1. Family revision ppt (extras)

2. Marriage, divorce and cohabitation
Conjugal roles debate
Diversity
Social policy
Social construction
of childhood
Development
of the family
Demography
Marriage, divorce and cohabitation

3. Conjugal Roles Debate Typical Questions
Focus:
The extent to which couples have become more equal – especially in terms of housework and power in the family home.
Typical Questions
Explain what is meant by the ‘dual burden’ (Item 2A). (2 marks)
Explain the difference between the expressive role and the instrumental role (Item 2A).(4 marks)
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the contribution of feminist sociologists to an understanding of family roles and relationships. (24 marks)
Examine the factors that have affected the domestic division of labour and power between couples (24 marks)
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4. What you need to consider…
Power inside relationships takes different forms:
Housework
Childcare
Decision making
Hours worked (at work/in home)
Emotion work
Domestic violence
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5. What you need to consider...
Functionalists stress a ‘march of progress’ (and greater symmetry).
Feminists stress patriarchy and how women still do most housework.
Be aware of different studies and factors that may have led to greater equality OR helped to maintain inequality.
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6. What you need to consider…
Domestic Violence
Hidden/dark side of family
Hard to research
Declining since 1996
Why happen?
Radical feminism – patriarchy/women seen as property/control by men/masculinity + macho
New Right – ‘dysfunctional families’, unstable
Giddens – emotional intensity, strong emotions in isolated family unit – depend on each other too much
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7. Marriage, Divorce, Cohabitation
Focus:
What are the trends in these areas of family life? What has caused the increase/decrease? The effects of these
Typical Questions
Suggest three reasons for the increase in the divorce rate since (6 marks)
Suggest two reasons for the decline in the number of first marriages over the past 40 years or so, apart from those referred to in Item 2A. (4 marks)
Suggest two reasons why there has been an increase in cohabitation (Item 2A). (4 marks)
Examine the reasons for changes in the patterns of marriage and cohabitation in the last 40 years or so. (24 marks)
Examine the reasons for changes in the divorce rate since (24 marks)
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8. What you need to consider..
The decline in marriage rate:
Why are less people marrying?
The rise in divorce rate:
Why are more people divorcing?
The rise in cohabitation:
Why has there been an increase in cohabitation?
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9. What you need to consider..
Measuring marital breakdown:
Rise in divorce
Separation
Empty shell marriages
Divorce:
Which groups are most likely to get divorced (and why)?
What are the consequences of divorce?
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10. What you need to consider..
Reasons for increase in divorce?
Value of marriage
Conflict between spouses
Opportunity to escape marriage (includes ease of divorce)
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11. Social Policy Typical Questions Focus:
How policies have affected the family. Consider how policies have supported or undermined the nuclear family.
Typical Questions
Suggest two ways, apart from those mentioned in Item 2A, in which government policies and/or laws may shape the experiences of children today. (4 marks)
Examine the ways in which government policies and laws may affect the nature and extent of family diversity. (24 marks)
Examine the ways in which social policies and laws may influence families and households. (24 marks)
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12. What you need to consider…
Policies – government intervening in family life
(education, taxation, housing, welfare)
Cross-curricular examples
China (1 child policy)
Soviet Union (abolish family)
Nazi Germany (increase birth rate)
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13. What you need to consider…
Theories on family & policy
New Right
Pro-nuclear family
Anti-single parent family
Welfare cutbacks
Feminism
Anti-nuclear family
Women need to escape patriarchal oppression
Gender regimes
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14. Pro-nuclear Anti-nuclear
Child benefit paid to mothers (assumption)
School hours (assume) that one parent will be at home in the afternoon (this makes it hard for dual earner families)
Limited state provision of care for elderly (and encouraging families to look after them)
Housing policies (Fox & Harding, 1996) assume that nuclear families get priority over lone-parent families
Child support policies have emphasised the importance of absent fathers to pay for children
Gradual liberalisation of divorce laws
Recognition of gay/lesbian relationships
State funding for childcare
Domestic violence treated more seriously by police and authorities
Also look at the policies of different parties:
New Right ( )
New Labour ( )
Coalition (2010 – present)
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15. Demography Typical Questions Focus:
What changes in the population have happened? What has caused these? What are their consequences for family life?
Typical Questions
Identify three reasons why the birth rate has fallen since (6 marks)
Explain what is meant by ‘net migration’ (Item 2A). (2 marks)
Suggest two reasons why people may migrate to the United Kingdom, apart from that referred to in Item 2A. (4 marks)
Suggest two ways in which the position of children could be said to have improved over the last one hundred years. (4 marks)
Explain the difference between the ‘birth rate’ and the ‘fertility rate’ (4 marks)
Suggest two reasons why women might delay having children. (4 marks)
Suggest three effects on society of an ageing population. (6 marks)
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16. What you need to consider…
Birth rate (and factors affecting this decline)
Fertility rate (and why fewer births)
Reasons:
Changes in gender roles (careers etc)
Equal opportunities
Contraception
Cohabitation
Dual-earner families
Falling infant mortality rate
Children as economic burden
Changing attitudes (child centred family with less children)
Individualization (personal choice)
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17. What you need to consider…
Effects of changes in fertility:
Changes in dependency ratio
Effect on public services (closing schools,etc)
Changing gender roles – more focus on careers for women
De-stabilizing families – no need to stay together ‘for the kids’
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18. What you need to consider…
Death rate (why falling?)
Life expectancy (why increasing?)
Reasons:
Developments in medicine
Better nutrition
Improved living standards (better housing, etc)
Welfare benefits and health services
Improved environment
Improved working conditions
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19. What you need to consider…
Migration (and why increasing?)
Reasons:
Legislation and border control
Globalisation
Push/pull factors
Employment
Fleeing war/oppression/disaster etc
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20. What you need to consider…
Ageing population (why increasing?)
Reasons:
Falling death rate
Falling birth rate
Effects of ageing population:
Dependency ratio
Pressure on families (+ extended family)
Government spending/welfare
Poverty (for the elderly)
Prejudice against elderly
Disengagement/isolation
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21. Development of the family
Focus:
How has the family changed in structure over time? What has led to the rise of the nuclear family? Is kinship dead?
Typical Questions
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the growth of family diversity has led to the decline of the traditional nuclear family. (24 marks)
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22. What you need to consider…
Parson’s View
Extended to nuclear
Impact of industrialisation
Isolated nuclear family
Geographic & social mobility
Laslett’s View
Nuclear family before industrial revolution
Only 10% kin
Late marriage/early death
Anderson’s View
Industrialisation led to growth of extended family
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23. What you need to consider…
Willmott & Young
Stage 1 – Preindustrial – Nuclear
Stage 2 – Industrial – Extended
Stage 3 – 1960s – Nuclear
Reasons for rise of stage 3:
Rising wages
Welfare state
Geographic mobility/transport
Slum clearance/new housing estates
Home leisure
Bethnal Green London
Stronger conjugal bond
SYMMETRICAL
FAMILY
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24. What you need to consider…
Kinship still important since 1980s:
McGlone (kinship and support – childcare, financial, advice, emotional)..mainly middle class
Willmott – ‘dispersed extended family’
Brannen – ‘beanpole family’
KINSHIP STILL IMPORTANT!
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25. What you need to consider…
Modernity & Postmodernity
Modernity = rational action = instrumental (rather than by tradition)…less predictable
Postmodernity = decline in rationality
Identity is less fixed – uncertainty – pluralism
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26. What you need to consider…
Modernity & Postmodernity
Giddens – plastic sexuality/confluent love/self as a project
Beck et al – individualization/choice and conflict
Stacey – heterosexual norm being replaced by a diverse form – no set form
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27. Social Construction of Childhood
Focus:
How has the experience of childhood changed? What factors have led to the rise of childhood? Is childhood a positive of negative experience?
Typical Questions
Examine different sociological views on changes in the experience of childhood in the past 50 years or so. (24 marks)
Suggest two ways in which childhood has become .a specially protected and privileged time of life. (4 marks)
Suggest two ways in which the position of children could be said to have improved over
the last one hundred years. (4 marks)
Suggest two ways in which the position of children could be said to have improved over the last one hundred years. (4 marks)
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the modern family has become more child-centred. (24 marks)
Explain what is meant by the ‘social construction’ of childhood.(2 marks)
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28. What you need to consider…
Childhood is ‘socially defined’ (changes between cultures and over time)
It is a social role – learned through socialisation
Aries – small adults/working in medieval times
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29. What you need to consider…
Childhood emerged because..
Aries – attitudes changed:
‘fragile creatures of God’ –needed safeguarding
Removed from work
Expansion of education
Family became child-centred
Development of specialist services
Separate leisure interests
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30. What you need to consider…
Childhood emerged because..
Shorter - Linked to development of ‘motherhood’ role:
Increase in romantic love (child was special)
Idea of children born good
New ideas about how to ‘raise children’
The idea of ‘the good mother’
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31. What you need to consider…
Other explanations for development of childhood:
Postman – technology/communications – printing press and schooling
Jencks – growth of idea of children born good and needing guidance (birth of education)
Changing laws – factory acts banning children
Donzelot – children’s services and protection
Less children born – family child centred – treated special/protection
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32. What you need to consider…
The rise of childhood views children as being protected and the family becoming more valued.
Some see childhood as ‘disappearing’-
Postman:
Mass media – access to adult culture/lifestyle
Blurring of childhood/adulthood – clothing, decline of youth culture
Children and consumption (marketing at children)
Opie – childhood is not disappearing
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33. What you need to consider…
Childhood as a negative experience:
Experience of divorce/family breakdown
Isolated families and hidden abuse
Greater surveillance and control (Donzelot)
Toxic Childhood (Palmer)
Consumerism – pressure to ‘fit in’
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34. Family Diversity Typical Questions Focus:
The extent to which there is no longer a typical family in the UK. What types of diversity are there and what has caused them to increase?
Typical Questions
Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that the growth of family diversity has led to the decline of the traditional nuclear family. (24 marks)
Identify three ways in which greater ethnic diversity has contributed to family diversity (Item 2A). (6 marks)
Examine the extent of, and reasons for, family and household diversity in Britain today. (24 marks)
Could form part of the answer..
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35. What you need to consider…
Nuclear family as norm
Cereal packet image
Rise of diversity
Rapoports
nuclear not norm
different types of diversity (organisational, cultural, class, life cycle, cohort)
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36. What you need to consider…
Other forms of diversity:
Reconstituted families
Lone parents
Living alone/singletons
Childless couples
Dual earner families
Apartners
Gay/lesbian households
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37. What you need to consider…
Reasons for increase in diversity:
Contraceptive pill
Equal opportunities/women’s careers
Immigration
Divorce easier
Changing social attitudes/decline in stigma
Decline of religion
Expansion of welfare state
New reproductive technologies (IVF)
Allen & Crowe
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38. What you need to consider…
Single parent families
Why increased?
Increase of divorce
Rise in births outside marriage
Changing social attitudes
Effects of single parent families
Chance of living in poverty
Children doing less well in education
Children lack discipline/role models
New Right agenda
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39. What you need to consider…
Ethnic diversity
Why increased?
Immigration
Afro Caribbean Families
Asian Families
Lone parent
High rate of single (never married)
Matrifocal
Why?
Tradition of absent fathers
Polygamy (Africa)
Poverty
Extended
Low cohabitation
Low single parenthood
High marriage rate
Low divorce rate
Traditional/culture & family
Male ‘breadwinner’ expectation
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40. What you need to consider…
BUT…nuclear family is still important:
Robert Chester
Neo-conventional family
Statistically most of life in nuclear family
Most people still marry
Most children raised by natural parents
Most people live in a household headed by married couple
Most people stay married
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