Topic 4 of 6 · Form 5
Family
Nuclear, extended, lone-parent, reconstituted, same-sex, cohabiting, transnational and child-headed families; household change; Rapoport's types of diversity.
Notes for this topic 1 file, in order
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Family diversity
Nuclear, extended, lone-parent, reconstituted, same-sex, cohabiting, transnational and child-headed families; household change; Rapoport's types of diversity.
Theories
Functionalist (Murdock, Parsons – the functional fit thesis), Marxist (Engels, Zaretsky), feminist (domestic labour, domestic violence), New Right, postmodern views.
Changes
Changing roles of men, women and children; the symmetrical family debate (Young and Willmott; Oakley's critique); childhood as a social construction; ageing populations; marriage, divorce and cohabitation trends; the influence of industrialisation, urbanisation, migration and globalisation.
Worked example: Evaluate the functional fit thesis.
Parsons argued the nuclear family fitted industrial society's need for mobile labour; critics note extended families survived and helped migration, and pre-industrial families were often nuclear (Laslett).
Check yourself
- What is the symmetrical family?
- What did Laslett's research show?
- Give one feminist criticism of the family.
Show answers
- A family in which partners share roles in paid work, housework and leisure more equally.
- Nuclear families were common in pre-industrial England.
- It is patriarchal – women carry the burden of domestic labour and may suffer violence.
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