• Family (e.g. Murdock's definition (old), General Household Survey definition (modern)).
• Household.
• Kinship
  
• Basic family types:
  
• Nuclear family
• Extended family (horizontal, vertical, modified, diffused...)
• Household (examples: students, communes)
• Single-parent (include knowledge of causes: e.g. divorce, choice)
• Reconstituted (step-parent family)
• Homosexual (rare, but increasingly possible).
  
•  Note how varieties of family structure can be related to class and ethnicity

• Functionalist, Sociobiological, New Right arguments for existence of Universal Family as essential to human society.
• Debate related to gender roles and relationships (Universalists argue for "traditional" forms of these)
  
• Marxist, Feminist and Critical Theory arguments against concept of Universal Family group.
  
• Alternatives to Nuclear family (see: Family Diversity)

• Especially Murdock, Fletcher and Parsons)
• Focus on the functions (needs and purposes) of the family group.
  
• Family performs two main functions for any society

Socialisation: Integrating mechanism in society
Social Order: The family as a unit of stability

• Fletcher: main (core or essential) functions of the family:

a. Procreation and Child-Rearing
b. Regulation of Sexual Behaviour
c. Provision of a Home

• "Non-essential" functions provide linkages with the wider social world.
  
  • Government of internal relations (social control and stability)
    Economic consumption of goods
    Education
    Health care (both physical and mental)
    Religious (first exposure to religious ideas / socialisation)
    Recreation / Leisure
    
• Parsons: Modern family = two core functions:

The primary socialisation of children
The stabilisation of adult personalities.

• Be aware of different varieties of feminism

(Liberal, Marxist, Radical, Socialist, Black, etc.).

• Men exploit and oppress women within the family
  
• "Rationalising myths" about male / female natures legitimate male domination over women.
  
• Women have a service role forced on them ("unpaid servants" )
  
• Increasingly "Dual role": women as paid workers and unpaid housewives

• Leach - family as source of stress

Social Isolation of individuals
Private world of suspicion and social control

• Laing - family and schizophrenia (mental illness)

• Nuclear family essential (fundamental co-operative unit in any society)
  
• Traditional male / female gender roles and relationships
  
• Anti-single-parenthood (sometimes anti-abortion)
  
• Fundamental social unit (pre-dates all other forms of social organisation)
  
• Held together by necessity, love and, in its modern form, marriage.
  
• Family as source of social stability ("in changing world").
  

Socio-biology (Note: Wilson, Tiger and Fox).

• "Family group" present in all human societies ("Universal")
  
• Mother-child relationship represents the basic family unit predetermined by "nature".
  
• Concept of "human biogrammer": biological programming that predisposes people to behave in certain ways. Used to justify traditional male / female gender roles (men=hunters / breadwinners, women= carers / mothers).
  
• Nuclear family / extended family group = biologically desirable

• This section needs to focus on historical changes in family structure (for example, the family and industrialisation - the "Fit Thesis". The idea of a "close (functional) fit" between the basic structure of the family and the process of industrialisation is most associated with writers such as Parsons and Goode (both Functionalists).
  
• The process of industrialism (i.e. the change from a predominantly agricultural to a predominantly industrial society)
  
• The difference between: Feudalism and Capitalism (in Marxist terms, the idea of different "Modes of Production").
  
• Basic theory:

Extended family structures characteristic of feudal, pre-industrial, society
Nuclear family = characteristic of modern, industrial, society

• Main Reason = Lack of geographic mobility.
• Criticisms of this theory (for example, Laslett and Anderson)
  
• Empirical evidence - the pre-industrial family in Britain = mainly nuclear, not extended - therefore, Functionalist theory is incorrect (note that Parsons developed his version of the fit thesis without using empirical evidence).
  
• Did majority live long enough to experience "old age"?
  
• Social class = important variable in relation to family structures and industrialisation: 
• Diversity before, during and after industrialisation:

a. Upper classes kept a mainly extended form (Lupton and Wilson)
b. Working classes developed extended form in first stages of industrialisation.
c. Middle class families were predominantly nuclear in form.

• Continuing importance of "modified extended family and kinship structures" in industrialised societies (family groups maintain social and economic contacts. (E.g. Wilmott and Young).
• O'Day: Changes in pre-industrial family life related to Capitalism, not industrialisation.
• Gomm: Continued importance of extended family networks for upper classes in modern society. Use of modified extended family by working class (reciprocal services).
  
• Nuclear family core in modern society, serviced by extended structures.
  
• Extended households common in pre-industrial society (all classes).
  
• Patriarchal nature of pre-modern family life.
  
• Concepts of symmetry and patriarchy significant in this context.

• Organisational (e.g. division of family labour)
  
• Class (between different social classes)
  
• Cultural (between different ethnic cultures)
  
• Life-course (e.g. differences in family relationships at different stages in an individual's life)
  
• Cohort (e.g. generational differences in family life / experience)
  

• Is there a "typical family structure" in any society?
• Most societies typified by diversity of family structures and forms.
• General worldwide increase in single-parent family structures: Causes:

Death
Divorce (where allowed) / Separation / Desertion
Choice (lifestyle choice?).
Decline in religion (morality?)
Removal of social stigma

• Chester (Neo-conventional Family): Even in diversity, majority spend some of their life in a conventional nuclear family arrangement.
• Single-income and dual-income families - may be nuclear, but involve very different relationships and experiences.
  
• Marital status as form of diversity (marriage, common-law marriage, cohabitation)
• Significance of divorce

• Examples include (see Haralambos):
  
  • The Nayer of Malabar (India - but no longer in existence).
  • Kibbutzim in Israel since 1950's
  • Communes in America (e.g. Alternative lifestyles in 1960's)
  • Soviet Communes in the 1920's.
  • Household Communities (e.g. group of nuclear families living as "community" in large house).

Note: with the exception of Household Communities (who may not really qualify as a structural alternative, as such) and Kibbutzim, alternative family structures not long-lived or very successful in long-term. Be aware, also, of changing nature of Kibbutz life.

• For each, you need to be aware of:
• Definition, trends, patterns, causes, consequences.
• Example: Marriage in UK:
  
• Pattern: Declining number of marriages. Declining rate of marriage.
• Trend: Long-term decline in popularity of marriage (but note influence of factors such as 1st and 2nd world war).
• Causes: Demographic (population changes)

Cohabitation ("consensual unions")
Religious decline (secularisation)
Female emancipation
Availability of divorce

• Consequences: 

Increased illegitimacy
Development of "Underclass"?
Moral decay (New Right)?
Family decline / breakdown (New Right)?
Range of social problems related to single-parenthood
Poverty (esp. single-parents).

Note: Increasing numbers / rates of divorce, single-parenthood, cohabitation and illegitimacy.

• Changing gender roles and relationships (including gender socialisation).
  
• The domestic labour debate (who does it and why - including problems of measurement / validity).
  
• Power relationships within family (adults and children).
  
• Concepts of patriarchy and symmetry:

Symmetrical family debate:

• Pro: e.g. Wilmott and Young (Stages in family development, concept of stratified diffusion)
• Bott: empirical study of family networks: Joint conjugal / segregated conjugal and relationship to age, class, ethnicity.
• Privatised nuclear family (e.g. Goldthorpe and Lockwood).
• Class differences in conjugal roles.
  
• Anti: e.g. Oakley, Heidensohn, Elston ("Half our future doctors?" - significant empirical study of conjugal roles).
• Private and Public spheres - ideological associations / assumptions.
• Concept of leisure - different for men and women?
• Dual-systems theory (women and double-discrimination: sex and class)

• Note difference between: Sex (a biological categorization) and Gender (social characteristics we attribute on the basis of biological sex). E.g.
  Stoller ("Sex and Gender): " Gender has psychological and cultural connotations; if the proper terms for sex are "male" and "female", the corresponding terms for gender are "masculine" and "feminine".
  
• Nature / Nurture debate (e.g. Will, Self and Datan experiment)
  
• Dunn and Dobzhansky, ("Heredity, Race and Society", 1952): "biology and culture inseparable".
  
• Oakley, "gender" = a set of learned social attributes.
  
• Helen Hacker: females and blacks as "minority groups" (discriminated against) and given stereotyped characteristics (patriarchal ideology)
  
• Gender socialisation as ideological process (learning of Roles, Status, Values and Norms.
  
• Agencies and Agents of socialisation (who or what does the socialising): Adults (parents, friends, teachers, etc.), Peers, Media, Toys, Books, etc.
  
• G.H.Mead: process of socialisation (role play, game play)
  The Self ("I" and "Me" - see Nature / Nurture)
  
• Hartley / Oakley - Gender Socialisation involves: 

Imitation, 
Identification, 
Role Learning, 
Conditioning (Manipulation, Canalisation, Language, Activity Exposure)

• Definition?
• Historical Dimension (e.g. Aries ("Centuries of Childhood", 1962) and criticisms - e.g. Shipman ("When Childhood Was Discovered")
  
• Child-centred family structure (Aries = modern development, related to: Industrialisation (and development of Capitalism) , Changes in the structure of family life). For example:
  
  • Separation of home from the workplace.
  • Loss of the family's economic function / role.
  • Increase in the sexual division of labour (especially home and work).
  • Economic marginalization of women.
    
• Pollack (first-hand accounts of childhood / parenthood 1500-1900 show a different story). Then, as now:

• Most parents were affectionate and kind to their children.
  They showed grief when children died.
  Many resorted to physical violence to control their children.
  There were serious cases of physical and emotional abuse.

• Willmott and Young ("stratified diffusion") to explain class differences in concept of childhood - upper classes developed concept first...
  
• Note: Reliability and validity of historical evidence?
  
• Comparative Dimension: Factors in defining childhood:

The general life-expectancy of the population:
Structural relationship between age and work
Development of educational systems

• Comparisons between complex industrial societies (Britain, America, France, etc.) and simple, non-industrial, societies show widest cultural variations in childhood experiences / different treatment of children.
  
• Benedict: Three basic areas of difference:

a. Level of responsibility / lack of responsibility given to children.
b. Level of dominance / submission expected of children.
c. Sexual roles.

• Malinowski (Trobriand Islanders, Papua New Guinea) = empirical evidence of the three differences noted by Benedict.
  
• British society: child-centred, children as property of biological parents. Child-rearing focused on nuclear family group and parents responsible for much of the social control / primary socialisation of their off-spring.
  
• The Mundugumor of New Guinea = evidence of alternative child-rearing patterns. Children are looked after by family relatives or other young girls within a household. The "parent - child" relationship much looser.