{"id":267,"date":"2018-09-21T18:05:57","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T18:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-socialproblems\/chapter\/10-2-sociological-perspectives-on-the-family\/"},"modified":"2019-07-02T14:00:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T14:00:53","slug":"10-2-sociological-perspectives-on-the-family","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-socialproblems\/chapter\/10-2-sociological-perspectives-on-the-family\/","title":{"raw":"10.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family","rendered":"10.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Objective<\/h3>\r\n
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  1. Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Sociological views on today\u2019s families and their problems generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced in Chapter 1 \"Understanding Social Problems\"<\/a>. Let\u2019s review these views, which are summarized in Table 10.1 \"Theory Snapshot\"<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Table 10.1<\/span> Theory Snapshot<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    Theoretical perspective<\/th>\r\nMajor assumptions<\/th>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/thead>\r\n
    Functionalism<\/td>\r\nThe family performs several essential functions for society. It socializes children, it provides emotional and practical support for its members, it helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction, and it provides its members with a social identity. Family problems stem from sudden or far-reaching changes in the family\u2019s structure or processes; these problems threaten the family\u2019s stability and weaken society.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    Conflict theory<\/td>\r\nThe family contributes to social inequality by reinforcing economic inequality and by reinforcing patriarchy. Family problems stem from economic inequality and from patriarchal ideology. The family can also be a source of conflict, including physical violence and emotional cruelty, for its own members.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    Symbolic interactionism<\/td>\r\nThe interaction of family members and intimate couples involves shared understandings of their situations. Wives and husbands have different styles of communication, and social class affects the expectations that spouses have of their marriages and of each other. Family problems stem from different understandings and expectations that spouses have of their marriage.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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    Social Functions of the Family<\/h2>\r\n

    Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. As such, the family performs several important functions.<\/p>\r\n

    First, the family is the primary unit for socializing children<\/em>. No society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help socialize children from the time they are born.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1420\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"500\"]\"Kids One of the most important functions of the family is the socialization of children. In most societies the family is the major unit through which socialization occurs.[\/caption]\r\n

    Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support<\/em> for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, and help in times of emotional distress, and other types of support.<\/p>\r\n

    Third, the family helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction<\/em>. All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate emotional and practical care when they are born.<\/p>\r\n

    Fourth, the family provides its members with a social identity<\/em>. Children are born into their parents\u2019 social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race\/ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.<\/p>\r\n

    Beyond discussing the family\u2019s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family\u2019s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner\u2013female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family\u2019s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and, by extension, the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    The Family and Conflict<\/h2>\r\n

    Conflict theorists agree that the family serves the important functions just listed, but they also point to problems within the family that the functional perspective minimizes or overlooks altogether.<\/p>\r\n

    First, the family as a social institution contributes to social inequality. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (since men made money working in factories while women stayed home), helping to reinforce men\u2019s status at the top of the social hierarchy.<\/p>\r\n

    Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.<\/p>\r\n

    The conflict perspective emphasizes that many of the problems we see in today\u2019s families stem from economic inequality and from patriarchy. The problems that many families experience reflect the fact that they live in poverty or near poverty. Money does not always bring happiness, but a dire lack of money produces stress and other difficulties that impair a family\u2019s functioning and relationships. The Note 10.9 \"Applying Social Research\"<\/a> box discusses other ways in which social class influences the family.<\/p>\r\n

    Conflict within a family also stems from patriarchy. Husbands usually earn more money than wives, and many men continue to feel that they are the head of their families. When women resist this old-fashioned notion, spousal conflict occurs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Applying Social Research<\/h4>\r\n

    Social Class and the Family<\/p>\r\n

    A growing amount of social science research documents social class differences in how well a family functions: the quality of its relationships and the cognitive, psychological, and social development of its children. This focus reflects the fact that what happens during the first months and years of life may have profound effects on how well a newborn prospers during childhood, adolescence, and beyond. To the extent this is true, the social class differences that have been found have troublesome implications.<\/p>\r\n

    According to sociologist Frank E. Furstenberg Jr., \u201csteep differences exist across social classes\u201d in mothers\u2019 prenatal experiences, such as the quality of their diet and health care, as well as in the health care that their infants receive. As a result, he says, \u201cchildren enter the world endowed unequally.\u201d This inequality worsens after they are born for several reasons.<\/p>\r\n

    First, low-income families are much more likely to experience negative events<\/em>, such as death, poor health, unemployment, divorce, and criminal victimization. When these negative events do occur, says Furstenberg, \u201csocial class affects a family\u2019s ability to cushion their blow\u2026Life is simply harder and more brutish at the bottom.\u201d These negative events produce great amounts of stress; as Chapter 2 \"Poverty\"<\/a> discussed, this stress in turn causes children to experience various developmental problems.<\/p>\r\n

    Second, low-income parents are much less likely to read and speak regularly to their infants and young children, who thus are slower to develop cognitive and reading skills; this problem in turn impairs their school performance when they enter elementary school.<\/p>\r\n

    Third, low-income parents are also less able to expose their children to cultural experiences (e.g., museum visits) outside the home, to develop their talents in the arts and other areas, and to otherwise be involved in the many nonschool activities that are important for a child\u2019s development. In contrast, wealthier parents keep their children very busy in these activities in a pattern that sociologist Annette Lareau calls concerted cultivation<\/em>. These children\u2019s involvement in these activities provides them various life skills that help enhance their performance in school and later in the workplace.<\/p>\r\n

    Fourth, low-income children grow up in low-income neighborhoods, which often have inadequate schools and many other problems, including toxins such as lead paint, that impair a child\u2019s development. In contrast, says Furstenberg, children from wealthier families \u201care very likely to attend better schools and live in better neighborhoods. It is as if the playing field for families is tilted in ways that are barely visible to the naked eye.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

    Fifth, low-income families are less able to afford to send a child to college, and they are more likely to lack the social contacts that wealthier parents can use to help their child get a good job after college.<\/p>\r\n

    For all these reasons, social class profoundly shapes how children fare from conception through early adulthood and beyond. Because this body of research documents many negative consequences of living in a low-income family, it reinforces the need for wide-ranging efforts to help such families.<\/p>\r\n

    Sources:<\/em> Bandy, Andrews, & Moore, 2012; Furstenberg, 2010; Lareau, 2010<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Families and Social Interaction<\/h2>\r\n

    Social interactionist perspectives on the family examine how family members and intimate couples interact on a daily basis and arrive at shared understandings of their situations. Studies grounded in social interactionism give us a keen understanding of how and why families operate the way they do.<\/p>\r\n

    Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001). A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964) found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred. Such gender differences are less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts, but gender differences in communication still exist in these families. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976) found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.<\/p>\r\n

    According to the symbolic interactionist perspective, family problems often stem from the different understandings, perceptions, and expectations that spouses have of their marriage and of their family. When these differences become too extreme and the spouses cannot reconcile their disagreements, spousal conflict and possibly divorce may occur (Kaufman & Taniguchi, 2006).<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Key Takeaways<\/h3>\r\n