Thornton 2001, The Developmental Paradigm 

The Paradigm, Data, Methods, And Scholars

The Developmental Paradigm

• Has a very long history: it was influential in ancient Greece and Rome
• A model of change that has been applied at the individual, organizational, and societal levels
• Change = natural, uniform, necessary, directional
• Human beings = stages of growth + decline
• Societies = life cycle stages
• Different speeds of progressing
• Many stages exist in a single cross-section

Cross-Cultural Data

• Accounts of explorers/travelers → described customs of groups
• Scholars collected their data through community studies + ethnography
• Led to new profound questions
  • About family change

Reading History Sideways

• Problem: limited historical data
• Reading history sideways: historical geography that substituted variations across space for variations across time, thereby converting spatial heterogeneity into homogenous development
  • Ordering contemporary societies along the trajectory of development
  • Ethnocentrism: northwest Europe viewed itself as the pinnacle of development
  • Societies different from Europe = least developed
  • Reading the history of the European past in the non-European present

The Scholars

• 1500s-1600s: Acosta, Hobbes, Locke

• 1700s: Smith, Rousseau, Voltaire, Millar, Trugot, Condorcet, Hume, Ferguson, Maltus

• 1800s: Comte, Tyler, Maine, Morgan, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Westermarck, Le Play

  → interest in family relationships and processes

Describing And Explaining Family Change

Cross-Sectional Differences in Family Patterns

• Many differences between the family systems existing in northwest Europe and elsewhere
  • Saw other societies as having a low status for women
  • Northwest Europe societies were less family-organized and more individualistic
  • Less female involvement in hard labor
  • Saw women’s status as higher there

Interpretations Based on a Developmental Trajectory

• The great family transition: development was seen as the process that transformed traditional families into modern ones
  • Less developed became non-northwest European
  • Developed became northwest European
• Development would transform family systems outside northwest Europe from traditional to modern

Theoretical Explanations

• Explanations for the shift from traditional to modern family:

  • Industrialization
  • Urbanization
  • Increases in education and knowledge
  • Increased consumption and mobility
  • Democratization
  • Christianity
  • Religious pluralism
  • Secularism

  *Transition from a traditional society to a modern one

The Northwestern European Decline in Marital Fertility

• Substantial decline in marital fertility → modern fertility
  • Due to the use of contraception and abortion
  • Product of socioeconomic and family development
  • Mortality decline = predictor of the decline in fertility
  • Demographic transition

New Historical Studies

• Northwest Europe did become more organized around non-family institutions over time but the change was not as large as assumed before
• Most other family dimensions of northwest Europe in the 1700s and 1800s had existed for a very long time
• The “great family transition” could not be documented in the European archives. It was a myth!
• Almost all the substantial changes occurred after, not before, the early 1800s
• Ideas of developmental idealism have contributed to substantial and important family change in the past 200 years

Developmental Idealism And Family Change

Developmental Idealism as a Causal Force

• Changed human institutions
• The developmental histories provided criteria for evaluating the legitimacy and value of the many existing ways of organizing human society
  • Northwest Europe became the standard for judging
  • Provided a model for the future

The Propositions of Developmental Idealism

• Four basic propositions

1. Modern society is good and attainable

2. Modern family is good and attainable

3. Modern family is a cause and an effect of a modern society

   1. Important force for social progress
   2. Enhance economic well-being

4. Individuals are free and equal, and social relationship are based on consent

• Inalienable rights of freedom, equality, and consent = attached to all human relationships

The Power of Developmental Idealism

• If only some of the 4 propositions were embraced, it would have considerable power to change family ideas and behavior
• 1st proposition = influence on family behavior
• 2nd proposition = inspire the family aspirations of those who endorse it
• 3rd proposition = influence for family change
• 4th proposition = powerful force for family change
• Ideas of developmental idealism: informed government policies/programs and citizens’ thinking

Effects of Developmental Idealism in Northwest Europe

• Developmental idealism: ideational framework
• Effects:
  • Rights of individuals/government
  • Delegitimizing hierarchies based on both gender and generation
  • Change in the direction of modern family
  • Future expectations

Effects of Developmental Idealism Outside Northwest Europe

• Undermines indigenous family forms
• Governmental influence
  • Era of European colonization
  • Family reform movements happened in colonies
• South and Central America: program for the Christianization
• China and Soviet Union: based on Marx’s ideology
• Family planning movement
  • Helped to reduce fertility
  • Try to increase the desire for smaller families and to encourage the use of contraception
• Incentives + coercion (in China, India, and Indonesia)
• Expansion of mass education
  • Educational change alone accounts for most of the family changes explained by all socioeconomic factors
• Mass media: mechanism for diffusion
  • Exposure to mass media → strong predictor of family patterns