Sociology

• Beck, a postmodernist, argues that love can be distant, reflecting a change in family brought about by globalisation.
• Murdock, with over 250 cultures, states that the nuclear family is the norm.
• New Right thinker, Tony Sewell – Lone parent families in African Caribbean are a problem – linked to the hussle culture
• New Right thinker, Charles Murray – Lone parents – linked to the underclass and reliance on the benefit state.
• New Right thinker, Rebecca O’Neil – divorces = Childhood = poor socialisation and literacy
• Adolescence = truancy
• Adulthood – less quals and welfare state
• Radical feminists support diversity and break down the Patriarchy, Millet, and Firestone.
• Liberal feminists view diversity as a response to progression and link to policies.
• Intersectional feminists may have a different experience, particularly for those who are working class and ethnic minorities.
• Beck (post modernist) global world
• Post Modernists argue that society is changing as a result of post industrialism and that the family type meets the needs of the individual.
• Beck (post modernist) argues that we live in a Risk society.
• Relations transcend national boundaries because of technology, a phenomenon known as 'distant love'.
• Zaretsky (Marxist) describes the Nuclear family as a unit of consumption in the capitalist world.
• Zaretsky also discusses the concept of cushioning, where the family acts as a comfort from the stresses and strains of society.
• Diversity may well be exaggerated according to Chester who talks about Neo–conventional families and how people may divorce and then remarry leading to reconstituted families, which are the reformation of nuclear families.
• Giddens (post modernist) talks about Pure/ Confluent love.
• Individuals are looking to form meaningful relationships meaning that they want a love which benefits them and when it no longer does they leave the relationship and look to form a new one.
• Wilkinson spoke about their being a ‘gender quake’
• Modern individualism leads Caribbean women to choose the quality of their relationships over marriage, resulting in high rates of lone parenthood.
• Safia Mirza (1997) argues that the higher rate of lone-parent families among blacks is not the result of disorganisation, but rather reflects the high value that black women place on independence.
• Ballard (1982) found that extended families provided an important source of support among Asian migrants during the 1950s and 1960s.
• Firestone said that women are at a disadvantage to men due to their biology (Childbirth).
• Millett believed that gender oppression was political and biological.
• The feminist perspective suggests that there is no such thing as 'natural' or 'biological' differences between men and women; instead, these differences have been socially constructed through patriarchal ideologies.
• Oakley argued that motherhood has been used as a way to control women's behaviour by making them dependent on men.
• Feminists argue that traditional family structures perpetuate male dominance and female subordination.
• Stacey said that women are the drivers of change
• Radical feminists think that matrifocal houses are good as they break down the patriarchy
• Charles Murray says that underclass is a problem
• The family is a unit of consumption (capitalism)