Studying Marriage and the Family

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Studying Marriage and the Family

• Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Families
• Methods and Techniques in Family Research
• Ethical and Political Issues in Family Research

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Why are theories and research important in our
everyday lives?

• (1) what we don 't know can hurt us
• (2) theories and research help us understand and
  explain ourselves and our families and
• (3) they assist us in engaging in critical
  thinking and informed decision making.

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Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Families

• A theory is a set of statements that explain why
  a phenomenon occurs.
• Ecological perspective- studies the relationship
  and adaptation of human groups, such as families,
  to their social environment.

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• There are four interlocking systems that mold
  developmental growth
• microsystem (behaviors, roles and relationships
  that influence a child's daily life),
• mesosystem (the relationship between settings),
• exosystem (settings or events that a child does
  not experience directly but that can affect his
  or her development) and
• macrosystem (ideological system within a culture
  or subculture).

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• The main weaknesses of this theory are that
• (1) it explains growth but ignores decay
• (2) it does not clarify how and when environments
  produce change and
• (3) it does not explain how the interactions
  between the four systems affect nontraditional
  families.

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Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Families

• The structural-functionalist approach examines
  the relationship between the family and the
  larger society as well as the internal
  relationships among family members.
• Anything that interferes with the fulfillment of
  social functions is seen as dysfunctional.
  Functions can be both manifest-recognized or
  intended or latent-not recognized or intended. In
  the traditional family, the husband plays the
  instrumental role and the wife plays the
  expressive role.

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• This approach has been criticized for
• (1) being so conservative in its emphasis on
  order and stability that it ignores social change
  and
• (2) failing to show how families interact on an
  everyday basis and
• (3) examining the family narrowly through white,
  male, middle class lenses.

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• Conflict theory examines the ways in which groups
  disagree, struggle over power and compete for
  scarce resources. Rather than seeing change or
  conflict as bad or dysfunctional, conflict
  theorists see conflict as natural and inevitable.
  On a macro level, conflict theorists see society
  not as cooperative and stable, but as a system of
  inequality in which groups compete for scarce
  goods and services.

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• Conflict theorists have been criticized for
• (1) overemphasizing conflict and coercion at the
  expense of studying order and stability and
• (2) emphasizing institutional processes instead
  of personal choices and constraints.

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• Feminist theories are the offspring of conflict
  theory. Feminist theories examine how gender
  roles shape relations between women and men.
• Three categories of feminism are
• (1) liberal feminism (emphasizes social and legal
  reform to create equal opportunities for women),
• (2) radical feminism (considers male domination a
  major cause of women's inequality) and
• (3) global feminism (focuses on how the
  intersection of gender with race, social class
  and colonization exploits women in the developing
  world).

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• Criticisms of feminism include the fact that
• (1) feminists participate in an "old girl
  network" that hasn't always welcomed conflicting
  points of view from African-American,
  Asian-American, Latino, Muslim, working class, or
  disabled women in either research or therapeutic
  settings and
• (2) most feminist research uses qualitative
  research (based on observations and interviews)
  rather than quantitative research (based on an
  assignment of numbers to observations by counting
  and measuring).

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• Symbolic interaction theory.
• Symbolic interactionists examine how our ideas,
  beliefs and attitudes shape our daily lives.
• Common criticisms suggest that this theory
• (1) ignores the impact of macro social
  structures,
• (2) overlooks the irrational and unconscious
  aspects of human behavior, and
• (3) provides an unrealistic view of everyday
  life.

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• Social-exchange theory.
• This theory posits that people make decisions and
  choices based on perceived costs and rewards in
  an attempt to maximize rewards and reduce costs.
• Critics accuse that exchange theory
• (1) puts too much weight on rational behavior and
  
• (2) is limited in explaining behavior that is
  motivated by immediate costs or rewards.

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• Life course development theory.
• This theory examines the changes that families
  experience over the life-span, suggesting that as
  family members progress through various stages
  and events over the life course, the accomplish
  developmental tasks.
• According to the classic model, the family life
  cycle begins with marriage and ends with the
  death of one or both partners. Over time,
  developmental theories have begun to incorporate
  the developmental stages of different types of
  families, like single parent families, childless
  couples, stepfamilies, and grandparent-
  grandchild families.

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• Critics suggest that the theory
• (1) provides artificial stages of development
  because life processes are not always clean and
  neat
• (2) is limited to examining nuclear, heterosexual
  and stable families and
• (3) ignores sibling relationships.

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• The family systems theory, the final micro
  perspective, views the family as a functioning
  unit that solves problems, makes decisions, and
  achieves collective goals.
• Family systems theorists are interested in the
  rules that hold families together.

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• Some critics argue that the family systems
  theory
• (1) has generated a lot of terminology without
  much insight into how the family functions
• (2) may no be applicable to healthy families as
  it originated in the study of dysfunctional
  families and
• (3) generates research findings that are not
  generalizable to larger groups.

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Methods and Techniques in Family Research

• Social scientists use six major research methods
  to answer questions about the family surveys,
  clinical research, field research, secondary
  analysis, experiments and evaluation research.
• Surveys are used to systematically collect data
  from respondents.

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• Researchers typically draw a sample, a group of
  people that are representative of the population
  under study.
• Surveys employ questionnaires or interviews to
  collect data from the sample. In interviews, the
  respondent and the researcher interact directly,
  either face to face or by telephone.

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• Clinical research studies individuals or small
  groups who seek help from mental health
  professionals and other scientists.
• In field research, researchers collect data by
  systematically observing people in their natural
  surroundings.
• In participant observation, researchers interact
  naturally with the people they are studying but
  do not reveal their identities as researchers.
• In nonparticipant observation, researchers study
  phenomena without being part of the situation.

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• In secondary analysis, research is data that was
  collected by someone else.
• Experiments investigate cause and effect
  relationships under strictly controlled
  conditions. A researcher tests a prediction or
  hypothesis that one variable causes another.
• Evaluation research measures the efficiency and
  effectiveness of social programs in both the
  public and private sectors. Evaluation research
  is applied, providing program administrators with
  information to improve or initiate services.

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ETHICAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES IN FAMILY RESEARCH

• Researchers may encounter ethical and political
  dilemmas. Because so much research relies on
  human subjects, the federal government and many
  other professional organizations have set up
  codes of ethics to protect research participants.