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.

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

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

Doherty begins his book, The Intentional Family, by telling the reader that this century has witnessed a revolution in the structures and expectations of family life. He states that we have reinvented family life away from the traditional family, or how he terms it, the “Institutional Family,” a family based on kinship, children, community ties, economics and the father’s authority. Children are now growing up in single-parent homes or living with a step-family, and an adult is likely to cohabitate, marry, divorce and remarry. The Institutional Family was suited to a world of family farms, small family businesses and tight communities bound together by a common religion. It began to give way during the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, when individual freedom and the pursuit of personal happiness and achievement began to be more important than kinship obligations, and when small farms and villages started to give way to more impersonal cities. A new family began to emerge – the “Psychological Family” – replacing the Institutional Family of the past. This new kind of family was based on personal achievement and happiness more than on family obligations and tight community bonds. Doherty believes that in the early twentieth century, Americans turned a corner in family life, never to go back.

Barbara Ehrenreich uses the terms “ the ideal unit of human community” and “heaven in a heartless world” as definitions of family. Indeed, home is always the place raises people hope when they are at the bottom, boost up their strength to tackle down the rocks along their journeys, or are solely the arms to embrace them unconditionally. However, at a social level, family varies across countries and regions based on their cultures and the global current trends. To illustrate, Barbara Ehrenreich, Julia Baird, and Stephanie Coontz share their refreshing opinions on the contemporary family issues within the US as well as around the world. At a narrower scale, there are major differences between a traditional American family and a traditional

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.

The vast majority of individuals have acquired their own unique and ornate proposals surrounding what the social structure of a family is. Yet, whilst each individual in a given society has experienced family life in a multitude of ways, we as people cannot fathom how our experiences have come to be, without obtaining a broad understanding of how our personal relationships built within social structures integrate into a more prodigious social context. Present day Americans endure a society that is a composite of a multitude of family types (e.g. nuclear two-parent, extended, stepfamilies, multigenerational, family of orientation and procreation, the economic unit, cohabitors, single-parent, childless, same-sex, and so forth). Aside from singular

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

For most of us, the family is considered as a well-known and comfortable institution. The perfect model of the ‘ideal’ family is still mostly considered to be consisted from two different sexes’ parents, and one or more children. Until quite recently, the sociology of the family was mostly functionalist and just in the last few decades has been challenged from various directions.

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.