Families and Households

Functionalist views of family

• Key concepts and ideas include:
  • Nuclear family
  • Primary socialisation
  • Sexual regulation
  • Economic functions
  • Reproductive functions
  • Gender socialisation
  • Instrumental and expressive roles
  • Stabilisation of adult personality
  • Privatised nuclear family
  • Biological/sexual division of labour
  • Social and geographical mobility
  • March of progress
  • Symmetrical family
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Parsons
  • Murdock
  • Young and Wilmott
  • Fletcher

New Right views of family

• Key concepts and ideas include:
  • Welfare dependency
  • Underclass
  • Conservative social policies
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Murray

Marxist views of family

• Key concepts and ideas include:
  • Primitive communism
  • Exploitation
  • Alienation
  • Commodification
  • Inheritance
  • Safe haven
  • Pester power
  • Ideological state apparatus
  • Policing the family
  • Dominant ideology
  • Reproducing workforce
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Engels
  • Zaretsky
  • Donzelot
  • Hochschild

Feminist views of family

• Key concepts and ideas include:
  • Liberal feminism
  • Radical feminism
  • Marxist feminism
  • Intersectional feminism
  • Patriarchy
  • Division of domestic labour
  • Dual burden
  • Triple shift
  • Reserve army of labour
  • Power relationships
  • Emotional labour
  • Domestic violence
  • Patriarchal control
  • Decision-making
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Benston
  • Oakley
  • Greer
  • Somerville
  • Delphy and Leonard
  • Ansley

Post and late modern view of family

• Key concepts and ideas include:
  • Family diversity
  • Same sex families
  • Isolated nuclear family
  • Romantic love
  • Confluent love
  • Pure relationship
  • Reflexivity
  • Plastic sexuality
  • Individualisation thesis
  • Divorce-extended family
  • Giddens
  • Beck
  • Beck-Gernsheim
  • Stacey
  • Bauman
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Giddens
  • Beck
  • Beck-Gernsheim
  • Stacey
  • Bauman

Synoptic links across theories

• The nature of sociology is synoptic, and many ideas listed in different theoretical views are revisited in more applied areas of sociology.
• For example:
  • Feminist ideas are often revisited when discussing gender roles and relationships in the family.
  • Post and late modern views of family life help to explain greater diversity of households today.
• When revising, highlight these links to add depth to extended writing.
• Source: tutor2u.net/sociology

Impacts of social policy on family life

• Key social policies include:
  • Creation of NHS
  • Beveridge Report/Welfare state
  • Divorce Reform Act
  • Family Planning Act
  • Legalisation of Abortion
  • Equal Pay Act
  • Sex Discrimination Act
  • Marital rape clause removed
  • Section 28
  • Civil Partnership Act
  • Gay Marriage Act
  • Two-child Benefit Cap
  • Equality Act
  • Creation of Child Support Agency
  • Sure Start
  • 30 hours free childcare
  • Tax Credits/Working Tax Credits
  • Universal Credit
  • Maternity/Paternity and Parental Leave
  • New Deal
  • Adoption and Children Act
  • Mean-tested Child Benefit
  • Married Person’s Tax Allowance
  • Troubled Families Programme
  • Cuts to Legal Aid
  • Triple Lock Pensions
  • Winter Fuel Payments
  • Immigration Policies
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Donzelot
  • Murray
  • Hirsch
  • Barter et al
  • Barret and McIntosh
  • Fitzpatrick
  • Abbot and Wallace
  • McKenzie
  • Morgan
  • Giddens
  • Allan
• Note: Social policies are often used to link theoretical views of the family with differences in family life and to explain how policies shape gender roles, reinforce traditional family values, or promote greater diversity in family structures.

Changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation, divorce, childbearing and the life course - including sociology of personal lives

• Key ideas/concepts and debates regarding greater family diversity including:
  • Secularisation
  • Changing attitudes to relationships
  • Life expectancy
  • Conventional family
  • Nuclear family
  • Lone parent families
  • Lone person households
  • Reconstituted/blended families
  • Cohabitation
  • Dual worker families
  • Same sex families
  • Beanpole families
  • Divorce reforms
  • Organisational diversity
  • Cultural diversity
  • Cohort diversity
  • Life cycle/ Life course diversity
  • Social class diversity
  • Living apart together (LATs)
  • Chosen families
  • Matrifocal families
  • Common-law families
  • Visiting relationships
  • Neo-conventional family
  • Connectedness thesis
  • Individualisation thesis
  • Loss of functionality
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Chambers
  • Beck
  • Beck-Gernsheim
  • Giddens
  • Oakley
  • Rapoport and Rapoport
  • Smart
  • Morgan
  • Weekes
  • May
  • Reynolds
  • Berthould
  • Bhatti
  • Modood
  • Qureshi et al
  • Barrow
  • Chester
  • Parsons
  • Fletcher
  • Haskey
  • Murray
• The ability to select relevant sociological concepts and research to support your ideas is a key skill at A Level. While you may have covered many reasons for a trend, you do not have to write about all of them. When revising, filter notes into concepts that can be applied to several trends and apply those concepts in the exam by showing how they explain a specific trend.

Gender roles and relationships

• Key ideas/concepts and debates including:
  • Joint and segregated conjugal roles
  • Instrumental and expressive roles
  • Symmetrical family
  • Domestic division of labour
  • Dual earner families
  • Gender pay gap
  • Childcare
  • Emotional work
  • Dual burden
  • Triple shift
  • Power relationships
  • Decision-making
  • Pooling of resources
  • Domestic violence
  • Domestic abuse
  • Gender scripts
  • Lagged adaptation
  • Changing masculinities
  • New man
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Oakley
  • Bott
  • Wilmott and Young
  • Parsons
  • Walklate
  • Dobash and Dobash
  • Gershunny
  • Duncombe and Marsden
  • Pahl
  • Vogler et al
  • Man Yee Kan
  • Dunne

Childhood

• Key ideas/concepts and debates including:
  • Social construction of childhood
  • Childhood and innocence
  • Cultural variations of childhood
  • Age patriarchy
  • March of progress
  • Modern childhood and child-centredness
  • Impacts of social policy on childhood
  • Social class differences in childhood experience
  • Gender differences in childhood experience
  • Ethnic differences in childhood
  • Toxic childhood
  • Disappearance of childhood
• Suggested sociologists:
  • Palmer
  • Postman
  • Aries
  • Wagg
  • Pilcher
  • Gittins
  • Mayall
  • McRobbie
  • CPAG
  • Jenks
  • Brannen
  • Bhatti
  • Womack
• Tutor2u.net/sociology