29 December 2012
(It is not a story or a poem etc it is Revision As Sociology notes, again don't bother liking unless you really enjoyed this then fair enough lol.)
FAMILY DIVERSITY part 1
INTRODUCTION:
A FAMILY is a group of people who are related through blood, marital, or legal ties.
A HOUSEHOLD is a group who live together, but are NOT related through blood, marital, or legal ties. A household can also be just one person (A SINGLETON) living on their own.
GEORGE MURDOCK (1949) studied 250 societies and came to the conclusion that the family unit was "universal" and that the NUCLEAR FAMILY* is always the basic unit
*NUCLEAR FAMILY- a family traditionally made up of 2 generations, heterosexual married parents, and two kids, typically a boy and a girl.
ROBERT CHESTER (1985) looked at diversity and family life cycle, he argues that the nuclear family remains the most typical family type. He argues that single-parent families, for example, will normally come from nuclear families and so will become nuclear families again. Chester argues that the extent of family diversity had been exaggerated. For Chester the only significant change in last 30 yrs had been women going to work, hence term of 'NEO-CONVENTIONAL' family (NEO meaning new)
EDMUND LEACH (1967) points out that the typical British family as portrayed by the media, is also a nuclear family, however Leech refers to them as the 'CEREAL PACKET FAMILY*'
*happy, smiley family with "nice teeth" have two kids usually boy & girl (boy tends to be oldest) all have similar look e.g. Same coloured hair etc
THE IDEOLOGY OF THE NUCLEAR FAMILY:
The cereal packet family can be seen as IDEOLOGICAL*.
IDEOLOGICAL- An ideology is a misleading view, based on values judgements, which obscures reality.
DIANA GITTINS (1993) argues that the idealised picture of the nuclear family acts as a powerful ideology, defining what is 'normal' and what is desirable.
However, an increasing number of sociologist argue that the nuclear family is no longer a 'typical' family type, as social change has resulted in the development of different family structures.
In the UK now there are only 25% of all households that are made up of the nuclear family unit. The nuclear family had been declining in the UK for last 30 years.
SUSAN MCRAE (1999) stated that "Britain today is a much more complex society than in past times, with great diversity in the types of household within which people live."
Family Diversity Part 1 • Opuss № I