Download Marriages and Families, 8e

Chapter 1
Making Family Choices in a
Changing Society
Chapter Outline
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Defining Family
A Sociological Imagination: Personal
Troubles and Some Social Conditions That
Impact Families
The Freedom and Pressures of Choosing
Families of Individuals
Marriages and Families: Four Themes
Defining Family
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There are a variety of definitions of family
to take into account.
What we think of as a family has changed
dramatically in recent decades.
Defining Family
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The authors of this textbook define family as:
A family is any sexually expressive, parent–
child, or other kin relationship in which
people—usually related by ancestry,
marriage, or adoption—(1) form an
economic and/or otherwise practical unit and
care for any children or other dependents,
(2) consider their identity to be significantly
attached to the group, and (3) commit to
maintaining that group over time.
What is a family?
Family Functions
Social scientists usually list three major functions
filled by today’s families:
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Raising children responsibly
Providing economic and other practical support
Offering emotional security
Family Structure
Refers to the form a family takes, and varies
according to the society in which it is
embedded:
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Extended Family
Nuclear Family
Postmodern Family
Extended Family
In preindustrial or traditional societies, the family
structure involved whole kinship groups.
The extended family of parents, children,
grandparents, and other relatives performed
most societal functions, including economic
production (e.g., the family farm), protection of
family members, vocational training, and
maintaining social order.
Nuclear Family
In industrial or modern societies, the typical
family structure often became the nuclear family
(husband, wife, children).
Until about fifty years ago, social attitudes,
religious beliefs, and law converged into a fairly
common expectation about what form the
American family should take: breadwinner
husband, homemaker wife, and children living
together in an independent household—the
nuclear family model.
Postmodern Family
Today, family members are not necessarily bound
to one another by legal marriage, blood, or
adoption.
The term family can identify relationships beyond
spouses, parents, children, and extended kin.
Individuals fashion and experience intimate
relationships and families in many forms.
As social scientists take into account this
structural variability, it is not uncommon to find
them referring to the family as postmodern
(Stacey 1990).
Postmodern Family
The term postmodern family came into use in
order to acknowledge the fact that families
today exhibit a multiplicity of forms and that new
or altered family forms continue to emerge and
develop.
Postmodern: There is No
Typical Family
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Today, only 6% of families fit the 1950s nuclear
family ideal of married couple and children.
Dual-career families are common, and there are
reversed-role families (working wife,
househusband).
There are many different family forms: singleparent families, stepfamilies, cohabiting
heterosexual couples, gay and lesbian families,
and three-generation families.
American Households
Adapting Family Definitions
to the Postmodern Family
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Legal and social
definitions of family
have become more
flexible.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
1. Marriage is important to Americans-but
not to the extent that it was fifty years
ago.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
2. A smaller proportion of people is married
today.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
3. Young people are postponing marriage.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
4. Cohabitation has become a fairly
acceptable family form as well as a
transitional lifestyle choice.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
5. Fertility has declined.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
6. Particularly among college-educated women,
parenthood is often postponed.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
7. Compared to 4 percent in 1950, the
nonmarital birthrate is high with 40 percent of
all U.S. births today being to unmarried
mothers.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
8. Same-sex-couple households increased by 80
percent between 2000 and 2010 (Homan and
Bass 2012).
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
9. The divorce rate is high.
Facts About Families:
American Families Today
10. The remarriage rate has declined in recent
decades but remains significant.
Relaxed Institutional Control
over Relationship Choices:
“Family Decline” or “Family
Change”?
 Family is understood to be a social institution.
 Social institutions are patterned and largely
predictable ways of thinking and behaving that
are organized around vital aspects of group life
and serve essential social functions.
Relaxed Institutional Control
over Relationship Choices
Choices in regard to family have become
less predictable, and individuals have
differing ideas about one’s obligations to
family and society.
We are witnessing an ongoing social trend
that involves increasingly relaxed
institutional control over relationship
choices.
Relaxed Institutional Control
over Relationship Choices
How we view this change can be
understood via two different
perspectives:
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Family Decline Perspective
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Family Change Perspective
Family Decline Perspective
Critics have described the relaxation of
institutional control over relationships and
families as “family decline” or “breakdown.”
Claims that cultural change toward excessive
individualism and self-indulgence has led to
high divorce rates and could undermine
responsible parenting.
Additionally, fewer family households contain
children, thus reducing the child-centeredness
of society, and overall, weakening the
institution of marriage.
Family Change Perspective
Others agree that changes have occurred with
family, but argue that change represents the
historical evolution of family as a social
construct.
Advocates argue that we need to view the family
from an historical standpoint.
Families in the past experienced similar
challenges in regards to the consequences of
illness, death, social class, and race/ethnicity
upon the ability to meet the functions of a
family.
Family Change Perspective
Today’s family forms need to be seen as
historically expected adjustments to changing
conditions in the wider society, including the
decline in manufacturing jobs, the need for
more education, the entry of women into the
labor force, and the increased insecurity of
middle- and even upper-class jobs.
Economic trends as well as cultural change
accounts for subsequent changes in the
family.
Family is an “adaptable institution” and, as such,
changes in response to larger social change.
A Sociological Imagination:
Personal Troubles and Some
Social Conditions That
Impact Families
1. Ever-New Biological and
Communication Technologies
2. Economic Conditions
3. Historical Periods or Events
4. Demographic Characteristics
5. Family Policy
Ever-New Biological and
Communication Technologies
Assisted reproduction technologies (ART)
allow increased opportunity for creating
families. Medical advancements have
made it possible for infertile, single, and
homosexual couples to experience
biological parenthood.
Additionally, such advancements raise
important family and ethical questions,
as well as point out social class
inequality as it relates to the costs of
such procedures.
Ever-New Biological and
Communication Technologies
Communication technologies, such as
Facebook, email, and webcams allow
greater opportunity for support and
connection.
It has also been the source of concern and
conflict for families, as such information
contradicts values and norms
encouraged within the family group and
creates a digital divide between the poor
and wealthy.
Economic Conditions
The overall long-term trend in U.S.
household income has been upward
increasing inequality between families.
The recent recession caused uncertainty
and change in virtually all families.
Life chances depend on family economic
resources.
Economic Conditions
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How recent
economic
conditions
have affected
young adults’
lives.
Historical Periods and Events
Major recent world events have changed
family values, attitudes and arrangements.
Industrial Revolution
World War II
Feminist Movement
Demographic Characteristics:
Age Structure
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People live dramatically longer than they
did a century ago resulting in more years
to invest in education and longer family
relationships but also a growing elderly
population that must be cared for.
Demographic Characteristics:
Religion
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Religious affiliation and practice is a
significant influence on family life.
Religion offers rituals to mark important
family milestones (e.g., birth, marriage)
Religious practices outside of the
mainstream present special challenges to
families.
Demographic Characteristics:
Race and Ethnicity
The United States is seeing greater and
increasing racial and ethnic diversity.
As a result, there is greater variation in the
structure, form, and experience of family
life.
Racial/ethnic stratification exacerbates
issues of social class that forms a
person’s habitus.
Family Policy: A Family
Impact Lens
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Family policy involves all the procedures,
regulations and goals of programs and
agencies that affect families.
The family impact lens perspective
advocates for thinking about public
policies in terms of how they affect whole
family units.
The Freedom and Pressures
of Choosing
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People make choices even when they are
not aware of it.
The best decisions are informed ones.
Structural constraints and personal
decisions determine choices.
Making Informed Decisions
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Deciding versus Sliding
Two components in choosing knowledgeably:
 Recognizing as many options or alternatives
as possible
 Recognizing the social pressures that may
influence personal choices
One aspect of making knowledgeable choices
is considering the consequences of alternatives
rather than gravitating toward the one that
seems most attractive.
Families of Individuals
Families create a place
to belong including
both a family identity
and an individual selfconcept.
Familistic (Communal) Values
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Familistic values such as family
togetherness, stability, and loyalty focus
on the family as a whole.
They are communal values and
emphasize the needs, goals, and identity
of the group.
Individualistic Values
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Just as family values permeate American
society, so do individualistic (self-fulfillment)
values.
These values encourage people to think in
terms of personal happiness and goals and the
development of a distinct individual identity.
An individualistic orientation gives more weight
to the expression of individual preferences and
the maximization of individual talents and
options.
Marriages and Families:
Four Themes
1.
Personal decisions must be made throughout
the life course.
• Decision making is a trade-off; once we
choose an option, we discard alternatives.
• No one can have everything.
• The best way to make choices is
knowledgeably.
Marriages and Families:
Four Themes
2.
People are influenced by the society
around them.
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Cultural beliefs and values influence
our attitudes and decisions.
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Societal or structural conditions can
limit or expand our options.
Marriages and Families:
Four Themes
3.
We live in a changing society, characterized
by increased ethnic, economic, and family
diversity; by increased tension between
familistic and individualistic values; by
decreased marital and family permanence;
and by increased political and policy attention
to the needs of children.
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This situation can make personal decision
making more difficult and more important.
Marriages and Families:
Four Themes
4.
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Personal decision making feeds into society and
changes it.
We affect our social environment every time we
make a choice.
Making family decisions can mean choosing to
become politically involved in order to affect
family-related social change.
Making family choices according to our values
gives our family lives greater integrity.