In What Would a Symbolic Interactionist Studying the Family Be Most Interested?

The Functionalist Perspective

Functionalists view the family unit as a construct that fulfills important functions and keeps society running smoothly.

Learning Objectives

Explicate the social functions of the family through the perspective of structural functionalism

Cardinal Takeaways

Central Points

• Functionalists place a number of functions families typically perform: reproduction; socialization; care, protection, and emotional support; assignment of status; and regulation of sexual beliefs through social norms.
• For functionalists, the family creates well-integrated members of club by instilling the social culture into children.
• Radcliffe-Brownish proposed that most stateless, "primitive" societies, lacking strong centralized institutions, are based on an association of descent groups. These clans emerge from family units.

Key Terms

• family: A grouping of people related past claret, matrimony, law or custom.
• Radcliffe-Dark-brown: A British social anthropologist from the early twentieth century who contributed to the development of the theory of structural-functionalism.
• institution: An established organization, peculiarly i dedicated to educational activity, public service, culture, or the care of the destitute, poor etc.

Structural functionalism is a framework that sees order as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. In this way, society is like an organism and each aspect of social club (institutions, social constructs, etc.) is similar an organ that works together to go on the whole functioning smoothly. This arroyo looks at society through a macro-level orientation, which is a wide focus on the social structures that shape social club equally a whole. Functionalism addresses society in terms of the function of its constituent elements: norms, customs, traditions and institutions. Functionalists, in general, identify a number of functions families typically perform: reproduction; socialization; intendance, protection, and emotional support; consignment of status; and regulation of sexual beliefs through the norm of legitimacy.

The Family

Radcliffe-Brown proposed that most stateless, "primitive" societies that lack strong centralized institutions are based on an clan of corporate-descent groups. Structural functionalism also took on the argument that the basic building block of society is the nuclear family, and that the clan is an outgrowth, not vice versa. Durkheim was concerned with the question of how sure societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. Based on the metaphor above of an organism in which many parts part together to sustain the whole, Durkheim argued that complicated societies are held together past organic solidarity.

Nuclear Family: Structural functionalism besides took on the argument that the basic building cake of lodge is the nuclear family unit, and that the clan is an outgrowth, not vice versa.

Functions of the Family

For functionalists, the family unit creates well-integrated members of society and instills civilisation into the new members of society. It provides important ascribed statuses such equally social grade and ethnicity to new members. Information technology is responsible for social replacement by reproducing new members, to replace its dying members. Further, the family unit gives individuals property rights and also affords the consignment and maintenance of kinship society. Lastly, families offer cloth and emotional security and provides care and support for the individuals who demand care.

Expectant Family: Family expecting an additional family fellow member.

Family in the 1970s: For functionalists, the family creates well-integrated members of gild and teaches culture to the new members of social club.

The Conflict Perspective

The conflict perspective views the family equally a vehicle to maintain patriarchy (gender inequality) and social inequality in lodge.

Learning Objectives

Analyze the family from the perspective of conflict theory

Cardinal Takeaways

Key Points

• The disharmonize perspective describes the inequalities that be in all societies globally, and considers aspects of society every bit means for those with power and status to maintain command over scare resource.
• According to disharmonize theorists, the family works toward the continuance of social inequality within a club by maintaining and reinforcing the status quo.
• Through inheritance, the wealthy families are able to keep their privileged social position for their members.
• Conflict theorists accept seen the family as a social arrangement benefiting men more than than women.

Central Terms

• family: A grouping of people related past blood, marriage, law or custom.
• inheritance: The passing of title to an estate upon death.
• Disharmonize Perspective: A perspective in the social sciences that emphasizes the social, political or material inequality of a social grouping; critiques the broad socio-political arrangement; or otherwise detracts from structural functionalism and ideological conservativism.

The Conflict perspective refers to the inequalities that exist in all societies globally. Conflict theory is particularly interested in the various aspects of main status in social position—the chief identifying characteristic of an individual seen in terms of race or ethnicity, sexual practice or gender, age, organized religion, ability or inability, and socio-economic status. According to the Disharmonize paradigm, every order is plagued by inequality based on social differences among the dominant grouping and all of the other groups in society. When nosotros are analyzing whatever element of society from this perspective, we demand to look at the structures of wealth, power and status, and the ways in which those structures maintain social, economic, political and coercive power of one group at the expense of others.

The Family unit

According to conflict theorists, the family works toward the continuance of social inequality within a gild past maintaining and reinforcing the status quo. Because inheritance, education and social capital are transmitted through the family construction, wealthy families are able to keep their privileged social position for their members, while individuals from poor families are denied similar status.

Conflict theorists have also seen the family as a social arrangement benefiting men more than women, allowing men to maintain a position of power. The traditional family grade in most cultures is patriarchal, contributing to inequality between the sexes. Males tend to have more power and females tend to have less. Traditional male roles and responsibilities are valued more than the traditional roles done by their wives (i.e., housekeeping, child rearing). The traditional family unit is as well an caitiff structure for women and children. For instance, more than lx percent of all mothers with children nether six are in the paid workforce. Fifty-fifty though these women spend equally much (or more than) time at paid jobs as their husbands, they as well practise more of the housework and child care.

Chinese Family in Suriname: According to disharmonize theorists, the family works toward the continuance of social inequality within a order past maintaining and reinforcing the status quo.

The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Symbolic interactionists view the family as a site of social reproduction where meanings are negotiated and maintained by family members.

Learning Objectives

Analyze family unit rituals through the symbolic interactionalist perspective

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Symbolic interactionism is a theory that analyzes patterns of advice, interpretation, and adjustment between individuals in society. The theory is a framework for understanding how individuals interact with each other and within society through the meanings of symbols.
• Role-taking is a primal machinery that permits an private to appreciate another person'due south perspective and to understand what an action might mean to that person. Office-taking emerges at an early historic period through activities such as playing firm.
• Symbolic interactionists explore the changing meanings attached to family unit. Symbolic interactionists argue that shared activities help to build emotional bonds, and that marriage and family relationships are based on negotiated meanings.
• The interactionist perspective emphasizes that families reinforce and rejuvenate bonds through symbolic rituals such equally family unit meals and holidays.

Key Terms

• family unit: A group of people related past blood, marriage, law or custom.
• ritual: Rite; a repeated set of deportment
• bonds: Ties and relationships between individuals.

Symbolic interactionism is a social theory that focuses on the assay of patterns of communication, interpretation, and adjustment between individuals in relation to the meanings of symbols. According to the theory, an private's verbal and nonverbal responses are constructed in expectation of how the initial speaker will react.

This emphasis on symbols, negotiated meaning, and the construction of gild every bit an aspect of symbolic interactionism focuses attending on the roles that people play in society. Function-taking is a key mechanism through which an individual tin appreciate another person'south perspective and better understand the significance of a particular activeness to that person. Role-taking begins at an early on historic period, through such activities as playing business firm and pretending to be different people. These activities accept an improvisational quality that contrasts with, say, an role player's scripted office-playing. In social contexts, the incertitude of roles places the brunt of role-making on the people in a given state of affairs.

Ethnomethodology, an adjunct of symbolic interactionism, examines how people's interactions tin create the illusion of a shared social lodge despite a lack of common understanding and the presence of differing perspectives. Harold Garfinkel demonstrated this situation through and so-chosen experiments in trust, or breaching experiments, wherein students would interrupt ordinary conversations because they refused to accept for granted that they knew what the other person was saying.

The Family

Symbolic interactionists also explore the changing meanings attached to family. They debate that shared activities help to build emotional bonds amid family members, and that spousal relationship and family unit relationships are based on negotiated meanings. The interactionist perspective emphasizes that families reinforce and rejuvenate bonds through symbolic machinery rituals such as family unit meals and holidays.

The Family: Symbolic interactionists explore the changing meanings fastened to family unit. They argue that shared activities aid to build emotional bonds and that marriage and family unit relationships are based on negotiated meanings.

The Feminist Perspective

Feminists view the family unit as a historical institution that has maintained and perpetuated sexual inequalities.

Learning Objectives

Describe the goals of first and second-wave feminism

Primal Takeaways

Central Points

• Feminism is a wide term that is the result of several historical social movements attempting to gain equal economic, political, and social rights for women.
• First-wave feminism focused mainly on legal equality, such as voting, pedagogy, employment, the marriage laws, and the plight of intelligent, white, eye-class women.
• 2d-moving ridge feminism went a footstep farther is seeking equality in family, employment, reproductive rights, and sexuality.
• Both feminist and masculinist authors have decried predetermined gender roles every bit unjust.

Cardinal Terms

• gender: The socio-cultural phenomenon of the sectionalisation of people into various categories such equally male and female, with each having associated roles, expectations, stereotypes, etc.

Feminism is a broad term that is the result of several historical social movements attempting to gain equal economic, political, and social rights for women. First-wave feminism focused mainly on legal equality, such as voting, education, employment, marriage laws, and the plight of intelligent, white, middle-class women. Second-wave feminism went a step further by seeking equality in family, employment, reproductive rights, and sexuality. Although there was cracking improvements with perceptions and representations of women that extended globally, the motility was not unified and several different forms of feminism began to sally: blackness feminism, lesbian feminism, liberal feminism, and social feminism.

Folklore of Motherhood

In many cultures, specially in a traditional western i, a female parent is usually the married woman in a married couple. Her part in the family is celebrated on Mother's Twenty-four hour period. Some oft view mothers' duties as raising and looking after their children every minute of every mean solar day. Mothers often accept a very important office in raising offspring, and the title tin can be given to a non-biological mother that fills this office. This is common in stepmothers (female married to biological male parent). In most family unit structures, the mother is both a biological parent and a master caregiver.

Nevertheless, this limited function has increasingly been called into question. Both feminist and masculist authors have decried such predetermined roles as unjust. In the Us, 82.5 million women are mothers of all ages, while the national average age of outset child births is 25.1 years. In 2008, ten% of births were to teenage girls, and fourteen% were to women ages 35 and older.

Women's Rights: International Women'southward Day rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh, organized by the National Women Workers Merchandise Union Eye on March viii, 2005.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-sociology/chapter/sociological-perspectives-on-family/

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