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Family revision ppt
(extras)
Conjugal roles
debate
Diversity
Social policy
Development
of the family
Demography
Marriage,
divorce and
cohabitation
Social
construction
of childhood
Conjugal Roles Debate
Focus:
The extent to which couples have become more equal – especially in terms of housework
and power in the family home.
Typical Questions
• Explain what is meant by the ‘dual burden’ (Item 2A). (2 marks)
• Explain the difference between the expressive role and the instrumental
role (Item 2A).(4 marks)
• Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the contribution of
feminist sociologists to an understanding of family roles and
relationships. (24 marks)
• Examine the factors that have affected the domestic division of labour
and power between couples (24 marks)
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What you need to consider…
Power inside relationships takes different forms:
• Housework
• Childcare
• Decision making
• Hours worked (at work/in home)
• Emotion work
• Domestic violence
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What you need to consider...
• Functionalists stress a ‘march of progress’
(and greater symmetry).
• Feminists stress patriarchy and how women
still do most housework.
Be aware of different studies and factors that
may have led to greater equality OR helped to
maintain inequality.
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What you need to consider…
Domestic Violence
• Hidden/dark side of family
• Hard to research
• Declining since 1996
Why happen?
• Radical feminism – patriarchy/women seen as
property/control by men/masculinity + macho
• New Right – ‘dysfunctional families’, unstable
• Giddens – emotional intensity, strong emotions in
isolated family unit – depend on each other too much
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Marriage, Divorce, Cohabitation
Focus:
What are the trends in these areas of family life? What has caused the increase/decrease?
The effects of these
Typical Questions
•
Suggest three reasons for the increase in the divorce rate since 1969. (6 marks)
•
Suggest two reasons for the decline in the number of first marriages over the
past 40 years or so, apart from those referred to in Item 2A. (4 marks)
•
Suggest two reasons why there has been an increase in cohabitation (Item 2A).
(4 marks)
•
Examine the reasons for changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation in
the last 40 years or so. (24 marks)
•
Examine the reasons for changes in the divorce rate since 1969. (24 marks)
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What you need to consider..
The decline in marriage rate:
• Why are less people marrying?
The rise in divorce rate:
• Why are more people divorcing?
The rise in cohabitation:
• Why has there been an increase in cohabitation?
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What you need to consider..
Measuring marital breakdown:
• Rise in divorce
• Separation
• Empty shell marriages
Divorce:
• Which groups are most likely to get divorced (and
why)?
• What are the consequences of divorce?
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What you need to consider..
Reasons for increase in divorce?
• Value of marriage
• Conflict between spouses
• Opportunity to escape marriage (includes
ease of divorce)
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Social Policy
Focus:
How policies have affected the family. Consider how policies have supported or
undermined the nuclear family.
Typical Questions
•
Suggest two ways, apart from those mentioned in Item 2A, in which
government policies and/or laws may shape the experiences of children today.
(4 marks)
•
Examine the ways in which government policies and laws may affect the nature
and extent of family diversity. (24 marks)
•
Examine the ways in which social policies and laws may influence families and
households. (24 marks)
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What you need to consider…
Policies – government intervening in family life
(education, taxation, housing, welfare)
Cross-curricular examples
• China (1 child policy)
• Soviet Union (abolish family)
• Nazi Germany (increase birth rate)
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What you need to consider…
Theories on family & policy
New Right
• Pro-nuclear family
• Anti-single parent family
• Welfare cutbacks
Feminism
• Anti-nuclear family
• Women need to escape patriarchal oppression
• Gender regimes
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Pro-nuclear
Anti-nuclear
•
Child benefit paid to mothers
(assumption)
• Gradual liberalisation of
divorce laws
•
School hours (assume) that one
parent will be at home in the
afternoon (this makes it hard for
dual earner families)
• Recognition of gay/lesbian
relationships
•
Limited state provision of care for
elderly (and encouraging families
to look after them)
• Domestic violence treated
more seriously by police and
authorities
•
Housing policies (Fox & Harding,
1996) assume that nuclear
families get priority over loneparent families
Also look at the policies of different parties:
•
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Child support policies have
emphasised the importance of
absent fathers to pay for children
• State funding for childcare
• New Right (1979-1997)
• New Labour (1997-2010)
• Coalition (2010 – present)
Demography
Focus:
What changes in the population have happened? What has caused these? What are their
consequences for family life?
Typical Questions
•
Identify three reasons why the birth rate has fallen since 1900. (6 marks)
•
Explain what is meant by ‘net migration’ (Item 2A). (2 marks)
•
Suggest two reasons why people may migrate to the United Kingdom, apart from
that referred to in Item 2A. (4 marks)
•
Suggest two ways in which the position of children could be said to have
improved over the last one hundred years. (4 marks)
•
Explain the difference between the ‘birth rate’ and the ‘fertility rate’ (4 marks)
•
Suggest two reasons why women might delay having children. (4 marks)
• Suggest three effects on society of an ageing population. (6 marks)
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What you need to consider…
• Birth rate (and factors affecting this decline)
• Fertility rate (and why fewer births)
Reasons:
• Changes in gender roles (careers etc)
• Equal opportunities
• Contraception
• Cohabitation
• Dual-earner families
• Falling infant mortality rate
• Children as economic burden
• Changing attitudes (child centred family with less children)
• Individualization (personal choice)
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What you need to consider…
Effects of changes in fertility:
• Changes in dependency ratio
• Effect on public services (closing schools,etc)
• Changing gender roles – more focus on
careers for women
• De-stabilizing families – no need to stay
together ‘for the kids’
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What you need to consider…
• Death rate (why falling?)
• Life expectancy (why increasing?)
Reasons:
• Developments in medicine
• Better nutrition
• Improved living standards (better housing, etc)
• Welfare benefits and health services
• Improved environment
• Improved working conditions
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What you need to consider…
• Migration (and why increasing?)
Reasons:
• Legislation and border control
• Globalisation
• Push/pull factors
• Employment
• Fleeing war/oppression/disaster etc
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What you need to consider…
• Ageing population (why increasing?)
Reasons:
• Falling death rate
• Falling birth rate
Effects of ageing population:
• Dependency ratio
• Pressure on families (+ extended family)
• Government spending/welfare
• Poverty (for the elderly)
• Prejudice against elderly
• Disengagement/isolation
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Development of the family
Focus:
How has the family changed in structure over time? What has led to the rise of the nuclear
family? Is kinship dead?
Typical Questions
•
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the growth of
family diversity has led to the decline of the traditional nuclear family. (24 marks)
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What you need to consider…
Parson’s View
• Extended to nuclear
• Impact of industrialisation
• Isolated nuclear family
• Geographic & social
mobility
Laslett’s View
• Nuclear family before
industrial revolution
• Only 10% kin
• Late marriage/early death
Anderson’s View
• Industrialisation led to
growth of extended family
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What you need to consider…
Willmott & Young
• Stage 1 – Preindustrial – Nuclear
• Stage 2 – Industrial – Extended
• Stage 3 – 1960s – Nuclear
Reasons for rise of stage 3:
• Rising wages
• Welfare state
• Geographic mobility/transport
• Slum clearance/new housing estates
• Home leisure
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Bethnal Green London
Stronger conjugal bond
SYMMETRICAL
FAMILY
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What you need to consider…
Kinship still important since 1980s:
• McGlone (kinship and support – childcare, financial,
advice, emotional)..mainly middle class
• Willmott – ‘dispersed extended family’
• Brannen – ‘beanpole family’
KINSHIP STILL IMPORTANT!
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What you need to consider…
Modernity & Postmodernity
Modernity = rational action = instrumental (rather
than by tradition)…less predictable
Postmodernity = decline in rationality
• Identity is less fixed – uncertainty – pluralism
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What you need to consider…
Modernity & Postmodernity
• Giddens – plastic sexuality/confluent love/self as
a project
• Beck et al – individualization/choice and conflict
• Stacey – heterosexual norm being replaced by a
diverse form – no set form
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Social Construction of Childhood
Focus:
How has the experience of childhood changed? What factors have led to the rise of
childhood? Is childhood a positive of negative experience?
Typical Questions
•
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•
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Examine different sociological views on changes in the experience of childhood
in the past 50 years or so. (24 marks)
Suggest two ways in which childhood has become .a specially protected and
privileged time of life. (4 marks)
Suggest two ways in which the position of children could be said to have improved over
the last one hundred years. (4 marks)
Suggest two ways in which the position of children could be said to have
improved over the last one hundred years. (4 marks)
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the modern
family has become more child-centred. (24 marks)
Explain what is meant by the ‘social construction’ of childhood.(2 marks)
Examine different sociological views on changes in the experience of childhood
in the past 50 years or so. (24 marks)
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What you need to consider…
• Childhood is ‘socially defined’ (changes
between cultures and over time)
• It is a social role – learned through
socialisation
• Aries – small adults/working in
medieval times
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What you need to consider…
Childhood emerged because..
Aries – attitudes changed:
• ‘fragile creatures of God’ –needed safeguarding
• Removed from work
• Expansion of education
• Family became child-centred
• Development of specialist services
• Separate leisure interests
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What you need to consider…
Childhood emerged because..
Shorter - Linked to development of
‘motherhood’ role:
• Increase in romantic love (child was special)
• Idea of children born good
• New ideas about how to ‘raise children’
• The idea of ‘the good mother’
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What you need to consider…
Other explanations for development of childhood:
• Postman – technology/communications – printing
press and schooling
• Jencks – growth of idea of children born good and
needing guidance (birth of education)
• Changing laws – factory acts banning children
• Donzelot – children’s services and protection
• Less children born – family child centred – treated
special/protection
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What you need to consider…
The rise of childhood views children as being protected and the
family becoming more valued.
Some see childhood as ‘disappearing’Postman:
• Mass media – access to adult culture/lifestyle
• Blurring of childhood/adulthood – clothing, decline of youth
culture
• Children and consumption (marketing at children)
Opie – childhood is not disappearing
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What you need to consider…
Childhood as a negative experience:
• Experience of divorce/family breakdown
• Isolated families and hidden abuse
• Greater surveillance and control (Donzelot)
• Toxic Childhood (Palmer)
• Consumerism – pressure to ‘fit in’
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Family Diversity
Focus:
The extent to which there is no longer a typical family in the UK. What types of diversity
are there and what has caused them to increase?
Typical Questions
•
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the growth of
family diversity has led to the decline of the traditional nuclear family. (24 marks)
•
Identify three ways in which greater ethnic diversity has contributed to family
diversity (Item 2A). (6 marks)
•
Examine the extent of, and reasons for, family and household diversity in Britain
today. (24 marks)
Could form part of the answer..
• Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the growth of
family diversity has led to the decline of the traditional nuclear family. (24 marks)
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What you need to consider…
Nuclear family as norm
• Cereal packet image
Rise of diversity
Rapoports
• nuclear not norm
• different types of diversity (organisational,
cultural, class, life cycle, cohort)
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What you need to consider…
Other forms of diversity:
• Reconstituted families
• Lone parents
• Living alone/singletons
• Childless couples
• Dual earner families
• Apartners
• Gay/lesbian households
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What you need to consider…
Reasons for increase in diversity:
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Contraceptive pill
Equal opportunities/women’s careers
Immigration
Divorce easier
Changing social attitudes/decline in stigma
Decline of religion
Expansion of welfare state
New reproductive technologies (IVF)
Allen & Crowe
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What you need to consider…
Single parent families
• Why increased?
– Increase of divorce
– Rise in births outside marriage
– Changing social attitudes
• Effects of single parent families
– Chance of living in poverty
– Children doing less well in education
– Children lack discipline/role models
New Right agenda
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What you need to consider…
Ethnic diversity
• Why increased?
– Immigration
Afro Caribbean Families
• Lone parent
• High rate of single (never married)
• Matrifocal
Why?
• Tradition of absent fathers
• Polygamy (Africa)
• Poverty
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Asian Families
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Extended
Low cohabitation
Low single parenthood
High marriage rate
Low divorce rate
Why?
• Traditional/culture & family
• Male ‘breadwinner’ expectation
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What you need to consider…
BUT…nuclear family is still important:
Robert Chester
• Neo-conventional family
• Statistically most of life in nuclear family
• Most people still marry
• Most children raised by natural parents
• Most people live in a household headed by
married couple
• Most people stay married
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