family diversity✅

Functionalism and the nuclear family

• Nuclear family is the most functional family type, it performs two key functions

• Primary socialisation of children

• Stabilisation of adult personalities

• Other family types can be considered as dysfunctional, abnormal or even deviant

Functionalism

Society is based on consensus, harmony and shared value

New right

A conservative and anti-feminist perspective

New right and the nuclear family

• Highly support the traditional heterosexual nuclear family

• Opposes lone-parent families

• Opposes family diversity

• Cereal-packet family

Criticism of new right

• Tries to force women into traditional roles

• No evidence that children of lone parents automatically deviate

• Wrongly assume roles are biological fixed

• Unrealistic since families today are already diverse

Neo-conventional family

Chester:

• A dual-earner family in which both spouses go to work

Chester’s view of family diversity

• There is family diversity but the nuclear family remains dominant, there is just another version of it

• Long term norm still involves marriage and children

• Most people experience a nuclear family stage at some point in their life cycle

• Family diversity is exaggerated

The Rapoports

Family diversity is central to modern family life, diversity is a positive réponse to peoples different needs and wishes and not as abnormal or a deviation from the assumed norm of a ‘proper’ nuclear family

Rapopots: 5 types of family diversity (CLOGS)

1. Cultural diversity

2. Life stage diversity

3. Organisational diversity

4. Generational diversity

5. Social class diversity

Post modern society

• Society has entered a new, chaotic, postmodern society

• Individuals have more choice

• More diversity, which means more uncertainty

Stacey: Postmodern families

• Divorce-extended family

• Women are becoming the main agents

• Family is fluid and changing, shaped by choices not traditions

Giddens - Individualisation thesis

• We have become freed or ‘disembedded’ from traditional roles and structures, leaving us with more freedom to choose how we lead our lives

• Pure relationships

• Women’s independence

Beck - Risk society

Traditional roles are weakened so individuals constantly make choices which involves more risk

Beck - Negotiated family

• Caused by greater gender equality and greater individualism

• Roles are negotiated to meet needs and are not fixed like traditional roles

• Can be unstable however

Zombie family

People want family to be a haven of security in an insecure world, but today’s family cannot provide this because of its on stability. Family appears to be alive but in reality it is dead

Giddens - Same sex couples

Same sex couples act as pioneers creating more equal, negotiated relationships

Personal life perspectives criticisms of individualisation

Smart and May:

• Ignores social structures, and family ties and obligations

• Beck and Giddens view of an individual is an idealised, white, M/C man

• Not everyone has the same ability to exercise choice

Connectedness thesis

People are still connected through relationships, history and obligations even if they have the choice to leave

Structure and choice

Although their is a trend towards diversity and choice, the personal life perspectives emphasises the continuing importance of structural factors restricting peoples choices and shaping their family lives