Postmodernity and the life course

Postmodernity and the life course

1. Individuals make choices about family life and relationships. Structural approaches wrongly assume that our actions are shaped and dictated by the 'needs of society'

2. Family diversity increased by choice; we don't have a 'best' fit family

3. Hareven - life course analysis

   • There's flexibility and variations in people's family lives and choices
     • Timing and sequence of events - when to marry, have children, come out as gay etc
   • Holdsworth and Morgan look at youngsters leaving home, and how other influence their decision
   • Life course analysis focuses on the meanings people give life-changing events, choices and decisions in order to understand how thy constructed their family life
   • Hareven favours structured, in-depth interviews
   • Life course analysis has two major stregths
     • Focuses on what individuals see as important, not what sociologists think they feel; gives broad range of views
     • Suitable for studying present families where we have more choice and family diversity - family structure increasingly just a result of choices made by members

4. Family practices

   • Morgan uses this concept to describe routine actions through which we create our sense of 'being family member'
   • Family practices influenced by our beliefs we have about our rights and obligations within the famiy
     • Allows us to see why there may be conflict within the family - beliefs or expectations held of others
       • e.g. men expected to work, women clean and cook
   • Morgan sees this as a better way to describe how we construct families - they are not concrete structures, but people that do
   • Morgan argues that as society becomes more fragmented, families etc are less clear-cut, boundaries are blurred
   • Weeks' idea of "chosen families" and "friendship as kinship" suggests that, among homosexuals, family and non-family are less clear
   • Morgan does not reject structural theories completely
     • Wider society may still influence over family members' expectations and actions
       • e.g. gender norms, differences in job opportunities may dictate men to feel obligated as breadwinners and women as homemakers