Family Analysis

The first eight chapters we reviewed from the book Public and Private Families: An Introduction gives us a foundation in comparing and studying the family from a sociologist’s view. Written by Andrew J Cherlin, a Sociology Professor at Johns Hopkins University. As a class we discussed several key points taken from these chapters and reflected how these concepts pertain to our life whether it be our family directly or observations of other family dynamics. I found Cherlin’s first chapters to be easy to follow and pertinent to the study, he goes into detail regarding his views and offered several suggestive ways to research and study in depth more if the reader so chose to do.

In today’s society, family is often attempted to be organized within a social structure. Within this structure family typically is consisted of mom, dad, daughter, and son. However, many families do not fit into this configuration. These families may include same sex couples, separated or divorced families, extended families, or even blended families. Even though these families may be happy and healthy, to many they are not considered real families. Going along with the topic of imperfect families, both Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Rodriguez try to break down the traditional family structure through their writing. While Kingsolver’s “Stone Soup” and Rodriguez’s “Family Values” explore the ideas of different family structures and traditional American values, “Stone Soup” breaks down what an actual family is like while “Family Values” expresses the value of family in different cultures.

Families, as units, are extremely complex and vary drastically from one another. A person might be under the impression that his or her own family is nothing special, especially if they are accustomed to their family’s routines. After analyzing my own family through the sociological lenses of an assortment of scholars, it is now clear that it is not as simple as it seems. Sociologically analyzing my family through the divorces that have occurred in my life makes it clear that divorce can have an impact on a variety of family dynamics, such as my parents and their jobs and domestic duties, the amount of involvement they have with their friends and family, as well as my financial dependence on my parents.

The family is the first institution of the five basic social institutions. It is responsible for developing the behavior of each person to be interactive individuals in society. It is responsible for supplying the basic needs of each person during their development. Unfortunately, the image of family has been deteriorated considerably. Instead of being a system support for people, it has become a double edged sword. Society is at fault for how bad the concept of family is today. It is just takes watching the news on television or to reading the newspaper to realize this. We can see headlines like "Father abused his daughter", “Woman is victim of domestic violence", "Child suicide due to

After obtaining my recent degree in Anthropology from the University of Georgia and securing a job as a campaign assistant for a candidate running for U.S. senate, I have been assigned the task to help my candidate write the best family values policy platform he can. To accomplish this goal, I have interviewed one participant, nineteen-year-old Brandon, about his kinship system. This will help me gather information on the social issues of a family and family values. To give you a quick introduction, Brandon is my boyfriend and someone who I have known for almost a year. I am quite familiar with his family. Brandon grew up in a single-parent home after his parents divorced when he was six. They are not alone here; in 2012, there were 11.2 million single-parent households documented (BOOK pg 366). In this home, he was raised primarily by his mother, and lived there along with his older sister Chrissy Dale. Brandon has a bilateral descent group, meaning the relationships in his family are recognized through both his mother and fathers’ sides of the family (LECTURE). His kinship system is also homogamic, meaning all of the couples in his family married from inside their social group. (LECTURE). Brandon is not my participant’s real name, but will be used for the sake of this project for ethical reasons. In this report, I plan to make known step by step Brandon’s family and who inhabits it, what occupational patterns they have, what residence patterns they follow, and how

The way in which the ‘family’ unit is perceived has changed immensely since the last quarter of the twentieth century. Over time, many factors have contributed to these changes including, and not limited to, the industrial revolution, the feminist movement, the period of modernity and technological advancements. As a result, these factors have influenced significant changes to the ‘family’, these include; the increasing rates of female occupation, mean age at marriage, divorce, unmarried couples, single parents, mean age at birth of first child, and a decline in marriage rates. Moreover, this essay will examine how the family has changed over time through discussing the factors that have contributed to these changes. It is for these reasons and observations made by sociologists that it could be inferred that the way the family unit is perceived has changed greatly over time.

The families in America are steadily changing. While they remain our most valued and consistent source of strength and comfort, some families are becoming increasingly unstructured. In the past, the typical family consists of a working father, a stay at home mother and, of course, well-rounded children. Today, less than 20 percent of American families fit nicely into this cookie cutter image. American households have never been more diverse. Natalie Angier takes stock of the changing definition of family in an article for the New York Times.

Falicov, C.J., & Brudner-White, L. (1983). The shifting family triangle: The issue of cultural and

n the upcoming page’s I will answer the following questions. Why is family the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are the changes? I will discuss the differences in marriage and family, I will discuss how they are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choices. The purpose of this study is to explore the many different family functions and the paths that people are now choosing. I will give my opinion on whether these changes have had a positive or negative affect. I will finally discuss the trend of the modern family, back to pre-World War II family structure, how would that effect the strides that have been made in the progression of women rights.

Society’s persistence to enforce gender roles onto families is slowly but inevitably diminishing. The parents can work to whatever schedule they wish, with the mother working and the father staying at home, or both parents collaborating with an extended family member to assist take of

be able to whatever they chose without any consequence. This would result in a huge increase in crime and destruction throughout the world. Family is also an important institution for society, because without humans would eventually no longer exist and die out. Family’s regulate reproduction, and protect children. While reproduction still occurs outside family’s, children who grow up with family’s instead of in orphanages are often much better off in life. All of the institutions contribute basic needs for society that allow it and other institutions to keep functioning properly.

Today, in a world of the “postmodern family” the traditional lines of family structure are blurred. Children may come from diverse types of homes, or a couple, married or not may choose to have no children and consider

The discipline of Sociology has long been interested in the study of human behavior. This interest grows from the sociological conception of relationships which distinguish the individual and differentiate him from other members of society. Through the ages, man has been influenced by social interaction and cultural surroundings. Sociologists have also recognized that a social institution consists of a concept and a structure, and that this structure is a framework made up of permanent relationships. The family is a social institution consisting of a certain structure. In earlier times, society defined “families” as “close-knit, internally organized cooperative

Popenoe, David. Disturbing the nest: family change and decline in modern societies, Brunswick New Jersey. Pearson,

Family is one of the hardest words to define. There are many definitions and thoughts of what a family consists of. When one accepts the definition of the census family given by Statistics Canada then a family becomes “a married couple and the children, if any… a couple living common law and the children, if any… a lone parent with at least one child living in the same dwelling… grandchild living with grandparents but no parents present… Census families can be opposite or same sex and children may be adopted, by birth, or marriage and all members must be living in the same dwelling” (Baker 2014). With family being such a difficult term to agree on, the creation of a complex study of family life emerges. The factors that influence family life are put into three theory categories; Social Structure, Interpersonal Factors, as well as Ideas, Global Culture, and Public Discourse.