Families & Households: AQA AS Sociology

Families & Households: AQA AS Sociology

1. Functionalist Views

   • Murdock: Four vital family functions
     • Production of new generations
       • couples living together produce children more regularly
     • Regulation of sexual activity
       • avoids the destructive competiton between potential partners found in the animal kingdom
     • Provision of economic support and the neccessities of life through the division of labour
       • men undertake strenuous tasks, women undertake lighter tasks
     • Socialisation of children into the culture of the community
       • children learn norms and values
   • Parsons
     • the socialisation of children into their societys culture
     • the stabilisation of adult personalities
       • female role is expressive, male role is instrumental

2. Marxist views

   • Engels
     • Marriage begins with early capitalism
     • Women should be allowed to work in public industry where all workers would share profits of labour
     • Children could be socialised by the Communist state
   • Zaretsky
     • care of children should be carried out by neighbourhood services
       • would enable women to work in a Communist collective, reducing their isolation
       • family relationships and the value of love would still be respected

3. Feminist views

   • Liberal feminists
     • Betty Friedan 'The Feminine Mystique'
       • women had been socialised into the notion that looking after children was fulfilling
   • Radical feminists
     • Firestone
       • abolition of marriage and the family
       • freedom of sexual expression between people of any age or either sex
     • Millett
       • men dominate women just as politicians rule the country
       • family socialises children into diiferent behaviour and roles so both sexes accept the ideologies of male domination