Family Diversity

• What type of family was most prominent in pre - industrial society?

  Extended family
• What term is used to describe a family where there are multiple wives?

  Polygyny
• What is an empty nest family?

  When children have grown up and left home
• What term is used to describe a marriage with more than two partners?

  Polygamy
• What is serial monogamy?

  Sexually exclusive relationships that follow one after another
• Which family type has the other in charge?

  Matrifocal
• What is a reconstituted family?

  Step family - partners bring children from previous relation to a new one
• Give one reason for the rise in the symmetrical family?

  Changing role of women
• What type of family has many generations buy not many within each generation?

  Bean Pole
• what is meant by a sandwich generation?

  The generation that is looking after both their own children and their elderly parents at the same time
• Give one reason for the rise of lone parent families?

  Changing role of women, rise of divorce
• one reason for the rise in family diversity?

  Immigration and social values
• What is a symmetrical family?

  Where there is euqality between the partners in terms of domestic labour and decision making
• What is the cereal packet family?

  The ideal family type seen in the media, usually two parents and two children
• What type of household counted for 11% of all households in 2011?

  Single person
• What is a LAT?

  Living apart together
• Give one reason why families have become more child centred?

  less children
• What is cohabitation?

  A loving couple that live together but are not married
• What is the difference between empty nest and empty shell marriage?

  Empty nest means children have left home, empty shell means there is no love between the partners but usually stay together for the children
• What is meant by fictive kin?

  Friends that you treat as family
• Which sociologist is associated with the neo convenctional family?

  Chester
• What is a pure relationship?

  A relationship that is held together by choice and love, not tradition or social norms
• Who is associated with the negotiated family and individualisation theory?

  Beck
• What is a neo-conventional famil?

  Dual earning family with traditional roles
• What is meant by maternal deprivation?

  When a person does not have a mother figure in their lives
• What is an extended family?

  3 or more generations living in close proximity to each other
• What is confluent love?

  A relationship that lasts only as long as it is convenient and meets expectations
• What is the functionalist perspective on family diversity:

  • Parsons
  • functional fit theory, it is not diversity but the changing of structures to meet the needs of society
  • Functional fit theory where the family structure is constantly changing and adapting to meet the needs of society at the present time
• What is the new right perspective on family diversity:

  • Murray
  • Diversity is the cause of society breakdown
  • Only one correct family type, the patriarchal nuclear family with a clear cut divison of labour between the husband and wife
• What is the postmodernist perspective on family diversity:

  • divesity is increasing and as a result of growing choice and globalisation in the modern world
  • Society has become individualised due to development of medicine, technology and female equality, relationships are now based on confluent love
• One type of family diversity is cultural diversity, explain this?

  There are cultural differences in both family structures and organisations. Asian families tend to be extended and Afro - Caribbean tend to be matrifocal in nature
• One type of family diversity is life course analysis, explain this?

  Family structures and organisations change as we go through our lives matching the time of life we are at and our needs at that time
• one type of family diversity is organisational diversity, explain this?


  This refers to how the family is structured in terms of its members and power structures
• one type of family diversity is generational diversity, explain this?


  Refers to the shared historical experiences that a group has which will shape their family structure and organisation. for example the pill
• one type of family diversity is social class diversity, explain this?


  Inequalities in lifestyle possibilities have increased since the 1980s. Wealth and income have had an obivous impact in terms of the type of housing, room size, financial problems and holidays
• Name five causes of family diversity?

  • changes in law (divorce reform act)
  • changes in social attitudes
  • changing roles of women
  • secularisation (losing power from the church)
  • globalisation