Social Institutions:
The Family
Chapter
14: Sociology, Schaefer, 1995-2008.
See
also, Michael Kerl's MARRIAGE
& FAMILY PROCESSES

The
typical American family?
(or this? Or, this?)

The Crisis of Change

Stability and commitment: Rate of
Marital Dissolution

What is a Family?


Number of Partners

- endogamy
- exogamy
- incest
taboo
- homogamy
- propinquity
- Romantic Love: functions and dysfunctions
- Courtship (Marriage
Market): Arranged vs. Games and Symbolic Interaction, Labeling.

Emotional and Economic Support
Mobility and Independence

Authority Patterns

Descent
and Inheritance
Determining Kinship
- Patrilineal
- Matrilineal
- Bilateral

Form
- Tribe/Clan
- Extended
- Nuclear
- Sub-atomic ?
Looking Theoretically
at the Family


- Dominance of men over women-Engels:
first class antagonism
- Women as property
- Social Conflict: Violence
as a norm, stress, lack of community, sexism, intergenerational transmission.
No single theory is adequate to explain complex dynamic.
- Domestic
Violence (Gelles on "Family
Violence")
- Spouse abuse
- Child abuse
- Parent abuse
- Sibling Abuse
- Murder

Interactionism
- Self-fulfillment and self-definition
- The Dyad
- Authority versus intimacy: communication
between family members
- Social exchange: marriage and
courtship negotiations, changing levels of assessment: Females- from physical
attractiveness to financial resources (see: Macionis, "Sociology"
6th edition, 1997; and Blau, "Exchange and Power in Social Life,"
1964)
- Networked
Families (full
report, local copy)
Trends, Patterns and
Evolving Forms

Parenting and grandparents
- Critical job, no qualifications.
Problem of anticipatory socialization. Consensus on child rearing (Corporal
punishment).
- Extension of parenthood--adult
children coming home
- Living longer--More Grandparents
- Types:
- Recreational care givers
- Symbolic (geographical
separation)
- Active-everyday
- Divorce and custodial
care
Adoption
- Legal transfer of rights and responsibilities--functionalism:
solution to births out of wedlock, help for infertile couples.
- Conflict--children transferred
from the poor to the wealthy: Buying the children of the poor.
- Myth of the "parent surplus,
but declining number of children available (birth control, abortion, lowered
stigma on single mothers.
Dual
career families ($48,169 vs. $30,075)
Class
variations
- Tradition vs survival
- Authoritative vs Authoritarian
- Growing homogenization
Racial
and ethnic variations
- Black family and creative survival
- Impact of mass media.
Divorce
- Trends-rate 1992: 51.4%, rate
of remarriage-70% of those under 35, 50% within 3 years
- Stations: emotional, legal, economic,
coparental, community, psychic
- Stages
of Divorce
- Factors predicting a higher probability
of Divorce:
- Young age
- Short acquaintance
- Short engagement
- Parental and friend disapproval
- Dissimilar backgrounds
- Low level of education
- Conflicting role expectations
- Urban.
- Inheriting
Divorce.
Cohabitation:
- Tremendous increases
- Mead--individual marriage and
parental marriage.
- Practice marriage?
Singlehood:
- High age of first marriage
- Many remaining single 7-10%
- Freedom, excitement, career.
Gay
families:
Child
free marriages
Single-parent
families
Networked
Families (full
report, local copy)
- Industrialization and the Transformation
of the Household: Gender roles. family as unit of consumption vs. unit
of production. Work outside of the home.
- Shift from family responsibility
to External responsibility: Rise of other Institutions. Income levels
for families with children have declined, DINKs, Government Bureaucracy,
Costs of education, After-school and Summer programs, decline of parental
authority, shift in locus of socialization
- Schools and Community (schools
as "constructed" institutions, schools as unable to fulfill all
the demands of the socialization process).
- Schools provide: opportunities,
demands, and rewards. Families/communities provide attitudes, efforts, and
conceptions of self.
- Social Capital versus Individual
Capital.
- Recent
study by the Center on Education Policy (2007) suggests type of school,
private vs. public, has little effect on student success
Back to the lecture
Back to Conflict
Theory


URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/010/family.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel rok@umsl.edu
References and
Credits for this Page of Notes
Last Updated:
Monday, August 28, 2000