Family

• Conjugal roles


  The roles men and women or same-sex Partners in a marriage or other partnership in the home
• Dual burden


  The situation for women in which they go out to work and still take on the main responsibility for the housekeeping and child care
• Nuclear family


  A family consisting of two parents male and female and their children
• Privatized nuclear family


  A family structure where the nuclear family is separated from its wider kin and has become more home centered and inward looking
• Symmetrical family


  Where male and female roles are similar, both Partners contribute in terms of domestic chores and child care
• Triple shift


  The situation where women go out to work and do most of the housework but they also get emotional work added onto that
• Warm bath theory


  Talcott Parsons' theory that the family helps with the stabilization of adult personalities through the removal of stress
• Unit of consumption


  A group such as a family who buy and use goods and services together
• Murdock’s four functions of the family


  • Sex within marriage
  • Education
  • Reproduction
  • Economic
• Wilmot and Young's four stages of family

  • Pre-industrial
  • Early industrial
  • Symmetrical
  • Asymmetrical
• New right argument about the decline of the nuclear family


  • Declining moral standards
  • Lack of male role models
  • Higher rates of crime and deviancy
  • Dependence on handouts from the state
• Gender roles


  The roles that individuals are expected to fulfill based on their socialized gender identity
• Symmetrical division of labor


  After a certain period of time, families became much more symmetrical so the domestic chores were generally shed between men and women within the home
• Dual burden


  Women are going out to work but they are still largely responsible for all the domestic chores or the majority of the domestic tools at home
• Canalization

  Giving children toys that socialize them into gender roles
• Feminists criticize other theorists for ignoring the oppression and the exploitation of women
• Functionists view divorce as being the result of increasing expectations of relationships
• Family types

  • Traditional nuclear family
  • Single parent family
  • Family diversity
  • Living apart together
  • Same-sex couple
  • Reconstituted/blended family
  • Cohabitation
  • Boomerang family
• Status

  The level of importance or prestige associated with a person or their job in society, can be ascribed (given at birth) or achieved (earned through effort)
• Socialization


  The processes through which we learn the norms, values, and culture of our society
• Agents of socialization


  • Family
  • Peer group
  • Media
  • Religion
  • Workplace
  • Education
• Primary socialization


  Socialization by the family during early childhood (ages 0-5)
• Secondary socialization


  Socialization by other agents like school, media, peers after age 5
• Parsons saw education as a 'bridge' between the family and wider society, socializing us in a harsher way than the unconditional love of the family
• Formal curriculum

  The lessons and content taught in school
• Hidden curriculum


  Anything learned in school that is not part of formal lessons, e.g. obedience, punctuality, competition
• Sanctions


  Rewards (positive sanctions) or punishments (negative sanctions) used to encourage certain behaviours
• Peer group


  • Peers can act as role models, apply peer pressure (positive or negative), and use informal sanctions like ostracization
• Gender roles


  Characteristics and behaviours associated with being male or female in society
• Gender socialisation in the family

  • Canalization (giving gendered toys/clothes) and manipulation (encouraging gendered behaviours)
• Gender socialisation in schools


  • Gendered subjects, representation in textbooks, teacher expectations
• Formal social control


  Groups whose job is to control behaviour, e.g. police, courts, army
• Informal social control


  Other agents like family, education, peers that can influence behaviour
• Formal sanctions


  Serious punishments from formal control agents, e.g. arrest, fines, prison
• Family


  A group of people traditionally related by ties of blood or marriage
• Family diversity


  Having a variety of different types of families in society, not just the nuclear family
• Marriage


  The legally recognized union of two partners in a relationship
• Monogamy

  The system of being married to one person at a time
• Cohabitation


  Two partners living together without being married
• Family types


  • Nuclear family
  • Lone parent family
  • Beanpole family
  • Reconstituted/blended/step family
  • Extended family
  • Same-sex family