Theories and Research

Elisabeth Roberts

The Oral History of Working-class Women.

Elisabeth Roberts interviewed 160 mothers and grandmothers in Lancashire in 1996.  She detailed the lives of ordinary working women between 1890 and 1940, from these interviews. (what sort of perspective would encourage interviews as research?) She does not support the feminist analysis that working-class families were patriarchal institutions run by, and being benefited by, men. She concludes that women blame poverty rather than men for their situation.  The women felt that they had power of a sort - in the household and family.  The mother/daughter bond was the foundation of the family and women gained a sense of achievement from household management like the family budget, education of children and upholding family (and local) traditions. (What perspective might argue that the women had an important role in socialising the next generation?)


How do you think Feminists and Functionalists would respond to this study?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of oral histories?

 

 

 



Young & Wilmott

Empirical research of family in Bethnal Green

Young & Wilmott studied working-class families in the 1950s in the East End of London.  The evidence was collected by observation and interview. Young & Wilmott argue that the move from extended family to nuclear family was not as fast as Parsons suggests.  Rather, they posit that extended families were in evidence in the 1950s - a late stage of Industrialisation.  The extended kinship network - based on emotional attachment and obligation - offered working-class families assistance with childcare, money, jobs and advice. Young & Wilmott argued that the extended family started to disappear in the 1960s when working-class families were rehoused in new towns and on Council estates after slum clearance. 

 

 

You can find out more about this study here.

 

Read this article and follow the links to find a whole treasure trove of information!

 

 

Marcuse

False needs

 

Marxists might argue that the working-class are not aware that they are being exploited by the ruling class (false class consciousness).  People believe they are keeping up with their neighbours, purchasing the latest model of something and living the life everyone else is when, in fact, they are being manipulated and 'sold to' by the capitalist-friendly values of consumerism and materialism.  Marcuse (1964) asserts that the nuclear (working-class) family is encouraged to fulfil 'false needs'; having the lastest consumer goods and judging themselves and others on the basis of what they can buy and what they own.  He argued that this serves capita;lism very well. People are buying the goods which are being produced (making a nice profit for whom?) and they are distracted from the struggle to gain equality and justice.

 

 

This blog post is a very nice description of consumerism and false needs.

 

A little post with lots of links - The Frankfurt School and Commodity Fetishism

 

And - if you're interested... The first video of five of Marcuse talking about The Frankfurt school.