Sociology Flipped Learning — Family Diversity

• trying to understand causes & meaning of increased diversity today

Modernism & the Nuclear Family

• functionalists & New Right are modernist: see modern society as having a fairly fixed, clear-cut and predictable structure

• see the nuclear family as the best

Functionalism

• Parsons argues there is a functional fit between the nuclear family & modern society

• nuclear family is uniquely suited to meeting the needs of modern society for a geographically and socially mobile workforce

• two irreducible functions

  • primary socialisation of children

  • stabilisation of adult personalities

• contribute to stability & effectiveness of society

• other family types considered as dysfunctional, abnormal or deviant as they are less able to perform the functions required of the family

The New Right

• conservative & anti-feminist

• opposed to family diversity

• traditional nuclear family is the one correct family type

  • conventional patriarchal

  • married couple

  • dependent children

  • clear-cut division of labour between breadwinner-husband & homemaker-wife

• see this family as natural and based on biological differences between men & women

• family is the cornerstone of society

• New Right oppose most of the changes in family patterns 

  • cohabitation

  • gay marriage

  • lone parenthood

• decline of traditional nuclear family & growth of diversity is cause of many social problems

• concerned about growth of lone-parent families

  • result of breakdown of couple relationships

• harmful to children

  • lone mothers cannot discipline properly

  • leave boys without an adult male role model, resulting in education failure, delinquency and social instability

  • such families are also likely to be poorer and thus a burden on the welfare state & taxpayers

– Cohabitation Versus Marriage

• New Right claim main cause of lone-parent families is collapse of relationship between cohabiting couples

• Benson analysed data on the parents of over 15,000 babies

  • found that over first 3 years of the baby’s life, the rate of family breakdown was much higher among cohabiting couples

  • 20% vs 6%

• only marriage can provide a stable environment in which to bring up children

• Benson argues that couples are more stable when they are married

  • rate of divorce among married couples is lower than rate of breakup between cohabiting couples

• marriage is more stable because it requires a deliberate commitment to each other

• argue that only a return to traditional values e.g., marriage can prevent social disintegration and damage to children

• regard laws and policies undermining conventional family

  • e.g., easy access to divorce, gay marriage, welfare benefits

• Benson argues government needs to encourage couples to marry by means of policies that support marriage

– Criticisms of the New Right

• Oakley argues the New Right wrongly assume husbands and wives’ roles are fixed by biology

  • cross-cultural studies show great variation within the roles men and women take in the family

  • New Right view of the family is a negative reaction against feminist campaign for equality

• conventional nuclear family favoured by New Right is based on the patriarchal oppression of women 

  • prevents women working, keeps them financially dependent on men & denies them an equal say in decision-making

• no evidence that children in lone-parent families are more likely to be delinquent than those in nuclear families in social class

• view that marriage equals commitment while cohabitation doesn’t has been challenged

  • depends on meaning of relationship to partners

• rate of cohabitation is higher among poorer social groups so Smart points out it might be poverty that causes the breakdown of relationships rather than the decision not to marry

Chester: the Neo-Conventional Family

• Chester recognises that there has been increased family diversity but does not regard it is significant or negative

• the only important change is a move from the dominance of the traditional or conventional nuclear family to the neo-conventional family

• neo-conventional family: dual-earner family in which both spouses go out to work and not just the husband

  • similar to symmetrical family

• argues that most people are not choosing to live in alternatives to the nuclear family on a long-term basis

• nuclear family remains the ideal to which people aspire

• people not being due to nuclear family is due to the life cycle

  • most people in lone-parent households are elderly widows, divorced men or young people yet to marry

• statistics are therefore misleading

• most people will spend the majority of their lives in a nuclear family

• identifies a number of patterns

  • most people live in a household headed by married couple

  • most adults marry & have children

  • most children reared by two natural parents

  • most marriages continue until death

  • most divorcees remarry

  • cohabitation has increased but for most it is a temporary phase before marriage

  • births outside marriage have increased but most are jointly registered which suggests both members of the couple will raise them

• sees the nuclear family as dominant

The Rapoports: Five Types of Family Diversity

• Rapoport argues diversity is of central importance in understanding family life

• moved away from the traditional nuclear family as dominant type to a range

• families in UK have adapted to a pluralistic society

• family diversity reflects greater freedom of choice and widespread acceptance of different cultures & ways of life in today’s society

• Rapoports see diversity as a positive response to different needs & wishes and not as abnormal or deviant

• 5 different types of family diversity

• organisational diversity

• cultural diversity

• social class diversity

• life-stage diversity

• generational diversity

Postmodernism & Family Diversity

• Cheal argues that society has entered a new chaotic postmodern stage where there is no longer one single, dominant, stable family structure

• family structures are now fragmented into many different types

• individuals have more choice in their lifestyles, personal relationships & family arrangements

• this comes with advantages & disadvantages

  • gives individuals greater freedom to plot their own life course

  • greater freedom of choice means greater risk of instability

Stacey: Postmodern Families

• Stacey argues that greater freedom & choice has benefitted women by enabling them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression & shape their family arrangements to meet their needs

• used life history interviews to construct case studies of postmodern families in California

  • found women rather than men have been the main agents of changes in the family

• e.g., many of the women had rejected the traditional housewife-mother role and worked, returned to education as adults, improved job prospects, divorced & remarried

• women had often created new family types to better suit their needs

• Stacey identities the divorce-extended family

  • members are connected by divorce rather than marriage

  • key members are usually female

  • may include former in-laws, ex-partners, new partners

• Stacey described how in one of her case studies, Pam Gamma created a divorce-extended family

  • married young, divorced and cohabitation for years before remarrying

  • her second husband had been married before

  • by the time Pam’s children were in their twenties, she had formed a divorce-extended family with Shirley who was cohabiting with her first husband

  • helped each other financially + domestically

• postmodern families are diverse and their shape depends on active choices made about how to live your life

• Morgan argues it is pointless to try and make large scale generalisations about the family as if it is a single thing

• a family is simply whatever arrangements those involved choose to call their family

• can be explored through life course analysis

The Individualisation Thesis

• Giddens & Beck have been influenced by postmodernism but do not accept everything they say about society today

• explore the effects of increasing individual choice on families + relationships

• individualisation thesis argues traditional social structures such as class, gender & family have lost much of their influence

• individuals in today’s society have fewer certainties or fixed roles to follow

• we have become freed or disembedded from traditional roles and structures

• Beck: the standard biography or life course that people followed in the past has been replaced by the do-it-yourself biography that individuals construct for themselves

• this has huge implications for family relationships and family diversity

– Life Course Analysis

• life course analysis: using in-depth, unstructured interviews to explore meanings that individual family members give to relationships and choices they make at various points in their lives

• developed by Hareven

• Holdsworth & Morgan examine what it means for young people to leave home and become independent 

• focuses on what family members themselves consider important rather than imposing what sociologists view as important

• particularly suitable for studying families in today’s postmodern society where there is more choice about personal relationships & family diversity

Giddens: Choice & Equality

• Giddens argues that in recent decades, the family & marriage have been transformed by greater choice & a more equal relationship between men & women

• has occurred because

  • contraception allowed sex & intimacy rather than reproduction

  • women have gained independence as a result of feminism & greater opportunities in education and work

• basis of marriage + family have changed

• couples are free to define their relationships themselves

– The Pure Relationship

• what holds a relationship together is no longer law, religion, social norms or traditional institutions

• pure relationship is typical of today’s late modern society

• key feature is that it exists solely to satisfy each partner's needs

• relationship will only survive so long as both partners think it is in their own interest to do so

• couples stay together because of love, happiness or sexual attraction rather than tradition, duty or for the sake of children

• individual are free to choose to enter and leave relationships as they see fit

• relationships are part of the process of self-discovery or self-identity

• with more choice, personal relationships become less stable

• pure relationship is more a rolling contract that can be ended at will be either partner rather than a permanent commitment

• produces greater family diversity by creating more lone-parent families, one person households, step families, etc.

– Same-Sex Couples as Pioneers

• Giddens sees same-sex relationships as leading the way towards new family types & more democratic relationships

• same-sex relationships are not influenced by tradition to the extent that heterosexual relationships are

• same-sex couples have been able to develop relationships based on choice rather than traditional roles

• enabled them to negotiate personal relationships and create family structures that serve their own needs rather than conforming to norms

• Weston found that same-sex couples created supportive families of choice among friends, former loves and biological kin

• Weeks found friendship networks functioned as kinship networks for gay men and lesbians

Beck: the Negotiated Family

• another version of the individualisation thesis

• Beck argues we now live in risk society

• traditional patriarchal family was unequal & oppressive but also provided a stable & predictable basis for family life by defining each member’s roles & responsibilities

• patriarchal family undermined by two trends

  • greater gender equality

  • greater individualism

• led to a new family replacing the patriarchal one

• Beck & Beck-Gernsheim calls this the negotiated family

• does not conform to the traditional family norm but varies according to the wishes & expectations of their members, who decide what is best for themselves by negotiation

• enter on an equal basis

• more equal but less stable

• individuals are free to leave if their needs are not met

– The Zombie Family 🧟

• family relationships are now subject to greater risk & uncertainty

• people do turn to family in hope of security

• Beck describes the family as a zombie category: appeals to be alive, but in reality is dead

• people want it to be a haven but is too unstable to provide it

The Personal Life Perspective

• e.g., Smart & May

• agree that there is more family diversity but disagree with Beck & Gidden’s explanation of it

– Criticisms of the Individualisation Thesis

• exaggerates how much choice people have about families

  • Budgeon says this reflects the neoliberal ideology that individuals today have complete freedom of choice but in reality, traditional norms limit choices

• wrongly sees people as disembedded and ignores that our decisions and choices about personal relationships are made within a social context

• ignores importance of structural factors

  • e.g., social class inequalities + patriarchal gender norms

  • May → Giddens’ & Beck’s view of the individual is an idealised version of a white, middle-class man

  • ignore that not everyone has the same ability as this privileged group to exercise choice about relationships

The Connectedness Thesis

• Smart

• we are fundamentally social beings whose choices are always made within a web of connectedness

• we live within networks of existing relationships & interwoven personal histories and these strongly influence our range of options and choices

• Finch & Mason’s study of extended families found that although individuals can negotiate relationships to some extent, they are also embedded within family connections & obligations

• findings like this challenge the notion of the pure relationship

• families usually include more than just the couple which Giddens focuses on

• couple relationships are not always pure so we can’t always walk away

• e.g., parents who separate remain linked by children

• Smart emphasises the importance of always putting individuals in the context of their past & the web of relationships that shape choices & family patterns

– Class & Gender

• connectedness thesis also emphasises role of class & gender structures in which we are embedded

  • after a divorce, gender norms dictate that usually the women wins custody → limits opportunity to form new relationships

  • men are generally better paid than women → greater freedom + choice

  • relative powerlessness of women + children compared to men → remain trapped in abusive relationships

– The Power of Structures

• May argues traditional structures e.g., class, gender & family are not disappearing but being re-shaped

  • while women have gained important rights, they do not ‘have it all’

• women can now pursue traditionally masculine goals such as careers but are still expected to be heterosexual

• Einasdottir argues that being lesbian is tolerated, but heteronormativity means that lesbians feel forced to remain in the closet which limits choices

• personal life perspective does not see increased diversity simply as a result of greater freedom of choice like Beck & Giddens do

• emphasises the importance of social structures in shaping the freedoms many people have to create diverse types of families