Family

1
Family

• The majority of us have lived our lives within
  some kind of family set up, though our
  experiences may have been very different.
  Sociologists are concerned with why we have
  families in the first place.
• Those who take a positive view of family life
  argues that it offers-
• a haven in a heartless world
• a warm bath to sink into
• benefits to children and parents
• the most basic unit in society
• a sense of belonging in an impersonal world

2
Family

• .and those who take a negative view argue that
  the family-
• is a source of tension and conflict
• exploits women and children
• is too inward looking
• is a violent institution

3
Family
In the simplest definition - the family - is a
group of people related by blood and marriage
(today this includes cohabiting couples and
adopted children). However such phrases as
. Nuclear Family, Extended Family,
Reconstituted Family, Single Parent Family and
Homosexual Family add confusion to this
debate. Remember these terms as we wade through
this whole topic area and be able to give useful
definitions of each!!!
4
Perspectives On The Family

• Jorgensen et al identify 3 main perspectives on
  the family

1. Traditional The Functionalist perspective
and New Right approaches tend to see the 'cereal
packet', nuclear family image as the most
desirable form of family life.
5
Perspectives On The Family

• Jorgensen et al identify 3 main perspectives on
  the family

2. Liberal This approach takes a pluralist
perspective and assumes that there are a wide
variety of family forms. Diversity is promoted
as desirable - it would be a bit boring if we all
lived in identical units!
6
Perspectives On The Family

• Jorgensen et al identify 3 main perspectives on
  the family

3. Antifamily This perspective argues
that the emphasis on 'family' ostracises large
numbers of people who don't live in a
conventional family.and often do not want to.
Many people live alone and feel stigmatised as
a result. Radical feminists support this view and
argue that family units exploit women.
7
The Family Through History

• The family and industrialisation

• Murdock -
• the family is a universal institution
• the monogamous nuclear family is the norm
• Goode -
• industrialisation caused the nuclear family to
  become dominant
• Parsons -
• the nuclear family best fits the needs of
  industrial societies
• because of geographical and social mobility of
  population

8
The Family and industrialisation

• The traditional view of family development is
  that pre-industrial societies were dominated by
  extended families and that the nuclear family
  form developed in the modern age in answer to the
  need for geographical mobility.

Peter Laslett 1972 was one of the first to
question this assumption. . He examined parish
records which record births, marriages and
deaths, and the names of people living together
as households. From such data Laslett. concludes
that only about 10 of households in England from
1564 to 1821 included kin beyond the nuclear
family.
9
The Family and industrialisation
Secombe 1992 takes issue with the above view and
says that it paints an over-simplified picture of
family life. He argues that changes to families
in Europe are much greater than this. He says
that the 'traditional' family is a recent
invention.
10
The Family and industrialisation
Michael Anderson 1981 carried out a study of the
town of Preston, Lancashire based on a sample of
10 of the 1851 Census records. Anderson's
research showed that 23 of households in Preston
included kin beyond the nuclear family. He
suggests that the process of industrialisation
may, in fact, have strengthened the need for
reliance on the extended family. Prior to the
modern welfare state the family provided a home
for parentless children, a means of sharing the
cost of accommodation, a source of information
about jobs and a means of financial support in
sickness, unemployment and old age.
11
The Family and industrialisation
Most of the above evidence is offered to
counteract an oversimplified evolutionary view of
the development of the family. The clear issue
here is that the extended family has been
important in many ages and across many societies.
Its importance as the 'modified extended
family' (where members occupy separate residences
but keep in regular contact), persists today.