Lecture 1 - 9/5/2001
Discussed three issues - What is a family? What sociological frameworks (paradigms) are available to study it? Why is it difficult to study?
Sociology of family - what does this mean?
Sociology - study of the behavior of groups as simple as the interaction of two people - as complex as the whole of society.
Next we need to define family? Why do we need to define it ? Definitions will affect economics, power, status, self-esteem. A unit defined as a family may be in line to receive such benefits as housing, health care, and sick leave, not to mention legitimate recognition within its community. Those who fall outside the definition, however, are not only ineligible for such benefits but their relationships may be treated by some as illegitimate, inappropriate, or immoral as well.
At the societal level, our beliefs about what a family is determine our beliefs about what is isn't. Our ideas about which family forms are acceptable, normal, desirable, and praiseworthy, determine which are considered abnormal, problematic, and in need of fixing or condemnation.
Throughout the United States, government is grappling with the problem of how to define family and kinship relationships. What is a family? What is a spouse? What is a parent?
Nationwide poll - Roper Poll - 98% of respondents identified a married couple living with their children as a family' 54% identified an unmarried man and woman who've lived together for a long time as a family' 27% felt a lesbian couple raising children was a family' and 20% felt two gay men committed to each other and living together constituted a family.
The official definition of family - Households are defined as all persons who occupy a dwelling such as a house, an apartment, single room, or other space intended to be living quarters. They can consists of one person who lives alone or several people living together. A family, on the other hand, s defined s two or more persons who are related by blood, marriage, or adoption and who live together as one household.
Sociologically speaking families contain not only individuals but relationships: husband-wife, parent-child, brother, sister, and so on. These relationships imply connections, bonds, attachments and obligations between people, and they combine to form a type of social group. But the groups we call families are different from other types of social groups, such as friendship groups, church groups, and so on.
Differences - the intensity of involvement
The range of activities we share with family members is much broader than contacts with friends.
Another big difference is that families last for a considerably longer period of time than do most other social groups. The strong prospect for future interaction gives families a history and tradition rarely found in other groups. - family ties are not easily severed.
More than most other social groups, the family is also considered a social institution within the larger society. To be a member of a family group means more than simply being connected to other individuals. It also means having certain legal and culturally recognizable rights and responsibilities, which are spelled out in he formal laws of the state and in the informal norms of custom and tradition.
Judging form the strong emotions evoked by debates over the definition of family, it's clear that family is important not just for what it looks like but what it symbolizes. Many people strongly believe that as the family goes, so goes the country. In American society the idea of family has become a powerful symbol of decency.
How are we to study it? -
Theoretical Perspectives on Family
Sociobiology - Some theorists focus on the biological imperatives that underlie human family relationships. We are endowed by nature with a desire to ensure that our genetic material is passed on to future generations. In order to accomplish this, men and women use different reproductive strategies. Women will seek 1 partner, the most capable male to be the father of their children, who will protect her and her children. Most likely, she will seek older males than herself because, an older male will be more stable partner. The male's reproductive strategy is to produce as many children as possible. Therefore they will seek more than one partner and will seek women younger than themselves. Therefore, the socio biologist will say that infidelity is more tolerated by women than men; that women look for older, richer, more educated men. That is natural for men not to be faithful and to marry younger women, etc. This biological imperative then is basis for social relations in the family.
Structural Functionalism - Other sociologists see families as essential for survival not because they ensure genetic fitness but because they serve as an individual's primary source of emotional and practical training. This perspective emphasizes how a society is structured to maintain its stability. Structural functionalism says that in preindustrial society, women because of their child bearing and rearing responsibilities stayed near the campsite and therefore, assumed responsibility for domestic tasks. Men, because they were not intimately, involved in raising the children, became hunters and therefor protectors of the family. This specialization of roles between mothers and fathers is still viable in industrial societies. Women provide the emotional support for children and husbands (this is called the expressive role) and therefore assume the domestic tasks. Men assume the instrumental role - they go out to work and provide income for the family. They interact with the outside world. These roles for men and women should be mutually exclusive
Conflict Perspective - examines society not in terms of stability and agreement but in terms of conflict and struggle. The focus is not on how all the elements of society contribute to its smooth operation and continued existence but on how social structure promotes divisions and inequalities between groups. Social order then arises not from the societal pursuit of harmony but from dominance and coercion. Political, religious, educational, and economic institutions foster and legitimate the power and privilege of some individuals or groups at the expense of others. The key question that the conflict perspective asks is, Who benefits from and who is disadvantaged by particular social arrangements?
Conflict sociologists see families as a small version of such a society in which relationships and expectations benefit some members more than others. They are particularly likely to focus on the link between families and larger systems of political and economic inequality. For example, how does racial discrimination in education and employment affect family life? How does a family's position in the class structure affect its ability to act on its own behalf?
Inequality can also exist within a particular family. The well being of one family member sometimes results from the oppression and exploitation of another. Family relations can be characterized by a competitive struggle to control scarce social, emotional and economic resources within a family.
Feminist perspective - A version of conflict theory. This approach attempts to explain women's subordination in families by arguing that men's dominance within families is part of a wider system of male domination. The way gender is defined and expressed in families is linked to the way its defined and expressed in the larger society. For instance women have traditionally been encouraged to perform unpaid household labor and child care duties while men have been free to devote their energy and attention to earning money and power in the economic marketplace. Women's wages when they do work are often justified by the assumption that their paid labor is secondary to that of their husbands.
But the oppression of women exists not just in specific household arrangements but in the ideology of family.
Social Exchange Theory
Like the conflict perspective, social exchange theory uses the principles of economics to explain family experiences. But it pays special attention to the way people make decisions and choices. In particular, it focuses on why we are attracted to some people and not others, and why we pursue and remain in some relationships and avoid or leave others.
This theory assumes that the same forces that drive economic marketplaces motivate humans: a desire to maximize rewards (profits) and minimize costs. Rewards can assume many forms: money desired goods and services, attention, status, prestige, approval by others and so on.
When applied to intimacy, this fundamental premise implies that those relationships that are the most "profitable" to both partners will be the most satisfying and the most likely to last.
Social exchange theory also directs our attention to people's expectations. These expectations are derived from past experiences. We judge the attractiveness of the outcomes we receive in present relationships by comparing them to outcomes we've received in previous ones.
We also compare the attractiveness of a present relationship to the kinds of profits we think are available in an alternative relationship. …When people feel that they have few or no alternatives, they tend to stay in their relationship, even if it is far from satisfying.
Symbolic Interactionism
Also called the interactionist perspective
The interactionist model is based on the assumption that society is created and maintained through the interaction of its members and how its members define reality. In this sense, reality is what members agree to be reality.
W.I. Thomas - A situation defined as real is real in its consequences.
An ongoing process of social interaction in specific settings based on symbolic communication. Individual perceptions of reality are variable and changing. Communication is the main feature of symbolic interactionism.
This perspective attempts to understand society and social structure through an examination of the personal day-today interactions of people as individuals, pairs, or groups. These forms of interaction take place within a world of symbolic communication. The symbols we use- language, gestures, posture, and so on - are influenced by the larger group or society to which we belong. When we interact with others, we constantly attempt to interpret what they men and what they're up to. Most human behavior is determined not by the objective facts of a given situation but by the subjective meanings people attach to it.
This perspective presents an image of family as a reality that must be negotiated. In sum, although all families consist of identifiable statuses, roles, and norms, each individual family adapts these structural features to its own everyday experiences. The reality of family life is not fixed and inevitable it is created, sustained, and changed through the day-to-day interactions that place among members.
Why is it difficult to study the institution of family?
Our perceptions and expectations of families tend to be highly subjective because they are based more on cultural ideals and myths than knowledge.
Our objectivity is obscured by:
1. Our own experiences - We think we know what family is because we live in one. But individual family life is camouflaged in many ways
Individuals can have misconceptions about their own families.
Why ? Families have myths, secrets, and information-processing rules (what can be said and not be said)
Examples - don't talk about Uncle Bob- the alcoholic
Was my grandmother pregnant before she married?
R.D. Laing "mystification" - the deliberate misdefinition of family matters or ' complicated stratagems to keep everyone in the dark." Family life can become mystified as one individual defines reality in order to suit his or her own purposes and in so doing negates the needs of other family members.
Examples - this discovery came from working with schizophrenics. But when "normal" families were observed together the same mystification was in operation. That's why you do family therapy.
Secrecy - Goffman's "backstage" - we have a backstage view of our own families but we judge others only in terms of the front of the stage. This gap between public norms and private behavior can be wide - marital relationships tend to be even more private and invisible than those between parents and children.
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