Personal Life Perspective

Question 1

What is the personal life perspective?

Answer 1

An interpretivist approach that focuses on the individual meanings given to relationships and decisions about family structures

Question 2

What does Smart suggest?

Answer 2

Suggests that rather than focusing on family structure, it is more useful to explore the reason behind decisions that people choose to make about their relationships

Question 3

What does the personal life perspective approach challenge the view of?

Answer 3

Challenge the view that family relationships are based predominantly around biological or legal ties, and focuses instead on chosen relationships and relatedness

Question 4

How do functionalists see the personal life perspective and the family?

Answer 4

See the family as adapting positively to the needs of society and therefore sees diversity as positive and desirable

Fletcher argues that the increase in diversity is a sign that people have higher expectations of relationships

Question 5

How do the new right see the personal life perspective and the family?

Answer 5

Sees nuclear family as central to a well functioning society and is therefore concerned about the ‘breakdown’ of the nuclear family and traditional ideas about the family

Sees alternatives to the nuclear family, such as single parent families, as problematic especially for boys who they say need strong male role models to be adequately socialised

Question 6

How do Marxists see the personal life perspective and the family?

Answer 6

Sees family diversity as further evidence that the family adapts to the needs of capitalism to ensure that children are prepared to become obedient workers and adults are able to go to work for the RC

Question 7

How do feminists see the personal life perspective and the family?

Answer 7

Tend to see family diversity as positive, reflecting the fact women now have more choice and alternatives to patriarchal nuclear families

Regard alternatives as preferable as they may allow women greater negotiation of traditional gender assumptions

Question 8

How do interpretivists see the personal life perspective and the family?

Answer 8

Think its important to understand why people make the decisions about their family structure and relationship in order to explore the meanings given to these relationships

Question 9

How do postmodernists see the personal life perspective and the family?

Answer 9

See increase in family diversity as part of the wider shift to increasingly fluid and fragmented individualists lives based on increased choice

Stacey sees this as positive; while Beck points out that more choice leads to greater instability