Outline and evaluate the view that families in the UK are increasingly diverse (33)
Families are becoming increasingly diverse in the UK because of changing norms and values in society. Postmodernists highlight that people are free to choose the family type that suits them best therefore allowing for harmonious relationships in society. On the other hand Functionalists are against family diversity and argue that a family that does not fit the nuclear model creates instability.
A traditional view of the family is held by Functionalists. Functionalists favour the nuclear family which Murdock identifies as ‘a social group characterised by common residents, economic cooperation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least
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This family type would be supported by postmodernists because it supports that family types can be picked depending if they suit the people in the family. On the other hand functionalists and New Right writers would not agree with same sex families because they create instability in society and do not fit into the nuclear model.
Cohabiting families live together however are not married, they involve a heterosexual couple with their children. In the past there was high stigma against cohabiting families whereas today marriage and commitment are not as valued as before due to society being more secular and people do not depend on religion. Furthermore due to changing norms and values in society it is more socially acceptable to have a cohabiting family. Support for this is that cohabiting families are the most increasing type of family and50% of births today are to non-married parents. However functionalists would disapprove of this family type because they believe because the parents are not married that it is not a secure relationship and would not be a stable environment for the children to grow up in. Nowadays marriage is expensive and therefore couples put off the idea of getting married, according to Postmodernists people are free to pick and choose their family type and therefore a cohabiting family is an acceptable family highlighted by the Postmodernists.
The Rapoports identify the second type of
Assess the extent to which social policies reflect and support the traditional nuclear family (24 marks)
Item A makes clear that different sociologists ‘are divided over both the extent of family diversity and its importance’. The Functionalists and the New Rights view increased family diversity as ‘a serious threat’; whilst Robert Chester argues in recent years there has been a ‘shift from the conventional to the neo-conventional
Diversity in British households has significantly changed over the years. To understand the full extent of the changes in British household diversity, examination of the family life in the 1950s era is essential. Furthermore then to discuss the types of diversity which now exist in families today. Lone-parenting is defined as a mother or father living without a partner who then has responsibility of a dependent child and is one diversity which will be discussed in great depth. Deliberating on the size of family sizes today is necessary to see the diversity in British households.
In today's society, there are various alternatives from the typical family type. The top examples of these are lone-parent, cohabitation and reconstituted. But there are also some others such as same sex couples, single parent and multi-cultural families. There has been a decrease in the number of nuclear families in the UK and an increase in various other families such as single parent families. But the raise in single parent households has to do with the increase in divorce across the UK which means that more people are left having to support their children on their own unless they become a reconstituted family.
passion for his work he may have been caught up in the fact that there
There were also needs for industrial society and from there, change/ structure of the family type evolved to meet societies needs to survive such as loss of functions in extended family, where industrial society took over some functions a family would perform for its members such as healthcare (NHS). And another was geographically mobile workforce; where the family had to move to places for jobs demanding their skills. But with extended families, they couldn’t take the whole family, just maybe the wife and kids etc. However, linking with the question, the functionalists view of the family was that nuclear families were the most dominant, but they change their views during industrialisation, believing that extended was the more dominant at the time for survival of the family to fit into society, but in today’s society, functionalists have changed their view once more, which resorted back to their first view of nuclear family being more dominant.
Rapoport and Rapoport agreed that there are five types of diversity in a contemporary family, these are: Organisational, Cultural (ethnic), Class, Cohort and Life Course. Organisational diversity refers to kinship patterns and the domestic division of labour, adding to this it is also the structure of the family-whether it is reconstituted or
Talcott Parsons’ (1956, pg. 309) believed that “the nuclear family is a social system” which consists of a straight married couple and around two to five children, “can be distinguished, and does function as a significant group” (1956, pg.308). Parsons believed that the family benefitted society in ways such as the teachings of gender roles and the overall structure of society: the male going to work and being the breadwinner, while the wife stays at home and cooks and nurtures the children. After the Second World War, the nuclear family was the most common type of family making the structure easily “distinguishable”. However, when we look at the postmodern society, we can see that there are many different types of families nowadays such
In a sociological perspective, family is interpreted as a social group whose members are bound by legal, biological, or emotional ties or a combination of all three. The sociological theories the connect to this concept are functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionalism. First, functionalism states that the family socializes children, it provides emotional and practical support for its members, and it provides its members with a social identity. Secondly, conflict theory states that members create disagreements, and create emotional support and comfort. Finally, symbolic interactionism claims family members and intimate couples interact on a daily basis. "Families are defined as a relationship by blood, marriage, or affection" (Seccombe 5).
‘The family performs important tasks that contribute to society’s basic needs and helps perpetuate social order.’ (Anthony Giddens 2006 - Page 238) Functionalists believe a family’s paramount purpose is to raise and support their children within society.
Ronald Fletcher also analyses the family from a Functionalist perspective but he denies that the modern nuclear family has lost functions to the extent suggested By Talcott Parsons. Thus Fletcher argues that even if the family is no longer a unit of production, it is a unit of consumption which can be appealed to by advertisers keen to sell a wide range of household appliances so as to maintain profits for the bourgeoisie.
During the industrial revolution, the nuclear family was considered the norm, consisting of a mother and father living together with two biologically related children. Traditionally, the wife stayed home as the homemaker and looking after the children without pay. While the husband earns the money through working at a job away from the home. Furze (2015 p. 174) states that ‘in the 1940s and 1950s, many sociologists and the general communities of Western countries such as Australia and New Zealand considered the traditional nuclear family the most widespread and ideal family form.’ Additionally, backing this statement up Fletcher (2017) claims that ‘from a functionalist perspective the nuclear family is ideally suited to meet the necessities
Sociologist Brown defined a family as “a group of people who are related by kinship ties: relatives of blood, marriage or adoption” (Brown, 1998). But many people might argue this statement is not right anymore as this only defines a traditional family. There are many different types of family which include Nuclear, Cereal Packet, Extended, Single Parent, and Reconstituted. Over the years family life has become more diverse. There is a lot of evidence that there is no one particular family type in Britain. In this report I will be looking at the impact of diversity on the family; such as Social Class, Ethnicity, Sexuality and cultural differences in relation to family diversity.
In the past 40 years the family structure within the UK has changed quite dramatically for example the number of traditional nuclear families has been steadily declining and in their place the single parent and reconstituted family type have increased in number, also people are living much longer lives so people are able to
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.