8026652
Beschreibung
Mindmap von Em Maskrey, aktualisiert more than 1 year ago
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Erstellt von Em Maskrey
vor mehr als 9 Jahre
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The personal life perspective on families
- The personal life perspective argues that functionalist, marxist and feminist
sociologists suffer from two weaknesses:
- 1. They tend to assume that the traditional
nuclear family is the dominant family type,
ignoring the increased diversity of families today.
- 2. They are all structural theories, assuming that families and their members are
simply passive puppets, manipulated by society to perform certain functions. The
personal life perspective argues that we do have some free will, and to
understand the family today, we muse focus on the meanings its members give to
their relationships and situations, rather than on the family's supposed functions.
- 1. They tend to assume that the traditional
nuclear family is the dominant family type,
ignoring the increased diversity of families today.
- The sociology of the personal life perspective is a new perspective on families, strongly influenced by internactionist ideas,
arguing that to understaand families, we must start from the point of view of the individuals involved, examining the
meanings they give to their relationships. Unlike functionalists, marxists and feminists, who take a 'top down' approach, the
personal life perspective takes a 'bottom up' approach, emphasising the meanings that individuals hold and how these
shape their actions and relationships.
- Beyond ties of blood and marriage - As well as taking a bottom up approach
to relationships, the personal life perspective also takes a wider view of
relationships in general. They do not consider traditional family
relationships based on blood or marital ties to be necessarily the most
important. By focusing on individuals' meanings, they draw our attention to
a range of other intimate relationships that are important to people, despite
not being conventionally defined as 'family'. Examples of such relationships
include relationships with friends, dead relatives, and even pets, alongside
fictive kin and homosexual chosen families. These relationships can give the
individual a sense of belonging and identity, and thus are very important,
despite not being defined as 'family' by most.
- Donor-conceived children - Nordqvist and Smart's study on donor-conceived
children explores "what counts as family when your child shares a genetic link
with a stranger but not with your partner'. They found that the issue of blood
and genes raises a range of feelings. Some parents emphasised the importance
of social bonds over genetic ones in forming family bonds, with one mother
stating that what makes a mother is the time and effort put into raising the
child, rather than the cell the child starts off as. Nonetheless, difficulties could
arise when physical similarities or differences between the parent and
donor-conceived child were acknowledged. In addition, parents often wondered
about the child's biological parent and any potential biological family is may
have.
- The personal life perspective can be accused of taking too
broad a view. Critics argue that by including a wide range of
different kinds of personal relationships, we are ignoring the
sanctity of relationships based on blood and/or marital ties.
- Beyond ties of blood and marriage - As well as taking a bottom up approach
to relationships, the personal life perspective also takes a wider view of
relationships in general. They do not consider traditional family
relationships based on blood or marital ties to be necessarily the most
important. By focusing on individuals' meanings, they draw our attention to
a range of other intimate relationships that are important to people, despite
not being conventionally defined as 'family'. Examples of such relationships
include relationships with friends, dead relatives, and even pets, alongside
fictive kin and homosexual chosen families. These relationships can give the
individual a sense of belonging and identity, and thus are very important,
despite not being defined as 'family' by most.
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