Childhood is partly a social construct: sociologists says that childhood is not only a biological stage in development but a social construct. The idea that children are different from adults in their values, behaviour and attitudes isn’t the same everywhere in the world. It is not universal, some cultures view childhood in different ways An …
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Families and Households 1.5- Roles and Relationships within the family
The rise of the nuclear family led to joint conjugal roles: Conjugal roles are the roles of the husband and wife (or partner and partner) within a home. ELIZABETH BOTT (1975) studied how jobs and roles within the family were allocated to men and women in modern industrial Britain. Her study is old, but it …
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Families and Households 1.4- Family Diversity (changing family patterns)
Social trends indicate more variety of families and households. Official social trends statistics show that the variety of family type has increased in Britain since the mid 20th Century. There is no such thing as the “British Family”. Evidence: 1. There were 24.4 million households in the UK in 2002, up by a third since …
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Families and Households 1.3- The Family and Social Policy
Governments attempt to influence family structures through social policy The UK government makes laws that are designed to influence family life or structure, these are part of social policy. Social policy covers areas such as divorce, changed to benefit systems, reforms to education, adoption/fostering and employment Social policy has changed over time: The way the …
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Families and Households 1.2- Changes in Family Structure
Industrialisation and its influence on family structures: -There are two types of family structure: Extended and Nuclear -There are two types of society: Pre-Industrial Society- society before industrialisation, largely agricultural and work centres around the home. Industrial Society- society during and after industrialisation, work centres around factories and production of goods. HOW do the two …
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Social Influence 1.7- Resistance to social influence
Independent behaviour is a term used to describe behaviour that doesn’t seem to be influenced by other people, and occurs when people resist pressures to conform or obey. Social Support In a variant of ASCH (1951) the presence of a dissident (non conforming confederate) led to a decrease in conformity levels, due to the dissident …
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Social Influence 1.6- Dispositional explanation
Authoritarian Personality AO1 ADORNO et al (1950), believed that personality (dispositional) factors could be the explanation for obedience, rather than situational (environmental) factors. They proposed the idea of a authoritarian personality, where a person who shows this trait admired obedience and authority figures (more prone to obey). ELMS and MILGRAM (1966), wanted to see whether …
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Social Influence 1.5- Explanations of obedience
Obedience- a type of social influence where a person follows an order from another who is in authority. MILGRAM (1963) shock experiment Milgram tested the ‘Germans are different’ hypothesis, where it was believed that Germans are evil and Americans are not. He wanted to find out why they were so willing to kill during the …
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Social Influence 1.4- Conformity to social roles
Social roles are part of peoples social groups, they include job roles, such as teachers and police. There is considerable amounts of pressure to conform to expectations of social roles, by conforming this is called identification. ZIMBARDO (1973) Stanford prison experiment AO1 Procedure- Zimbardo converted the basement of the university into a mock prison setting …
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Social Influence 1.3- Variables affecting conformity
Asch (1951) Line Study AO1 Procedure- 5-7 participants in a group, each participant given a standard line, and three comparison lines (see above). Participants then had to say aloud which line they thought matched the standard line. Each group had one true participant with the rest of the group being confederates (actors), that were told …
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Social Sciences PGCE Austin Foster 