Theories Of The Family - The Personal Life Perspective Flashcards
Carol smart
Accused modern sociological theories such ad functionalism and Marxism of making generalisations about family life which DO NOT FIT THE REALITIES OF THE SOCIETY WE LIVE IN TODAY
The “top down” approach
Functionalists, Marxists and feminists are “top down{ structural approaches. They assume that families and their members are simply passive puppets manipulated by the structure of society to perform certain functions - e.g to provide the economy with a mobile labour force, or serve the needs of capitalism or of men
The personal life perspective
Draws attention to relationships that cannot conventionally be defined as “family”. People which individuals see as providing a sense of identity, belonging and relatedness
Relationships viewed by the personal life perspective include:
- relationships with friends so might be like a sister/brother
- fictive kin: relatives you may call “auntie”
- gay and lesbian “chosen families”
- relationships with dead relatives who live on in memories
- relationships with pets (BECKY TIPER 2011 - found in her study of children’s view on relationships, that children frequently saw pets as “part of the family”
Overal that:
The family is not in decline, its just very different and much more diverse and complex than ever before
nordqvist and smart
helps us to understand how people themselves construct and define their relationships as “family’, rather than imposing traditional sociological
definitions of the family (based on blood or genes, for example) from the outside.
critiques argue
by including a wide range of different kinds of personal relationships, we
ignore what is special about relationships that are based on
blood or marriage.
unlike functionalism,
c, the personal lite perspective
recognises that relatedness is not always positive. For
example, people may be trapped in violent, abusive
seationships or simply in ones where they suffer everyday
unhappiness, hurt or lack of respect.
