Q

Which type of family’s children does Murray believe are most likely to turn to crime?

A

Lone parent families mostly headed by women

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34
Q

What evidence is there that single mothers can raise a child well?

A

Women today are better educated
Positive role models
Maturity and responsibility + life skills
Extended families can help
Married couples can also produce crimimals

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35
Q

What evidence is there that single mothers can not raise a child well?

A

Financial difficulties - income
Emotional difficulties
Loss of balance
Pressure on children to take on responsibilities

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36
Q

What is polyamory?

A

Practice of engaging in multiple loves and/or sexual relationships with consent of all people involved

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37
Q

What are the advantages of polyamory?

A

More support, is all consensual, no deception involved

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38
Q

What are the disadvantages of polyamory?

A

Can become complex, laws against it, financial issues, can be damaging emotionally and physically

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39
Q

How can postmodernism be applied to polyamory?

A

Fits into individualism, shows diversity of relationships, relationships today are unstable and fragmented, we all have choice, de-traditionalisation

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40
Q

What is the nuclear family?

A

Two generations - heterosexual parents and children living in the same hoiusehold

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41
Q

What is the classic extended family?

A

Extended family sharing the same household or living near each other

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42
Q

What is the beanpole family?

A

Multi generational extended family, long and thin with few aunts uncles and cousins

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43
Q

What is the patriarchal family?

A

Authority held by males

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44
Q

What is the matriarchal family?

A

Authority held by females

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45
Q

What is the reconstituted family?

A

One or both partners previously married, with children from previous marriages

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46
Q

What is the lone parent family?

A

Lone parent with dependent children

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47
Q

What is the single person household?

A

An individual living alone

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48
Q

What is a commune?

A

Self-contained and self-supporting communities

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49
Q

Why is there now greater diversity of families and households in the UK?

A

Secularisation led to divorce and therefore reconstituted, divorce extended and lone parent families
Changes in the law
Changes in norms and values
Sexual revolution

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50
Q

What are lawnmower parents?

A

Will rush to save the child from any harm or discomfort, typically middle aged parents

51
Q

What is the sandwich family?

A

Middle aged parents caring for their elderly parents and their children (typically women - tricycle of care)

52
Q

What are diblings?

A

Individuals biologically connected through donated eggs or sperm

53
Q

What is the divorce extended family?

A

Involves continued extended family relationships after a divorce

54
Q

What family type do marxists argue is ideally suited to capitalism?

A

nuclear

55
Q

What did points did Engels (marxist) make about the functions of the family?

A

Family ensures wealth remains in the bloodline through inheritance, to pass down generational wealth or debt to legitimate (male) heirs

56
Q

What is the promiscuous horde?

A

No restrictions on sexual behaviour in earlier societies

57
Q

How does the family benefit the bourgeoise and capitalism?

A

Limits social mobility, maintains ascribed status and social inequality + hierarchy, private property remains in the bloodline therefore rich get richer and poor remain in poverty

58
Q

What did Althusser (marxist) say about the family?

A

Ideological state apparatus - family is just one of the social informal institutions that socialise us into an ideology and brainwashing us into thinking society is fair, maintaining false class consciousness

59
Q

What capitalist values might the family promote?

A

Hierarchy, obedience, consumerism, occupational role acceptance, greed, competition

60
Q

What is an example of an event that counteracts Althusser’s ideas?

A

London riots - shows class consciousness and fighting back against authority

61
Q

What other factors cause the family to break down that the New Right fail to consider?

A

economic issues, abusive relationships, clashing goals

62
Q

How is the New Right similar to functionalism in their views of the family?

A

Both support policies encouraging nuclear families, both support traditional family roles, both view that inequality is sometimes necessary

63
Q

How is the New Right different to functionalism in their views of the family?

A

Functionalism is outdated, new right considers family diversity

64
Q

Who is a key Personal Life thinker?

A

Smart

65
Q

What is fictive kin?

A

Individuals who someone considers to be family even if they are not biologically related (kinship ties)

66
Q

What type of perspective is the personal life perspective?

A

Social action theory

67
Q

What is the web of connectedness?

A

Smart argued that we have the freedom and choice to construct our own personal lives and relationships, however this is restrained by social norms

68
Q

What 3 factors does someone’s personal life choices depend on?

A

Societal expectations, past experiences and structural factors such as class, gender and ethnicity

69
Q

What does Smart and Nordqvist say about donor conceived children?

A

Biology and marriage based relationships are less significant today - since 1991 35,000 donor conceived children have been born (criticises marxists and functionalists)

70
Q

What problems might be faced by donor conceived children and their parents?

A

Parent or child may not want a relationship as they only see biological ties, there may be complications between donor and non-donor parents, hoping love will be enough for donor child to not look for donor parent

71
Q

What does Zaretsky say about capitalism and the family?

A

Family has an ideological role in propping up capitalism - the safe haven at home from work is an illusion and in reality there is no work and home life separation (criticises functionalism and the ‘warm bath’)

72
Q

How does Zaretsky argue the family is a unit of consumption?

A

Keeping up with the Joneses = families buying products produced by the capitalist system to keep up in a competition with other families
Pester power = media targeting children to pester their parents to spend more

73
Q

What strengths are there for the marxist views on the family?

A

Engels and Zaretsky have shown us how capitalism has control over our lives through the family and it has provided a starting point for other theories like feminism

74
Q

What criticisms are there for the marxist views of the family?

A

It tends to ignore the choice we have over our own lives, it is outdated and it fails to consider other types of inequality other than class inequality

75
Q

What does Germaine Greer (radical feminist) say about marriage?

A

42% of marriages end in divorce
vows are bullshit
family is still patriarchal
we absolutely cannot get child support
66% of divorces in the uk are initiated by women
2 women a week are killed by their own partners

76
Q

In what ways is the family still patriarchal and beneficial to men?

A

Tricycle of care, dual burden, divorce, triple shift, inequality, domestic violence

77
Q

What do radical feminists say about the family?

A

Men are the enemy due to inequalities in power (decision making, and financially), and also due to their control over women’s bodies - physical and sexual violence, believe we should be sexually and socially separate

78
Q

What do marxist feminists say about the family?

A

Women are dually oppressed through patriarchal and capitalist ideology - unpaid work (housework and emotional labour) is exploited. women absorb men’s frustration with capitalism as well as being the reserve army of labour, weakening their economic position in society

79
Q

What do liberal feminists say about the family?

A

Some feminist ideas about the family are outdated - there has been some progress in achieving equality in family and personal relationships e.g legal rights. gender inequality stems primarily from the ignorance of men (evolutionary rather than revolutionary)

80
Q

What do difference feminists say about the family?

A

They criticise the ethnocentricity of most feminism as they focus on white women’s experiences and fail to consider different types of households experience family life differently

81
Q

What are some examples of each type of feminism?

A

Camera roll on 24th october 2023

82
Q

What is the radical feminist solution to the patriarchy within the family?

A

Living separate from men socially and sexually, political lesbianism, matriarchal households

83
Q

What is the marxist feminist solution to the patriarchy within the family?

A

Abolishing capitalism and establishing a classless society

84
Q

What is the liberal feminist solution to the patriarchy within the family?

A

Changes in the legal system and social policies, socialising children more

85
Q

What is Hakim’s preference theory?

A

There are 3 groups of women: a minority of work-centred women (20%), a minority of home-centred women (20%), and a majority of ambivalent women (60%) and women make a rational choice in which group they prefer to be in, men are majority work centred so they remain dominant

86
Q

What does the preference theory show?

A

Women are not passive - their lives are down to individual preference and that we cannot generalise women’s experiences in the family

87
Q

What are the strengths of Hakim’s preference theory?

A

Hakim is anti-essentialist, goes against the assumption that women are passive and weak

88
Q

What are the limitation of Hakim’s preference theory?

A

Women experience dual work shift which is stressful, women’s choices are constrained by the web of connectedness, choice is limited for working class women

89
Q

What are the strengths of the feminist view of the family?

A

Shed a light on women’s oppression in the family, previous sociological research was malestream, lots of branches for different experiences, women’s voices are now incorporated in society and is now global and inclusive

90
Q

What are the limitations of the feminist view of the family?

A

Ignores men’s experiences in the family, neglect of men’s experiences has caused a crisis of masculinity, can be eurocentric, can ignore progress within family life such as role reversal and the “new man”

91
Q

What is the postmodernist view of the family?

A

They focus on what the family offers to individuals and how this is negotiated

92
Q

What do late modern sociologists Giddens and Beck agree with postmodernists on?

A

importance of globalisation and the growing diversity of families

93
Q

What is the individualisation thesis? (Giddens and Beck)

A

Traditions in the family have been lost and people now have more choice to decide how to shape their personal lives e.g same sex couples are ‘pioneers’ in creating more egalitarian relationships

94
Q

What changes may have caused the process of individualisation?

A

Changes in norms and values, legal changes such as same sex marriage, abortion laws, secularisation - religion favours the nuclear family, influence of feminism (political)

95
Q

What did Giddens say is plastic sexuality?

A

People now have sex for pleasure

96
Q

What is romantic love?

A

unconditional, one and true love

97
Q

What is confluent love?

A

active and conditional love

98
Q

What is the ‘pure relationship’?

A

People choose to stay in a relationship because it meets their emotional and sexual needs

99
Q

According to postmodernism, what factors have led to the growing family diversity and new forms of personal relationships?

A

Growth of confluent love, search for pure relationships, growing individualism

100
Q

What did postmodernist Stacey say about the divorce extended family?

A

Women rather than men, are the main agents of change in family relationships, and postmodern families are diverse and based on active choices

101
Q

What research did postmodernist Stacey do?

A

She used life history interviews to build on case studies of postmodern families and found that when both men and women work, women have greater ability to negotiate family roles

102
Q

What does Beck and Beck argue about late modern/postmodern society?

A

A key feature is risk - we are now more calculating of the risks and rewards of different options available

103
Q

What is the negotiated family?

A

Equal but unstable, doesn’t conform to traditional family norms but negotiates what’s best for them - danger of instability due to focus on self

104
Q

What is the zombie category family?

A

Appears to be alive but is dead, cannot give stability

105
Q

What personal life concept criticises the individualisation theory?

A

Web of connectedness - there are some constraints in choice

106
Q

What is the domestic division of labour?

A

Functionalist Parsons point
Differences are biological
Roles are divided between gender - instrumental and expressive roles, nuclear family

107
Q

How would a sociologist investigate partners roles in the household?

A

Surveys, observations, interviews, diaries - time budget

108
Q

What are the two types of conjugal roles according to Bott?

A

Segregated conjugal roles - Parsons instrumental and expressive roles divided by gender
Joint conjugal roles - shared roles between couples - greater equality, more common in temporary society

109
Q

What was Wilmott and Young’s study of separated conjugal roles in the 1950s?

A

Working class families in Bethnal Green - men were primarily wage earners, didn’t do many domestic tasks, spent leisure time with other men, wife was financially dependent, had little opportunity in decision making and took care of household and children

110
Q

What was Wilmott and Young’s study of joint conjugal roles in the 1970s?

A

Symmetrical family was emerging - both partners involved in paid work, housework and childcare, decision making and leisure time

111
Q

How did changes in the law encourage symmetrical familes?

A

Equal pay act 1970, sex discrimination act 1975, equality act 2010
Encourages women to be in paid employment so men will have to also contribute to housework

112
Q

How does commercialisation of housework encourage symmetrical families?

A

Consumer goods reducing the burden of housework - easier, less effort, less skill needed - encouraging men to do more

113
Q

How does the decline of the traditional extended family encourage symmetrical families?

A

Less pressure to conform to traditional gender roles and to adopt new roles in a relationship

114
Q

How does liberal feminist Oakley argue against the rise in symmetrical families?

A

Wilmott and Young used inadequate methodology - she interviewed 40 london housewives and only 15% had high levels of housework
Women now have a dual burden - 2 jobs

114
Q

What do Allan and Crow argue about family diversity?

A

Fragmented postmodern society has allowed for more choice creating organisational diveristy

115
Q

What does Benson argue about the instability of cohabiting couples?

A

Married couples are much more stable as they involve deliberate commitment and only a rejection of liberal ideas and a return to traditional values can prevent social damage to children

115
Q

Why does the New Right reject cohabiting couples, lone parent families and same sex couples?

A

No stability, no legal protection, too much reliance on the state, ineffective socialisation of children, not traditional (same sex couples cannot reproduce)

116
Q

What does the New Right ignore?

A

Mead’s gender roles study (socially constructed), radical feminists - nuclear family undervalues women, cohabitation is more common among poorer couples, according to negotiation cohabiting may be the best option

117
Q

What is the Trad Wife movement?

A

Embraces the lifestyle of a 1950s housewife

118
Q

What does Chester say about the neo-conventional family?

A

It’s a new shape of the nuclear family and family diversity is simply due to the timing and different stages of relationships

119
Q

Where is there evidence in family diversity today?

A

Household sizes have decreased
Single person households have increased
Single parents have increased
Births outside of marriage have been increasing

120
Q

What did Rapoport and Rapoport find on family diversity?

A

The cereal packet family is a myth - only 20% of UK families consisted of married couples with children and a single breadwinner
We now live in a pluralistic society (diverse)

121
Q

What are the five different aspects the Rapoports used to describe family diversity?

A

C - cultural e.g arranged marriage, black matrifocal families
L - life course e.g newly married couple, retired couple
O - organisational e.g conjugal roles, neo conventional families
G - generational e.g paranoid parenting, toxic childhood
S - social class e.g physical discipline among working class families

Sociology (2 decks)

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