Revision for Family can be found in the following places.
Please download, read, make notes - whatever works for you!
Thank you to Louisa Shenton for this revision and mindmaps!
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Coffee-making Task!
Read the follow text (which is from here) and answer the following questions in full sentences. Bring the answers to Miss Smith or Ms Dent-Cowan and we will sign your cards!
It is easy to forget how woeful the legal and economic position of married women and cohabitees was in the 1970s, and Mary’s work, both political and academic, was a powerful force for change at that time. In particular her book The Anti-Social Family (Verso, 1982), written with Michele Barrett, was a cornerstone of modern socialist feminist thinking on the family. In that text, Mary and Michele argued against the hallowed status of the concept of ‘the family’ because of its overburdened ideological content. ‘The family’, they argued, was not a simple description of how people organized their personal lives, but an ideological form which justified the dominant status of men and the submission of women and children. The rosy view of ‘the family’ that dominated both popular culture and sociological writings at that time was seen as almost a confidence trick, which hid women’s economic vulnerability, domestic violence and women’s lack of welfare, pension and employment rights. In preference, they argued for the use of the term ‘households’ as this freed thinking from the gender bias inherent in the concept of the family. But this book also took issue with radical feminist thinking of the time and rejected the increasingly prevalent concept of patriarchy. Patriarchy, Barrett and Mcintosh argued, was a transhistorical concept based on biological determinism. In its stead, they argued for a historically contextualized understanding of social relations which combined analysis of class difference with that of gender difference. In this argument, Mary’s socialist, and specifically Marxist, background was central to the development of a highly significant branch of feminist thinking.
(Sorry - fought the technology - lost - gap stays!)
Also, from here:
Barrett and McIntosh acknowledge that the family satisfies ‘real needs’. On the other hand they argue, in The Anti-social Family, that the institution is ‘deeply unequal’ (to the disadvantage of women) and is an ‘antisocial’ force that promotes selfishness and private interest at the expense of wider community values and equality. In their view, the family monopolises ‘caring, sharing and loving’ and prevents these qualities finding an outlet in the wider social world.
Q1: Explain how Barrett and Mcintosh agree with many Feminist theorists.
Q2: Explain how Barrett and Mcintosh disagree with many Feminist theorists.
For a second signature:
Q3: (AO2) How does this argument compare to a Functionalist understanding of the Family?
For a third signature:
Define the highlighted terms.
Revision material - Family - Diversity - Childhood - sooooo much more can be found here
It is easy to forget how woeful the legal and economic position of married women and cohabitees was in the 1970s, and Mary’s work, both political and academic, was a powerful force for change at that time. In particular her book The Anti-Social Family (Verso, 1982), written with Michele Barrett, was a cornerstone of modern socialist feminist thinking on the family. In that text, Mary and Michele argued against the hallowed status of the concept of ‘the family’ because of its overburdened ideological content. ‘The family’, they argued, was not a simple description of how people organized their personal lives, but an ideological form which justified the dominant status of men and the submission of women and children. The rosy view of ‘the family’ that dominated both popular culture and sociological writings at that time was seen as almost a confidence trick, which hid women’s economic vulnerability, domestic violence and women’s lack of welfare, pension and employment rights. In preference, they argued for the use of the term ‘households’ as this freed thinking from the gender bias inherent in the concept of the family. But this book also took issue with radical feminist thinking of the time and rejected the increasingly prevalent concept of patriarchy. Patriarchy, Barrett and Mcintosh argued, was a transhistorical concept based on biological determinism. In its stead, they argued for a historically contextualized understanding of social relations which combined analysis of class difference with that of gender difference. In this argument, Mary’s socialist, and specifically Marxist, background was central to the development of a highly significant branch of feminist thinking.
(Sorry - fought the technology - lost - gap stays!)
Also, from here:
Barrett and McIntosh acknowledge that the family satisfies ‘real needs’. On the other hand they argue, in The Anti-social Family, that the institution is ‘deeply unequal’ (to the disadvantage of women) and is an ‘antisocial’ force that promotes selfishness and private interest at the expense of wider community values and equality. In their view, the family monopolises ‘caring, sharing and loving’ and prevents these qualities finding an outlet in the wider social world.
Q1: Explain how Barrett and Mcintosh agree with many Feminist theorists.
Q2: Explain how Barrett and Mcintosh disagree with many Feminist theorists.
For a second signature:
Q3: (AO2) How does this argument compare to a Functionalist understanding of the Family?
For a third signature:
Define the highlighted terms.
Revision material - Family - Diversity - Childhood - sooooo much more can be found here
Monday, 19 January 2015
For Your Benefit
Questions for Coffee Signatures
Given that:
- present arguments
- make judgements
- draw conclusions.
Slideshare Have a look inside AQA AS Sociology Student Unit Guide
New Edition: Unit 1 Families and Households
Identify AO1 and AO2 in the following. Copy and paste the text and highlight AO1 and AO2.
The functionalist approach to studying families was the dominant theoretical perspective for much of the twentieth century. Functionalism suggests that the family can be seen as one essential part of society that contributes to the overall wellbeing of the whole, rather as different organs of the body work together to keep a person healthy (the ‘organic analogy’). Different functionalist writers have suggested different functions; for example Talcott Parsons argued that the nuclear family in modern industrial society has two essential functions, primary socialisation of children and stabilisation of adult personalities. Each society in this view will have the type of family best suited to it; in the medieval period, extended families were more common because they could fulfil functions such as caring for the sick and elderly which the state had not then taken on.
One advantage of this approach is that it draws
attention to the many positive aspects of family life, fitting in with many
people’s experience and expectation of the family as a haven, where they are
safe and cared for. There are, however, several problems with this approach.
One is that it is very much focused on the conventional nuclear family, with
its associated gender roles, as essential in modern industrial society.
Sociology has since moved on, adapting to changes in society by focusing on
families (a diverse range of families) rather than ‘the family’. The functionalist
approach is also one that is based on structure — people seem to have to fit
into a set role in a set type of family. More recently, interactionist and
other approaches have been more interested in the ways in which people actively
create and negotiate their own roles and identities within families.
Thank you to Hodder Sociology Workbook: Families and Households for this example.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)