2.3 Family Diversity

• What percentage of the U.K. population are minority ethnic groups?

  14% in 2011
• What does the personal life perspective say about then postmodern family?

  Criticises the individualisation thesis as it exaggerates how much freedom people now have

  Says the thesis ignores that our decisions are made in a social context
• What did ___ say about the negotiated family?

  (Beck)

  He said that we now live in a 'risk society' where tradition has less influence & people have more choice. As a result, we are more aware of risk & develop a 'risk consciousness' of different courses of action available
• What is the individualisation thesis?

  Beck & Giddens

  We have individual freedom - we can do what we want. We have choice over a lot of different aspects of our lives
• What was Judith Stacey's example of a divorce-extended family?

  Pam Gamma was married young, then divorced, cohabited and remarried

  Her children were grown up & she formed a divorce-extended family with her ex-husbands wife

  They would help each other out domestically & financially
• What did ___ say about postmodern families?

  (Stacey)

  -Greater freedom & choice has benefitted women & has allowed them to shape their family arrangements to meet their needs

  -Stacey used life history interviews to make case studies of post modern families in Silicon Valley, California

  -Many women she interviewed rejected the traditional housewife role

  -The women had divorced & remarried & created new families to suit their needs

  -Stacey calls this the 'divorce extended family' where members are connected by divorce instead of marriage
• What is the 'neo-conventional family'?

  Conventional family but not everyone is conventional & divorce has increased but most divorcees remarry & cohabitation increased but is temporary
• What is ___ viewpoint?

  (Oakley)

  -The thinks that the new right wrongly assume that husbands' & wives' roles are fixed by biology but cross-cultural studies show variation of roles between partners

  -It's based on patriarchal oppression of women & a fundamental cause of gender inequality as it prevents women working to rely on their husbands
• What statistic did ___ find about the collapse of relationships?

  (Benson)

  In the 1st 3 years as parents, 20% of cohabiting couples have relationship breakdown compared to 6% of married couples
• What do the new right think the cause of single parent families is?

  The collapse of relationships between cohabiting couples
• What do functionalists think about the modernist family?

  -There's a 'functional fit' between nuclear family & modern society

  -Family meets the socially & geographically mobile needs of society

  -They make generalisations about the nuclear family (DDOL)

  -Other family types are dysfunctional/abnormal