Family Flashcards
(239 cards)
Family
Group of people who live together who are related by kinship types such as relations of blood, marriage, civil partnership, adoption and cohabitation
Kinship
Refers to relations of blood, marriage / civil partnership or adoption
Household
One person / group of people all living in one address
Nuclear family
Two generations: parents and children living in the same household
Beanpole family
A multi-generation extended family which is long and thin with few aunts, uncles, cousins, reflecting fewer children being born in each generation, but people living together longer
Reconstituted family
One or both partners were previously married, with children of previous relationships
Matrifocal family
A family where the mother heads the family and father plays less important role in the home and bringing up children
Single parent family
Lone parent with dependent children mostly common after divorce or separation
Same sex family
Same sex couple living together with children
Extended family
All kin beyond the nuclear family
Chosen family
Non-biological kinship bonds, wether legally recognised or not, deliberately chosen for the purpose of mutual support and love
George Murdock 4 functions of the family
- Sexual - expressing sexuality in a socially approved context
- Reproduction - family providing some stability for the reproduction and rearing of children
- Socialisation - unit of primary socialisation
- Economic - family provides food and shelter for family members
Criticisms of George Murdock
- out of date: over 60 years ago
- structural differentiation: new institutions have emerged replacing old ones
- false universality: not all societies work the same way, some don’t have families at all
- ignores diversity: makes assumption nuclear family is still most prevalent
Talcott parsons theory on family
As society changes the type of family which fits that society and the functions of it change, the nuclear family fits the more complex industrial society better but performs a reduced number of functions
Talcott parsons 2 functions nuclear family performs
- primary socialisation
- stabilisation of adult personalities
What is primary socialisation
Parsons argues that society would cease to exist if the new generation were not socialised into accepting society’s basic norms and values. He argues socialisation in the family is so powerful that cultures become part of a persons personality and people are molded into terms of the central values of the culture and act without thinking about it
What is stabilisation of adult personalities
Family help stabilise personalities as a result of early gender role socialisation and the sexual division of labour
Warm bath theory
Work life is stressful, the family is a place where the working man can return home and be de-stressed by his wife and reduces society’s conflict
Criticisms of parsons view
- Downplays conflict - ‘dark side’ of family with domestic abuse and child abuse
- Being out of date
- Functionalism is too deterministic - robotic adoption of societies values via our parents isn’t always true
What is the Marxist view on family
- nuclear family is a tool of captialism
- capitalist societies are unequal and privatised nuclear family is necessary to maintain that inequality
Engels - inheritance of wealth views
- classless societies
- private ownership and profits
- pass on wealth, need for monogamy
- reproduction of inequality
Althusser: socialisation into social hierarchy views
- working class must submit to ruling class
- family is an ideological state apparatus
- passed on the ideology of the ruling class
- ruling class tries to maintain false class consciousness
Zaretsky: the cushioning effect view
- family acts as a comfort from the stresses of an industrial society
- similar to warm bath theory
- family allows men to feel in control to make up for oppression in society
- prevents revolution
Zaretsky: the family as a unit of consumption views
- wages low enough for profits, but high enough for spending
- advertising and media contribute
- family’s must keep up with other families
- children targeted in advertising