1. Print slides 10-13 for students to work on in pairs
Resources
Print slides for students to work on in pairs
See slide
Miss Brobbey

2. Cross-cultural alternatives to the family 14/10/14
7 mins
Learning Objective
To study societies where common family structures differ
Learning Outcomes
All will work in groups to read about one type of society and how they manage without having families and make a poster about it.
Most will be able to describe two different types of societies in which there is no such thing as the family.
Some will be able to creatively demonstrate 3 alternative families and answer short mark exam questions on this topic.
Starter
What are the 4 stages in the family life cycle?
At what stage in the life cycle are people taught primary socialisation?
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3. Polygamy
Polyandry
Polygamy is the practice or condition of having more than one wife at one time.
Quite commonly practiced in different parts of the world due to religious and cultural beliefs
Polyandry is the practice or condition of having more than one husband at one time
Students should take note of both concepts in italics
Polyandry is known to be practiced in parts of India, Kenya, Tanzania, Brazil. In Britain during the time of Julius Caesar it was said to be customary among the ancient Britons for brothers, and sometimes for fathers and sons, to have their wives in common.
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5 mins

4. Task 1
15 mins
Work in pairs
Read about the type of society in which there wasn’t / isn’t such a thing as a family.
Fill in the table
What is it?
When and where did it exist?
The members’ attitudes to responsibilities, marriage and children.
Advantages and disadvantages of this form of living.
Similarities and differences between this form of living and the nuclear family.
You have 15 minutes
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5. Task 2
15 mins
Create an poster on the type of family you initially looked at in your pairs
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6. Commune
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7. Kibbutz
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8. Oneida
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9. Nayar
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10. Commune
A commune is a group of people who share living accommodation, personal possessions, wealth and property equally among all its members.
Communes were popular during the 1960s and 1970s, especially in the USA among the hippies.
Within the commune, all adults take turns to carry out essential tasks such as cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children and producing food.
In hippie communes, there was no marriage; they practiced ‘free love’ whereby everyone was free to have sexual relations with anyone as long as people consented to it.
Children are treated as a responsibility of the entire commune, not just their biological parents.
Communes are set up by people who share the same political or religious views and wish to put their views into practice.
‘Castaway 2000’ - The remote island of Taransay became a home to 36 men, women and children in BBC’s TV show which aimed to be a social experiment in communal living.
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11. Kibbutz
Kibbutzim are collective settlements based on a system of collective ownership of property and childrearing. It consists of a group of Jewish people who live together and share all possessions and responsibilities equally.
Kibbutzim were set up in the 1940s when the state if Israel was first created and Jewish people from all over the world moved there. In order to help establish themselves, they lived and worked communally on the kibbutzim.
All meals are taken communally and jobs are allocated on a rota.
While marriage is monogamous (between a man and a woman), children live in collective dormitories and are raised by a number of child cares or educators. Children spend an hour or so daily with their parents, but their sibling group is effectively made up of all the children of a similar age.
This may seem strange to us, but kibbutzim do what families do – they socialise children into society’s norms and values as well as providing financially for them. Therefore, they are very much like very large extended families.
Today, 2% of Israel’s population live in kibbutzim and there are around 270 kibbutzim in Israel. Each one consists of around 500 people.
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12. Oneida
The Oneida Community existed in New York State between and 1880.
It was a group of around 100 people who aimed to live by Christian moral standards. They rejected personal wealth and property and shared all their possessions equally.
At first, they made only a sparse living from farming and fruit-growing, but in time they established highly profitable industries.
All members lived in one large home, but each had their own room.
Marriage was based on group marriage; all members of the community were encouraged to love each other and not to form into couples.
The community practiced ‘scientific breeding’ of children. Only some adults were allowed, and specifically selected, to have children who would then be brought up by the entire community.
All adults were expected to love and treat all children as their own.
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13. Nayar
The Nayar were a tribe living in south-west India before the 19th century.
They had no nuclear family. A woman could have sexual relations with any man she wished up to a maximum of 12. This made the knowledge about the biological father of her children uncertain. The woman’s brother was therefore responsible for looking after the woman and her children.
They were a warring tribe and the men often went off to fight.
If they had nuclear families, and the husband died in a battle, there would be no-one to look after the women and children. This way, as there were many children, all women had several brothers of which at least one was bound to survive, return to the village and take care of his sisters and their children.
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14. Homework Answer these exam questions for homework
Identify and explain one cross-cultural alternative to the nuclear family.
(4 marks)
Identify and explain one difference between the nuclear family and family life on a kibbutz.
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15. Plenary In pairs, discuss:
What do you think about the idea of communal living, e.g. Kibbutz?
What problems might arise in communes?
If you were to live in an alternative to the ‘typical’ family which unit would you choose and why?
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16. Different types of families Causes of family diversity
What is a family?
&
Different types of families
Causes of family diversity
Family life cycle
Cross-cultural alternatives to the family
Changes in gender roles
Critical views of the family: Marxist and Feminist theories on the family
New Right theory on the family
Functionalist theory on the role of the family
Symmetrical family – reality or a myth?
Family relationships – children and the elderly
Different types of marriages
&
Marriage trends
Divorce
Revision
End of unit test
Contemporary family related issues – quality of parenting, arranged marriage
Demographic changes
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