Transcript families - sociologygleneagles

FAMILIES
KEY QUESTIONS
• Try to define the term family and draw a picture
of your family
• Who is in it?
• What does family mean to you?
• Who do you define or call family? Is it your
immediate family, extended family, your step
mum or dad, your grandmother?
• How many types of families can you think of?
• What makes a family a family?
Case study
• Louise was asked to draw a picture of her
family at school and this is who she drew
• Nanny, dad, grandmother, sister and
brother
• WHY??? Is this a family?
• Create a family tree of your family
• Do you think your family represents the
typical nuclear family why/why not
• Over the past several decades Western
societies have witnessed shifts in family
patterns that would have been
unimaginable to earlier generations
• The great diversity of family and
household forms has become an everyday
feature of our age.
• People are less likely to marry than they
once were and tend to do so at a later age
• The divorce rate has risen significantly
contributing to a growth in lone parent
families
• ‘Reconstituted families’ are formed
through second marriages or through new
relationships involving children from
previous unions
• More and more people are choosing to live
together – to cohabit before marrying or
instead of marrying
• The world of family looks very different
that it did fifty years ago. While the
institutions of family and marriage still exist
and are important to our lives, their
character has changed dramatically
Basic concepts
• A family is a group of persons directly linked by
kin connections, the adult members of which
assume responsibility for caring for children
• Kinship ties are connections between individuals
established either through marriage or through
the lines of descent that connect blood relatives
(mothers, fathers, siblings, offspring etc)
• Marriage can be defined as a socially
acknowledged and approved social union
between two adult individuals. When two
people marry they become kin to one
another: the marriage bond also however
connects together a wide range of
kinspeople. Parents, brothers, sisters and
other blood relatives become relatives of
the partner through marriage
• Family relationships are always
recognized within wider kinship groups
• In virtually all societies we can identify
what sociologists call the nuclear family
• Nuclear family – 2 adults living together in
a household with their own or adopted
children
• In most traditional societies the nuclear family
was part of a larger kinship network of some
type
• Extended family – when close relatives other
than a married couple and children live either in
the same household or in a close and
continuous relationship with one another
• Who do you think an extended family include?
• An extended family may include
grandparents, brothers and their wives,
sisters and their husbands, aunts and
nephews.
• In Western societies marriage and
therefore the family are associated with
monogamy.
• It is illegal for a man or women to be
married to more than one spouse at any
one time
• This is not the case everywhere however
• In a famous comparison of several
hundred societies in the mid-twentieth
century, George Murdock found that
polygamy which permits a husband or wife
to have more than one spouse was
permitted in over 80% of them (Murdock,
1949)
• There are two types of polygamy:
Polygyny – in which a man may be married
to more than one women at the same time
Polyandry – much less common in which a
women may have two or more husbands
simultaneously
Family diversity
• Sociologists believe that we can not speak
about ‘the family’ as if there is one model
of family life that is more or less universal
• The dominance of the traditional nuclear
family was steadily eroded over the
second half of the twentieth century
• It is important to remember that the work
family covers a variety of different forms
THE MODERN FAMILY
• How accepting is society today of the modern
family?
• Do you think the modern family is a true
depiction of society today why/why not
• How many different types of family are evident in
the film
• What do you think defines a parent – does it
always have to be biological why/why not?
• Do you think a child is disadvantaged having
same sex parents?
• Is the modern family a true depiction of
today’s society
•
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Waks family documentary
Joseph fritl – family??
Brady bunch
Wife swap
My big fat greek wedding
Polygamy
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq_cpt
HufTQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OEaR
n3uHsc&feature=related
• Polygamy article
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hGsrIT
Rgm0
•
Socialization
• Socialization – the primary channel for the transmission
of culture over time and generations
• Primary socialization – occurs in infancy and most
intense period of cultural learning (family is the main
agent of socialization during this phase)
• Secondary socialization – takes place in later childhood
and into maturity – other agents of socialization take
over some of the responsibility from the family (schools,
media, peer groups an the workplace become socializing
forces for the individual)
Theoretical perspectives
• The study of family and family life has
been taken up differently by sociologists of
contrasting persuasions
Functionalism
• See society as a set of social institutions
that perform specific functions to ensure
continuity
• The family performs important tasks which
contribute to society’s basic needs and
help to perpetrate social order.
• With industrialisation the family became
less important as a unit of economic
production and more focused on
reproduction, child rearing and
socialisation
• According to American sociologist Talcott
Parsons the family’s 2 main functions are
1. primary socialization
2. personality stabilization
Primary socialization
• Primary socialization – the process by
which children learn the cultural norms of
the society into which they are born
• The family is the most important arena for
the development of the human personality
Personality stabilization
• Personality stabalization –
role that the family plays in
assisting adult family
members emotionally
• Marriage between adult men
and women is the
arrangement through which
adult personalities are
supported and kept healthy
Stabilizing adult personalities
• In industrial society the role
of the family in stabilizing
adult personalities is said to
be critical
• This is because the nuclear
family is often distanced
from its extended kin and is
unable to draw on larger
kinship ties as families
could prior to
industrialisation
NUCLEAR FAMILY
• Parsons regarded the
nuclear family as the unit
best equipped to handle the
demands of industrial
society
• In the ‘conventional family’
– one adult can work
outside the home while the
second adult cares for the
home and the children
The concept of the breadwinner
• Husband adopts the instrumental role of
‘breadwinner and the wife assuming the
‘affective’ emotional role in domestic
settings
PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS
• Inadequate and outdated view
• Functionalist theories have come under
heavy criticism for justifying the domestic
division of labour between men and
women as something natural and
unproblematic
• But when viewed in their own historical
context the theories are more
understandable
• The postwar years saw women returning
to their traditional domestic roles and men
resuming positions of sole bradwinners
• Emphasizes family as performing certain
functions but neglects role of other social
institutions such as government, media
and schools in socializing children
Feminist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
M_mGNEVmj9Y – Sadie the
cleaning lady
• Challenges the vision of
family as a harmonious and
egalitarian realm not always
a source of comfort, love and
companionship but also a
source of loneliness,
exploitation and inequality
The problem with no name
• American feminist Betty
Freidan wrote of ‘the
problem with no name’ – the
isolation and boredom that
gripped many western
suburban housewives who
felt relegated to an endless
cycle of childcare and
housework
• Others called it the
phenomenon of the ‘captive
wife’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Kvk1NZDFvZU – sister suffrogate
• Feminism succeeded in directing
attentions inside families to
examine the experiences of
women in the domestic sphere
• Feminist writers questioned the
vision that family is a cooperative
unit based on interests and mutual
support
• They have sought to show that
there is unequal power
relationships within the family and
certain family members tend to
benefit more than others
• Domestic division of labour – the way
in which tasks are allocated between
members of a household
• Unequal power relationships –
domestic violence
• Sought to find answers for why does
the family serve as an arena for
gender oppression and physical
abuse
• The study of caring activities –
not only do women shoulder
concrete tasks such as
cleaning and childcare but they
also invest large amounts of
emotional labour in maintaining
personal relationships
Modern
• Second shift – women’s dual
role at work and at home
New perspectives – draw on
feminist perspectives
• Second shift – referring to women's dual roles at
work and at home
• Beck and Beck-Gernsheim – examined the
chaotic nature of personal relationships,
marriages and family patterns against the
backdrop of a rapidly changing world
• The traditions, rules and guidelines which used
to govern peronal relationships no longer applyindividuals are now confronted with an endless
series of choices as part of constructing,
adjusting, improving or dissolving the unions
they form with others
Modern perspective
• Fact that marriages are now entered into
voluntarily rather than for economic purposes
brings both freedoms and new strains
• They demand a great deal of hardwork and
effort
• Todays age is one filled with colliding interests
between family, work, love and the freedom to
pursue individual goals
• Both men and women today now place
emphasis on their professional and personal
needs
Modern perspective
• Beck and Beck-Gersheim conclude that relationships in
modern age are about negotiations
• not only are love, sex, children, marriage and domestic
duties topics for negotiation but relationships are now
about work, politics, economics, professions and
inequality
• Beck and Beck-Gersheim claim that the ‘battle between
the sexes’ is the ‘central drama of our times’ as
evidenced in the growth of marriage counseling. Family
courts, marital self help groups and divorce rates.
• Even though marriage and family life seems more
‘flimsy’ than ever before, they still remain very important
to people.
Changing families Changing Times
• Read pg 1 (Changing families, changing
times, Marilyn Poole) re: Bali bombings
• Families are shaped by society-by place,
time and culture’ (Keren Reiger, p3)
Demographic changes
• Demographic changes that have taken place in
Australia have significantly impacted on our lives
• Demography – not just about the numerical
changes in our population but changes in
categories of people such as migrants, changing
rates of marriage and divorce, decline in fertility
rates and shifts in age groups
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CFldTTDNm
0&feature=related
Goodbye assumptions!
• Can no longer assume
that a family consists of a
husband, a wife and two
or three dependent
children
• While many people in
Australia do marry –
marriage rates are falling
overall and cohabitation
rates are rising
• WHY?
• In the past it was assumed
that women would have
children
• However due to effective
contraception and the
availability of abortion many
women are now choosing not
to have children
• More and more people live
alone
• Growing acceptance of samesex relationships and
increasingly legislation is
being enacted giving samesex couples the same rights
as heterosexuals
• Prior to industrialization the household was an
economic unit in which family production was
assisted by non-kin such as apprentices living in
the household or servants
• Following industrialization and the development
of waged work outside the home, the family
home become separated from the public sphere.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbG1t46_jmw
&feature=related
Social trends - 1950’s and 1960’s
– the shaping of the nuclear family
• Economic, political and social
upheavals following WWII
resulted in major long term
changes to Australian Society
• Australia experienced large
intakes of migrants
initially many settlers were from
English-speaking countries (up
until 197- almost half, 46% of
settler arrivals were born in the
UK or Ireland (ABS, 2003)
• Other settler migrants came from former
Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece and New
Zealand
• In the last two decades Asian countries
have become an important source of
migrants
• Different waves of migrants
provided new cultural and
religious influences on the
predominantly Anglo- Celtic
traditions which characterized
Australia in the postwar period
• Post war period few households
except the very wealthy had
domestic servants
• Jobs were created in
manufacturing and retail
• Younger women – many of
whom in former times would
have been domestic servants
– took up these jobs or a
trade
• Households grew smaller and
it was during the 1950’s and
60’s that the nuclear family
became the dominant form
• For people marrying in the 50’s and 60’s
• ‘age at first marriage was exceptionally
low’
• Sexual activity began by marrying early
• For women marrying meant leaving paid
employment
• ‘children thus came early and fast and
social life revolved around baby health
centres and schools’
Family in the late 1970s and 80’s
• Great social changes occurred which had implications
for families
• Increasing diversity – ethnic and cultural mix of
population
• Time of new cultural attitiudes and values – sexual
liberation, civil rights movements in the US, womens
liberation movements, introduction of contraceptive pill,
abortion rights and increasing use of recreational drugs
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XtPOu2IC7c&feature
=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTGWKHWbxgg&feat
ure=related
• By the 1970’s the necessary
conditions for changes to
marriage and fertility already
existed
• Oh no we forgot to have kids!!!!
• A decline attributed to women's
‘selfishness’
Why decline in fertility?
• The declining fertility rate is attributed to a
number of factors
• Efficient contraception, changing attitudes to
family size, access to abortion, increased
participation of women in education and paid
employment and greater choice about lifestyle
(such as increased emphasis on personal goals
and fulfillment
• It is hypothesized that people are much more
individualistic and prefer to spend their income
on a wide range of consumer goods and lifestyle
products and services rather than on the costs of
raising children.
• What is the nuclear family
• To what extent is the nuclear family now the
preferred form of family in Australia
• What factors best explain some of the changes
taking place in Australian Families
• How do children cope with the separation of
their parents
• What do you think are the effects of diversity in
families
• Create an in depth interview with a partner
about their family and write it up as an
anonymous case study
• Do they have brothers and sisters are they
the eldest what does each role feel like
• What are the functions of a society’s family
institution? E.g. teaching values, physical
care and teaching independent learning
skills see pg 7