Families and House Holds 1.1- Nature and role of family in society

Covering both AQA and OCR exam boards on Families and House Holds

Househouse- a group of people who live together, that may have family tiesFamilies make up the majority of a household, but can be alternative types, such as student houses or friends.

Social Trends 33 (2003)- there is an increase in the amount of people living on their own

Family- is a type of household where the people living there are related. A family is classed as a kinship group, where by they are related by blood or birth, examples include parents and children. Families also include non-kinship groups, where by they are not related by blood or birth, examples include foster children and step relatives.

Types of Family:

1- NUCLEAR FAMILY- two generations living together, mother, father and children.

2- TRADITIONAL EXTENDED FAMILY- three or more generations living together or close by, mother, father, children, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

3)- ATTENUATED EXTENDED FAMILY- a nuclear family that lives apart from their extended family, but are in regular contact.

4) SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY- single parent with their dependent children.

5) RECONSTITUTED FAMILY- stepfamilies formed from two previous families that are brought together, for example parents that have gone through a divorce and recouped and potentially have children from previous relationships.

All text in blue are KEY terms that need to be learn to earn the higher grades in essays and small mark questions.

Ways of teaching and delivering-

-Households and family, ask the group what they think a definition of the terms are, and then create a group model answer based on the correct definition.

-The 5 family types, can be simply through directly telling the group the definitions, and then revisit at the end of the session or the start of the session as a definition matching task.

Functionalist view

Functionalists see every institution in society as essential to the smooth running of society.

Murdock (1949) 250 societies across different cultures

Murdock argued that a form of nuclear family was found across all 250 societies and argued they had 4 basic functions:

1. Sexual– provides a stable sexual relationship for adults and controls the sexual relationships of its members
2. Reproductive– provides new babies, leading to new members of society
3. Economic– the family pools resources and provides for all its members
4. Educational– the family teaches children the norms and values of society

Talcott Parsons– argues that families have two vital functions:

1. Primary socialisation– process where children learn, accept and norms of society. A family is a factory production line.
2. Stabilisation of adult personalities– emotional support between parents provides security and support to cope with wider society and provides a safe haven from everyday life

HOWEVER

Functionalists have been criticised for idealising the family and focussing on only the good aspects. Morgan (1975) states that Murdock makes no references to alternative households, or any problems within family relationships.

Neither Murdock or Parsons looked at conflict, class or violence in families. FEMINISTS argue that they ignore issues of female exploitation.

Marxist view

Marxist’s view the family as performing essential functions for modern industrial society. The key difference is that they argue that the family benefits there minority in power (bourgeoisie) and the economy, but disadvantages the working class majority (proletariat)

1. Engels (1884)– family have an economic function of keeping within the bourgeoisie by passing it to the next generation as inheritance.
2. Zaretsky (1976)– focused on how the family helped the capitalist economy. He argued that the family is one place in society where the proletariat can have power and control. e.g. when a man gets home he’s the king of his castle, which relives the frustration of their lower status at work, helping them accept their oppression as workers.
3. The role of women in the family in a capitalist society is the house wife, meaning they care for the bread winner which makes them more productive in the work place, benefiting the employer.
4. The family house hold is a unit which buys good from capitalist companies. The family are a unit of consumption as they buy goods for more than they cost to produce profiting the bourgeoisie.

HOWEVER

Marxism is criticised for being a tool of capitalist oppression and never mentions the good things.

1. Marxist sociology focuses in the benefits to economy, and the benefits to employers, rather than the benefits to individuals in society.
2. Traditional marxist views assumes that a male goes to work and women stay at home.
3. There is no explanation for why the family flourishes as an institution in a non-capitalist or communist society and offers little research into alternate families.

Both functionalists and marxist see the family as having a key role in reproducing social structure and order, and the key sociological debate is whether this is good or bad, and who benefits.

Feminist Views

Feminist views on family is generally left-wing and anti-traditional, most feminists believe that the family oppress women and exploit them.

1. Feminist perspective says that a family helps to maintain pre existing social order. (WHO ELSE THINKS THIS?)
2. Feminists call the existing social order a patriarchy, meaning a combination of ideology, systems and cultural practises, that effectively give men the power.
3. Families support and reproduce the inequalities between men and women.
4. Focus on the idea that women are oppressed because they’re socialised to be dependent on a male, they put themselves second to a man. Families lay central to this socialisation as the expectations are taught within the family and continued in society.
5. Feminism states there is a set of ideas (ideology) about a males role and females role within a family.

There are three main strands of feminist thoughts on family and they differ by the roots they see in the patriarchy, the three groups are:

1. MARXIST FEMINISM, which sees the exploitation of women as essential for the success of capitalism. The family produces and cares for the next generation of workers, at almost no cost to the capitalist systems. It is classed as cost free as the system believes that housework should be unpaid. Men are paid for work outside the home, women are not paid for work inside the home. BENSON (1969) found that if house work was paid at minimum wage, it would damage the profits of capitalism. ANSLEY (1972) men take out their frustrations from work out on women rather than the capitalism.
2. RADICAL FEMINISM, see housework as exploitation of women, but they don’t see it as a being caused by the capitalist system. They see the exploitation as a domination of males in society. Radicals believe that males will always always oppress women. DELPHY AND LEONARD (1992) both radicals that believe the family is the patriarchy, where women do the majority of the work, and the men reap the rewards.
3. LIBERAL FEMINISM, emphasise the cultural norms and values that are enforced by the family and other institutions within society. Families are only sexist because they support mainstream culture, to which liberals believe social change is possible. They try to pressure institutions that oppress women through legal actions.

HOWEVER

1. All strands of feminism have been criticised for portraying women as passive, it plays down the role of a women to make their own change with situations.
2. It doesn’t acknowledge that families may share power.
3. Some theory doesn’t acknowledge families that don’t share same sex relations, such as homosexual, or single parent house holds, meaning the power structures don’t get acknowledged.
4. Black feminists argue that feminist theory doesn’t address women from different ethnic backgrounds and upbringing.

New Right Views

Believe that nuclear families are the the strong hold of society:

1. Based on the idea that the traditional views on a nuclear family are best for society.
2. Social policies on family, children, divorce and welfare are undermined by families.
3. CHARLES MURRAY says the traditional family is under threat. MURRAY (1989) welfare benefits are too high and create a culture of dependency, where individuals see it easier to take benefits rather than work.
4. Focus on giving welfare benefits to single mothers, and believe that its not good for a child to be raised in a family which the parents don’t work.
5. The access to divorce and the increase of single and step parents have led to a breakdown in traditional values. They believe it leads to an increase in crime.
6. Some politicians have used new right beliefs to influence social policy making it harder for people to access benefits

HOWEVER

New Rights have been seen to blame the victim for their problems

POSTMODERNIST VIEW

Diversity in family structures are a good thing:

1. The central ideas is that there are much wider ranges of living options available due to social and cultural changes. Examples include, traditional nuclear, step families and unmarried couples.
2. JUDITH STACEY (1990) theres such a diversity of family types, relationships and lifestyles that there will never be a dominant type in western culture. Family arrangements have become diverse and fluid, meaning a person can move from one family type to another and not be fixed down.
3. The key idea is that contemporary living is so flexible that an individual can experience various family types in their lifetime. Postmodernist see this diversity and flexibility as positive as it means individuals can choose from several different options, depending on their personal needs.

HOWEVER

Criticism of postmodernism theory questions whether going through multiple family types is really something that happens. O’BRIEN AND JONES (1996) found that from their UK research that there was less variety in family types that STACEY (1990) first reported, and that most individuals actually experience one or two types of family in their lifetime.

Ways of teaching and delivering-

-Split the group into 5 and give each group one of the 5 view points. Give them 5 minutes to read over the arguments and view points, and then have a class debate where each group argues why their view is the dominant view point.

-After the group activity, bring the group back together and display each view point for students to take notes on the key areas.