social action and interpretivist and the family Flashcards
backett, family life
family life is negotiated, families change over time, parents and children socially construct and learn their relationships argues that family life is a socialisation process, not only for children but also for parents who view parenting as a learning process of trial and error. Parents make sense of their children through a series of meanings relating to child development and cope with problems in behaviour with the belief that the child will ‘grow out of it’
evaluation of backett
Sometimes we need to consider the structure of society to understand power imbalance
marriages are all different, clarke
Clark conducted a detailed study of marriage using in-depth, unstructured interviews and identified four types of marriage:
drifting: couples who are unclear about their future as a couple and live day-to-day
surfacing: couples in reconstituted families dealing with continuing problems from former spouses and children from previous relationship
establishing: couples who consciously plan their future together, including saving for homes, children etc.
struggling: couples who experience financial difficulties, usually because of unemployment, and are pessimistic about the future
evaluation of clarke
Can’t explore this because only focuses on the micro aspects of family life
life course analysis. modern life cycle
birth–childhood–teenage/youth–young adult– paid work/career– marriage– children–grandchildren–retirement–death
life course analysis
people go through different life stages based on the choices they make.
Today, individuals experience many different family types throughout life and have power and choice in terms of family structures which suit their needs.
LCA enables such variations to be studied and understood sociologically by focusing on the meanings people give to their life events and choices – more relevant to a late-modern society.
LCA is, by contrast, focused on individuals as units of analysis, rather than ‘the family unit’
harven on life course analysis
argues there is much more flexibility and variations in people’s family life choices.
personal life perspective
Family life has changed in recent years. Family life is very different for each individual.
Individuals choose their family life and attach meaning to their relationships, including friendships, pets etc.
Similar to Postmodernism! However, the crucial difference between social action theory and postmodernism is this:
Postmodernists argue we have complete freedom and choice to make decisions which suit us as individuals (individualisation thesis)
Personal life perspectives recognise that our choices and decisions are rooted in the meanings we attach to our connections with others (connectedness thesis)
personal life perspective (smart)
Smart argues that understanding people’s personal lives needs to be done by considering:
Memory – we remember what is important to us
Biography – we each have individual life stories
Embeddedness – we are embedded in the lives of others
Relationality – our lives exist in relation to others
Imaginary – we envisage a perfect personal life and this is important too
personal life perspective (smart) memory
People’s memories can tell sociologists a lot about what is significant to them in terms of relationships. Sometimes memories are more revealing of feelings and priorities than a factual account of family structures.
personal life perspective (smart) biography
In order to create a valid biography (story) of someone’s life, the most appropriate approach to use is case studies - as it allows a sense of autonomy for the individual being researched and increases the validity of the research.
It captures the different experiences of different members of the family by not treating them as one shared set of experiences. Biography relies on memory and biographical methods focus on the use of documents
Birth records, marriage records, cards e.g. birthday, congratulations
boarding passes from holidays abroad
childhood drawings
school reports
tickets to events
social media etc.
personal life perspective (smart) embeddedness
Each individual life is embedded in a web of relationships and elements of the past are carried forward in present generations. This shows that relationships don’t simply end with death and that people have symbols that keep love and closeness going
personal life perspective (smart) relationality
This is the idea that you are not just an individual but are connected to relations (relatives) and significant others
personal life perspective smart imaginary
There are two realms of family life; the families we “live with”(real) and those we “live by” (imagined, created, virtual)
The families that we live by inhabit our imagination and affect our routine practices – we work with ideals of how we should behave and act within our family, such as planning family holidays, organising family gatherings and filling family albums with smiling photos.
Morgan, family practices
Argues that family practices are important for our identities within our families
it what we do in our families that are important
You might be the person who empties the dishwasher, or takes the bins out, or fixes the IT problems, or is the person who gives good hugs, or the music person or the person who gets everyone round for Sunday lunch etc
Conflict can arise when we have different expectations or beliefs, who’s job is it to walk the dog?
