toptermpaper.com

Functionalists put forward a structuralist view of the family and within that context, how they understand conjugal roles. Parson believed the gender division of labour was natural and desirable. He also suggested that men and women had biologically determined personality types. Parson suggested that the roles carried out by women were not inferior, just different. They complimented the role carried out by men. He believed that women were more expressive then men and children were best socialised when they live in a warm, caring environment. The expressive female was also essential to stabilise the adult male personality by meeting his emotional and sexual needs. As a result, the family benefits when women stay at home. Also, men are better at providing for their family because they have instrumental personalities. He also stated that in the industrial society, isolated nuclear families have become more dominant. These families have become isolated from their extended families because of commitments such as work demands. The conjugal pair therefore looked to each other to provide for their needs.

In recent years, Parsons’ view has been supported by a number of groups, including New Right Conservation. They believed traditional, segregated conjugal roles were best for the family and wider society. However, to their concern, they believe they have been threatened by family diversity and the changing roles and expectations of women, resulting in a number of social problems such as underachievement and delinquency. Therefore, suggesting that they see the family as a structure that influences the development and attitudes of its members.

Looking at Young and Willmott’s analysis of the symmetrical family, they suggest that families today are more equal than before and have moved from segregated conjugal roles. This movement was through the result of a ‘march of progress’. There are several reasons for this. The first is that women are in paid employment, giving them financial independence and leading to greater sharing of power and status within the family. Unlike before, there are also changing expectations of husbands and family life. Also, there is a change in the size of families today, which are smaller. This may be due to changes in lifestyle, contraception and abortion. With the loss of the extended family this meant that the conjugal couple depended on each other practically and emotionally, both contributing to the duties within the home and sharing decisions. As a result, marriage today is becoming an equal partnership.

Gershuny supports the view of Young and Willmott, that there is a greater equality. The foundation of his work over the past three decades is through the use of time use diaries. Gershuny sustains that ‘the division of labour remains unfair, not because of the work itself, but because of its relationship to longer-term power structures within a society’. (The Guardian, 2008). Although there is some progress towards greater sharing, it is very slow. He suggested that it may take a generation for men to make an equal contribution, describing this as ‘lagged adaptation’.

Post Modernists argue that the world is no longer predictable. Society has entered a postmodern phase where there is no dominant family type and where individuals have the opportunity to create family relationships that are more suitable for them. Families are much more diverse today. In today’s society, home life is much better than it used to be. There are also an increased number of appliances in the home, making home life more desirable and more men are willing to stay at home and help with household duties and childcare. This is similar to Young and Willmott’s view on changing gender identities, describing men as ‘New Men’, helping to emphasis a change in attitudes. Also, some women are content with staying at home, taking on parenting and housework duties.

In short, Young and Willmott’s and others have argued that while conjugal roles are not completely equal they have become more equal. However, Feminists have criticised Parsons’ image of society that too much emphasis is laid upon how social control within families can reduce the potential for underachievement and delinquency. Also, there is no evidence of the biologically expressive female. Critics of Young and Willmott suggest there is insufficient sociological evidence to clearly support their argument. Most evidence suggests considerable inequality, especially where women are in paid employment.

Feminists argue that the gender division of labour is culturally created and that there is insufficient evidence that conjugal roles have become more shared. They portray that the division of labour works to the advantage of men, leaving women in a position of inferiority in both power and work. Feminists believe the family is patriarchal because women must do housework without pay, which exploits and oppresses women because they are socialised to be dependent on men. According to Ann Oakley’s (1974) research, women still felt that housework and childcare was their responsibility, even when they are in paid employment they still take on the responsibility of childcare and housework, this is known as the ‘triple shift’. This also contradicts the argument of Young and Willmott that as more women take paid employment outside of the home men increasingly share the housework and childcare. They also disagree with the new rights view of separate roles and they disagree with the ‘march of progress’ view, stating that society has not changed and it is still unequal.

Feminists also reject the theory that there is ‘one best’ family type, they embrace freedom and diversity. They also see the traditional nuclear family as the main reason for women’s oppression, suggesting that family ideology makes problems such as domestic violence worse, as women believe they should ‘stand by their man’ no matter what the outcome is. These women may blame themselves for being bad wives and see themselves as deserving to be punished.

Feminists reject Parsons’ view that women were biologically determined and believe they are socially constructed. They blame the media for this construction of women, often portraying them as housewives, cleaners, domestic servants offering comfort and support for men and presenting them as a man’s sex object to tend to his sexual needs, suggesting that these roles are natural and normal. This is therefore seen as an example of patriarchal ideology. Marxist feminists believe that female workers are taken advantage of at a higher level than males as they are seen as a source of unpaid domestic labour, benefiting capitalism.

Interactionism criticise both functionalists and feminists because both assume that social structure determines gender roles. Functionalists believe that family meets the needs of the individual and the family and Feminists believe that family maintains patriarchy. Interactionism has a more micro theory focusing on relationships between individuals and outcomes rather than roles, including things like social class, ethnic, lesbian and gay differences.

In short, there is little evidence of sharing of power and the cultural dominance of men over women persists. Critics say that women have ‘hidden powers’ controlling the home and have sexual power. They also say that feminism has led to greater opportunities for women in education and the workplace and cultural change in female ambitions.

Based on the above arguments and evidence, there remains considerable disagreement within Sociology over the dispute of conjugal roles. While Functionalists believe that roles are progressively equal in modern society, Feminists maintain that there is very little empirical evidence to support this. For them, there remains considerable inequality. However, Interactionists and Post Modernists are critical of both approaches for a presumptuous view of conjugal roles and for ignoring the diversity of family and household structures and outcomes.

Gay rights movement helped a lot of people feel free to be them-selves. Even though gay people are often frowned upon, gay people are just like everyone else. They are human beings wanting to be loved and cared for by another.

According to Stacy, “It is also important to define the gay rights movement as a whole. Research shows that “The gay rights movement comprises a collection of loosely aligned civil rights groups, human rights groups, support groups and political activists seeking acceptance, tolerance and equality for (homosexual, bisexual), and transgender people, and related causes” (Shaneyfelt, 2009). Although it is typically referred to as the gay rights movement, members also promote the rights of groups of individuals who do not necessarily identify as being gay” (http://www.aboutsociology.com/sociology/Gay_rights_movement).

First of all, as you trace the history of this pivotal movement and devise a timeline, you might credit that the modern gay rights movement is considered by many critics to have originated with the “Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969” (http://www.pbs.org/niot/get_involved/Guide2/study_guide_II_final_23.html). Please note how the Stonewall riots marked the most dramatic event in the history of American homosexuality The riots made a major statement in terms of law enforcement. Because police raids on gay bars were routine, the riots protested these selective actions, “made it into national headlines and inspired resistance to such police raids in other cities” This resistance caused more activism to stir (Shaneyfelt, 2009).

According to Stacy, “As you also look at why Stonewall was so vital for gay rights, please note how it also marked “the first inter-generational gap in the homosexual community and the beginning of the break between gay society and lesbian society. Previous generations of homosexual men were more sexually conservative and preferred to keep their sexuality to themselves, the new generation was promiscuous and vocal. Lesbian society, like older gay male society, preferred to be more sexually conservative and private, so a gap began to emerge between the two groups” (Shaneyfelt, 2009).

As you then examine the other implications on life currently in the 21st century, you might claim how changes involve activist groups that are advocates for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-gendered people, etc. Research shows that agencies and task forces such as the “National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), founded in 1973, which has worked to combat anti-gay violence and to improve the legal status of gay men and lesbians in the United States” (The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force).

Besides advocacy groups, the gay rights movement of the 60s also impacts currently life in the legal realm. For example, important advances in gay rights have been made since the 1960s in term of legislation. Research shows how “Several states have repealed laws that made homosexual acts illegal, despite the fact that in 1986 the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of such laws. Several states have also passed laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, and other areas” (The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force).

As you further correlate how the sexual revolution in the 1960s in America played a role in empowering gay rights, you might look at how a change in the psychology of gay society had become gay militancy by 1969, much as the feminist and black movements had transformed” (Shaneyfelt, 2009).

Again, as you look historically and move beyond this event, you might suggest how “In 1970, the gay power movement had reached such proportions that parades were held to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots. In the meantime, the Mattachine Society had sponsored homosexual liberation meetings and the Gay Liberation Front had been formed. The aim of the new organization was not to meekly show that homosexuals were acceptable” As a result, homosexuals became increasingly organized and concentrated in cities such as New York and San Francisco (Shaneyfelt, 2009).

Similarly, research in sociology also asserts that “A Gay Liberation Front was active in New York in the early 1970s. In the liberal political mainstream, gays and lesbians organized the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club in San Francisco in 1971” (Walls, 2008).

Just as there are many effects today from the historical movement such as pride days and parades, the 1970s also saw these types of events. Research reveals that “San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day parades drew large numbers in the late 1970s, and the first “National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights” was held in October 1979 (Research in sociology also asserts that “A Gay Liberation Front was active in New York in the early 1970s. In the liberal political mainstream, gays and lesbians organized the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club in San Francisco in 1971” (Walls, 2008).

Other sociological effects are still felt in lobbying efforts today. Please note how the 1970s also was a time when “a set of national lobbying and legal defense groups as well as a political action committee” (http://www.sonoma.edu/users/w/wallsd/glbt-movement.shtml) occurred. A major goal was getting sodomy laws repealed in about half the states (Walls, 2008).

A major development in the movement also occurred in the 1980s. By 1980, most large cities had “at least one predominantly gay neighborhood” (Shaneyfelt, 2009).

“These details above could justify your sociological approach. However, since you need a psychological standpoint, you might also interject how “The second most dramatic event in gay American history is the AIDS epidemic which began officially in 1981” (Shaneyfelt, 2009). “Although physical in nature, psychological ramifications also intertwine because many gays had to modify their philately upon sexuality. They initially “vehemently protested suggestions that they should curb their sexuality or use condoms until well into 1988. By that time, their lives and political position were in extreme danger” (Shaneyfelt, 2009).

“When looking at other historical and psychological effects, research shows how AIDS became a symbol of oppression to gays, just as sodomy laws had been. To them, society had to put huge amounts of money into the disease or it was not adequately recognizing the needs of the gay community” (Shaneyfelt, 2009).

“By 1990, the question of what caused homosexuality surfaced once again. The first theory is that it is cause either by a twist of genetics, a birth defect, or some sort of hormonal abnormality; in other words, it is biological. The second theory is that t something about a person’s socialization leads them to “choose” a homosexual lifestyle” (Shaneyfelt, 2009).

Other implications of this event for life in the 21st century also include other aspects. Legally, the movement has been successful to repeal many sodomy laws were repealed in most American states, “and those that still remained were ruled unconstitutional in the June 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. Many companies and local governments have clauses in their nondiscrimination policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In some jurisdictions in the U.S., gay bashing is considered a hate crime and given a harsher penalty” (About Sociology, 2010).

Other sociological developments might also include same-sex marriages. Please note how “The U.S. state of Massachusetts allows same-sex marriage, and the states of Connecticut, Hawaii and Vermont provide the civil union as an alternative to marriage. However, in many states, laws and constitutional amendments have been passed forbidding any recognition of same-sex marriage. Virginia law, the most far-reaching, forbids recognition of any benefits similar to those of marriage between people of the same sex” (About Sociology, 2010).

Gay adoption increases marks another area where you can apply psychological and sociological implications on modern life. The movement of the 1960s made these rights possible. Research shows that “Recognizing that lesbians and gay men can be good parents, the vast majority of states no longer deny custody or visitation to a person based on sexual orientation. State agencies and courts now apply a “best interest of the child” standard to decide these cases. Under this approach, a person’s sexual orientation cannot be the basis for ending or limiting parent-child relationships unless it is demonstrated that it causes harm to a child — a claim that has been routinely disproved by social science research. Using this standard, more than 22 states to date have allowed lesbians and gay men to adopt children either through state-run or private adoption agencies” (Overview of Lesbian and Gay Parenting, Adoption and Foster Care , 1999).

As Franklin Roosevelt understood, Americans will postpone immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices–if they must–so long as they are convinced the future can be better than the past. But we face a far more difficult problem at our moment in history. What do you promise people who have been told they can have anything they want, who are repeatedly congratulated for living in the best of all possible circumstances? How do you tell them “the good times,” as we have known them, are not coming back? Americans need a new vision that helps them deal with reality, a promising story of the future that helps them let go of the past.

Here is the grand vision I suggest Americans can pursue: the right of all citizens to larger lives. Not to get richer than the next guy or necessarily to accumulate more and more stuff but the right to live life more fully and engage more expansively the elemental possibilities of human existence. That is the essence of what so many now seem to yearn for in their lives. People–even successful and affluent people–are frustrated because the intangible dimensions of life have been held back or displaced in large and small ways, pushed aside by the economic system’s relentless demands to maximize yields of profit and wealth. Our common moral verities have been trashed in the name of greater returns. The softer aspects of mortal experience are diminished because life itself is not tabulated in the economic system’s accounting.

The political order mistakenly accepts these life-limiting trade-offs as normal, as necessary to achieve “good times.” At earlier periods of our history, the sacrifices demanded by the engine of American capitalism were widely tolerated because the nation was young and underdeveloped. The engine promised to generate higher levels of abundance, and it did. But what is the justification now, when the nation is already quite rich and the engine keeps demanding larger chunks of our lives?

What families, even those who are prosperous, typically lose in the exchange are the small grace notes of everyday life, like the ritual of having a daily dinner with everyone present. The more substantial thing we sacrifice is time to experience the joys and mysteries of nurturing the children, the small pleasures of idle curiosity, of learning to craft things by one’s own hand, and the satisfactions of friendships and social cooperation.

These are made to seem trivial alongside wealth accumulation, but many people know they have given up something more important and mourn the loss. Some decide they will make up for it later in life, after they are financially stable. Still others dream of dropping out of the system. If we could somehow add up all the private pain and loss caused by the pursuit of unbounded material prosperity, the result might look like a major political grievance of our time.

More important than all the other losses is that people are also denied another great intangible–the dignity of self-directed lives. At work, at home and in the public sphere, most people lack the right to exercise much of a voice in the decisions governing their daily lives. Most people (not all) are subject to a system of command and control over their destinies. They know the risks of ignoring the orders from above. Not surprisingly, many citizens are resigned to this condition and accept subservience as “the way things are,” and their lives are smaller as a result. Many find it hard to imagine that these confinements could be lessened, even substantially removed, if economic organizations were informed by democratic principles.

What’s needed in American life is a redefinition of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Given the nation’s great wealth, the ancient threats of scarcity and deprivation have been eliminated. Yet people remain yoked to economic demands despite wanting something more from life–freedom to explore the mysteries and bring forth all that is within them. Collectively, Americans need to take a deep breath and reconsider what it means to be rich.

Greider, William. “The Future of the American Dream.” The Nation [The Nation] 6 May 2009, May 25,

2009 edition ed.: n. pag. Web. 28 Mar. 2010.

greider>.

What Happens to the American Dream in a Recession?

Pollsters for The New York Times and CBS News set out last month to try to answer that question. And the results seemed somewhat contradictory.

Although the nation has plunged into its deepest recession since the Great Depression, 72 percent of Americans in this nationwide survey said they believed it is possible to start out poor in the United States, work hard and become rich – a classic definition of the American dream.

And yet only 44 percent said they had actually achieved the American dream, although 31 percent said they expect to attain it within their lifetime. Only 20 percent have given up on ever reaching it. Those 44 percent might not sound like much, but it is an increase over the 32 percent who said they had achieved the American dream four years ago, when the economy was in much better shape.

Compared with four years ago, fewer people now say they are better off than their parents were at their age or that their children will be better off than they are.

So even though their economic outlook is worse, more people are saying they have either achieved the dream or expect to do so.

What gives?

We asked Barry Glassner, who is a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California and studies contemporary culture and beliefs.

“You want to hold on to your dream even more when times are hard,” he said. “And if you want to hold on to it, then you better define it differently.”

In other words, people are shifting their definition of the American dream. And the poll – conducted on April 1 to 5 with 998 adults, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points- indicated just that.

The Times and CBS News asked this same open-ended question four years ago and again last month: “What does the phrase ‘The American dream’ mean to you?”

Four years ago, 19 percent of those surveyed supplied answers that related to financial security and a steady job, and 20 percent gave answers that related to freedom and opportunity.

Now, fewer people are pegging their dream to material success and more are pegging it to abstract values. Those citing financial security dropped to 11 percent, and those citing freedom and opportunity expanded to 27 percent.

Here’s some respondents’ answers that were put in the category of freedom and opportunity:

“Freedom to live our own life.”

“Created equal.”

“Someone could start from nothing.”

“That everybody has a fair chance to succeed.”

“To become whatever I want to be.”

“To be healthy and have nice family and friends.”

“More like Huck Finn; escape to the unknown; follow your dreams.”

Those who responded in material terms were hardly lavish. Here’s a sampling:

“Basically, have a roof over your head and put food on the table.”

“Working at a secure job, being able to have a home and live as happily as you can not spending too much money.”

“Just financial stability.”

“Owning own home, having civil liberties.”

Mr. Glassner said, “For the vast majority of Americans at every point in history, the prospect of achieving the American dream has been slim but the promise has been huge.”

“At its core, this notion that anyone can be president or anyone can be a billionaire is absurd,” he said. “A lot of Americans work hard, but they don’t become president and they don’t become billionaires.”

Still, he said, Americans have always believed in possibilities. And they have consistently said over time that they can start poor in this country and become rich, regardless of the economy or their circumstances. The 72 percent who feel that way today is down from the 81 percent who felt that way in 2007, but 72 percent is still a very high percentage, especially given the downward economy.

“It would be hard to find another country where it’s as high,” Mr. Glassner said.

The percentage of people who say the American dream does not exist or is only an illusion has remained low – 3 percent today and 2 percent four years ago. As one such person put it to our pollsters last month: “A bunch of hooey.”

By the way, the phrase “the American dream” is generally agreed to have been coined first in 1931, in the midst of the Depression. In his book, “The Epic of America,” the historian James Truslow Adams wrote, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature of which they are innately capable.”

Seelye, Katharine Q. “What Happens to the American Dream in a Recession.” The New York Times [e.g.

New York Times] 7 May 2009: n. pag. New York Times. Web. 28 Mar. 2010.

.

The American Dream Goes On

By Mortimer B. Zuckerman

Posted June 13, 2008

Is the American middle class an endangered species? The majority of Americans have long shared one state of mind: that they are in some central way members of the middle class and hold a passport to the good life.

Click here to find out more!

It’s true that there’s been a contraction of the number of middle-tier households earning between $45,000 and $90,000. And it’s true they are having a tough time. Six in 10 testify to incomes falling behind the cost of living; six in 10 find it hard to pay for gasoline; and five in 10 say they can’t afford healthcare. More than a quarter say they have trouble even affording food. To maintain their lifestyle-including those fancy cable TV packages, broadband Internet connections, and travel-they’ve sent more family members to work, taken on more debt, and borrowed through home equity loans, though the housing slump has undermined that asset.

At the other end of the income spectrum, the well heeled keep doing better. The number of millionaires has shot up, and the wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. families have pushed their share of total national income to levels-21 percent-unseen since the Gilded Age. Yet growing inequality has had little traction thus far as a political issue.

Why is this?

Partly because some have moved up, as economist Stephen Rose points out. There are 12 percent more households earning in excess of $100,000 than 20 or so years ago. And those making less than $30,000 have not increased. So virtually the entire “decline” of the middle-class group has come from people moving up the income ladder, not down.

Higher standards. Those in the middle, and below, are also living better. As William Robert Fogel, the Nobel Prize-winning economic historian, put it, “In every measure that we have bearing on the standard of living…the gains of the lower classes have been far greater than those experienced by the population as a whole.” Among the inequalities that have narrowed: The quality of goods at the more moderate price levels has improved faster than at higher price tags; rich and poor are less apart in life expectancy, height, and leisure. It’s the attitude of Americans that explains the low combustibility (at the moment!) of income inequality. Most Americans tend to believe that people bear primary responsibility for supporting themselves and that market forces are immune to public policy. There’s a reflection here of the optimism and confidence characteristic of American life. In one study by Roland Benabou, more than half of Americans think they will be above the median income in the future (even though that is mathematically impossible). Americans, quite simply, believe that plenty of opportunities exist to get ahead, and, indeed, 82 percent of those born into poverty are much better off than their parents and more than a third of them have made it into the middle class or higher.

Education is another great American success story. There has been a dramatic increase in the percentage of adults completing high school and college. Nearly 90 percent of all adults get high school diplomas today compared with 33 percent in 1947; college graduates have soared from 5.4 percent in 1947 to almost 30 percent today. More than two thirds of Americans concur with the statement that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill-the largest percentage across 27 countries taking part in an international survey of social attitudes. This reflects the widespread belief in the ability to get ahead and helps explain why Americans are more accepting of economic inequality than peoples in other countries and why Americans are less likely to believe their government should take responsibility for reducing income disparity.

For all that, reaction is gathering force in at least two areas. One is an increasing distrust of free trade. There is a widespread conviction that globalization-seen by economists as a boon-holds down earnings for millions of Americans who compete with workers overseas. Free trade has become a political albatross.

Secondly, the level of wealth in the stratosphere of incomes has gotten so extreme that it is provoking a considerable majority to support the notion that wealth should be more evenly distributed through higher taxes.

Zuckerman, Mortimer B. “The American Dream Goes On.” www.usnews.com. US News and World Report, 2010.

Web. 28 Mar. 2010.

the-american-dream-goes-on.html>.

Is the American Dream Still Possible?
By David Wallechinsky

published: 04/23/2006

To be “middle class” in America once meant living well and having financial security. But today that comfortable and contented lifestyle is harder to achieve and maintain. PARADE commissioned Mark Clements Research Inc. to survey Americans nationwide about their finances and outlook for the future. Contributing Editor David Wallechinsky-author of recent articles on where your tax dollars go and on pork-barrel spending-interprets the results.

The traditional American Dream is based on the belief that hardworking citizens can better their lives, pay their monthly bills without worry, give their children a start to an even better life and still save enough to live comfortably after they retire. But many average Americans are struggling-squeezed by rising costs, declining wages, credit-card debt and diminished benefits, with little left over to save for retirement. (See statistics below.)

Does the dream survive? Do most Americans still believe they can forge better lives for themselves?

PARADE surveyed more than 2,200 Americans, of whom fully 84% described themselves as belonging to the middle class, regardless of where they live (living costs are higher in some regions) or the size of their household.

For this report, we focused on U.S. households earning between $30,000 and $99,000 a year. Most of those surveyed describe themselves as married and having a family. More than 64% say they are employed full-time or part-time. Most say they are in reasonably good health and have a satisfying religious or spiritual life. They own a home and at least two cars, and they are able to take vacations. By international standards, they live a life of prosperity.

Yet behind this prosperity is a growing unease. Half of the employed respondents say that they’ve experienced either increased health-care costs or a cut in health benefits over the last three years, and 39% have had cuts in their overtime, raises or bonuses. Almost two-thirds say they live from paycheck to paycheck, and 47% say that no matter how hard they work, they cannot get ahead. More than a third worry about job loss.

Richard Oden of Conyers, Ga.-married, with five children-worked in the beer industry for 23 years. Last year, he developed pneumonia and required major surgery. When he was unable to return to work by a given date, he says, his company terminated him at age 54-even though he had a perfect attendance record and no performance problems.

To help support his family, Oden had to dip into his 401(k) fund, paying a penalty for premature withdrawal. “This was very stressful,” he says. “Everything had gone up-except wages.”

Oden has since started his own business, a “leadership and personal development” consulting firm. His wife, Josett, works as a representative in the health-care field. “I do believe I will recover financially,” Oden says, “and that I will realize a decent retirement. But the traditional American Dream? For most Americans, it’s still a dream-a pipe dream.”

Having drawn on his own retirement fund, Oden knows that saving can be a big problem. In the survey, nearly 83% say that there is not much left to save after they’ve paid their bills. Statistics from the Commerce Department bear this out: The savings rate for Americans is the lowest it has been in 73 years.

Self-reliance and sacrifice. Most of those interviewed display qualities common to American success stories: determination, flexibility, pragmatism, willingness to work hard and especially self-reliance. Almost three-quarters of the middle-class respondents surveyed say they take responsibility for their own financial destiny and believe that they will succeed or fail based on their own efforts. Still, many are downsizing their dreams.

Shelly Comer, 43, of Dos Palos, Calif., is a divorced mother of three who also takes care of a friend of her oldest child, Michelle. She is going into debt so that Michelle can go to college. Shelly has worked her whole life-as a receptionist, janitor, preschool teacher and activities director at a hospital. Recently, she became a registered nurse and now works the night shift in obstetrics at another hospital. Her annual income is $70,377.

Michelle, 19, is a freshman at the University of California at Merced. She says she is concerned about the financial burden her education is placing on her family: “In order to meet our expected family contribution, my mother had to borrow the entire amount of her share.” For her part, Michelle earned six small scholarships, two of which are renewable for next year, and took out a federal loan. She also works 16 hours a week in the financial-aid office at the university.

Shelly has a retirement plan through the hospital. “But I have nothing saved for me,” she says. “I’m putting it all into the kids, so that they can succeed in school. Our parents did everything for us, and I hope to do the same for my kids. I don’t count on anyone else to help us get to where we want to go. It’s all up to me and my family. And I trust in God to help us.”

Who is responsible? One of the most intriguing results of the Parade survey is that 89% of the middle class believes that businesses have a social responsibility to their employees and to the community. Yet 81% believe that, in fact, American businesses make decisions based on what is best for their shareholders and investors, not what’s best for their employees.

Randy Omark, 55, and Cherie Morris, 58, of Stroudsburg, Pa., husband and wife, are former flight attendants for TWA. Cherie took a buyout in the late 1990s-before American Airlines bought TWA in 2001. After the acquisition, Randy was put on “furlough” (as were about 4,000 other former TWA flight attendants) and never rehired. After 26 years with the two airlines, his pension was frozen and then taken over by the government. Now he gets $324 a month in payments.

Today, despite having a college education, Randy works for $9 an hour finding community jobs for mentally challenged adults. Cherie works for a greeting-card company for $7.25 an hour.

“It used to be that if you stayed with your job, you would be rewarded,” says Cherie. “Now there is no guarantee.” As for retirement, Randy says, “Eventually, we will just downsize everything, sell our house and move into a smaller one.”

Is the dream changing? Simone Luevano, 46, and Miguel Gutierrez, 44, run a garage-door installation and repair business in Albuquerque, N.M. While the business grossed $453,000 last year, they took home just $50,000 net to live on. They have a daughter-Marilyn, age 7-who is deaf in one ear and goes to a private school that costs $3600 a year.

Simone says that financial stress is part of their lives: “It comes from the ‘maybe, could be, should be’ nature of our business.” When the economy is down, people don’t buy a new garage-door system. The cost of gas at the pump is a major factor, she adds: “When the price of gasoline goes down, business goes up.”

Have they prepared for retirement? Simone laughs, then replies, “The words ‘retirement’ and ‘vacation’ are not in our vocabulary. You know that old Tennessee Ernie Ford song: ‘I owe my soul to the company store’? We don’t think about retirement. They’ll have to take me out of here with my high-top tennies on.

“The American Dream is a bygone thing,” she adds. “It’s not the way life is anymore. I used to believe I was responsible for my own destiny. But it’s not that simple. Now it’s faith and fortitude.”

The Stressed Middle Class

National statistics show the increasing pressures on middle-income Americans:

The real median household income declined 3% from 2000 to 2004.

The percentage of households earning $25,000 to $99,999 (roughly middle-income range) shrank 1.5% from 2000 to 2004.

Last year, real average weekly earnings actually fell 0.4%.

The savings rate for Americans is the lowest it has been in 73 years.

Credit-card debt is at an all-time high, averaging $9,312 per household.

The average cost per year of a public college (in state) is $12,127, a 25% increase since 2001.

A private university costs $29,026.

Here’s What Americans Say

Our survey of middle-income Americans about their financial outlooks showed both skepticism and hope.

More than 52% of middle-class Americans think that they’re better off than their parents were, but…

56% think things will be worse for their own children or for future generations.

Nearly 57% say they believe that the middle class in America is decreasing.

51% of employed members of the middle class have experienced either increased health-care costs or a cut in health benefits, and 39% have experienced cuts in overtime, raises or bonuses.

66% say they tend to live from paycheck to paycheck.

47% say that no matter how hard they work, they cannot get ahead.

Nearly 83% say that there is not much money left to save after they have paid their bills.

89% of the respondents believe that businesses have a social responsibility to their employees and to the community, but…

81% believe that American businesses make decisions based on what is best for their shareholders and investors-not what is best for their employees.

74% of the middle class say they take responsibility for their own financial success or failure.

80% say they believe it is still possible to achieve the American Dream.

Wallechinsky, David. “Is the American Dream Still Possible?” Parade [Parade] 23 Apr. 2006, Final

ed.: n. pag. Web. 28 Mar. 2010.

edition_04-23-2006/Middle_Class_feature>.

‘Sociology is a social science that studies society and the individual in perspective of Society. The origins of Sociology lie in the 19th century but during the 1960-70s, it became a major social science subject, taught in universities and colleges, and schools. The scope of sociology has only become more scientific with time’. (Sociology Guide, no date)

‘Sociology is the study of human social life, groups and societies. It is a dazzling and compelling enterprise, having as its subject matter our own behavior as social beings. The scope of sociology is extremely wide, ranging from the analysis of passing encounters between individuals in the street up to the investigation of world-wide social processes’. (Giddens cited on Sociology guide, 1989).

Sociology enables to gain a better understanding on how the interaction among the society members works. Through the knowledge on sociology, we are able to improve our networking which is very useful and important for businesspeople.

The study of sociology today focuses on three primary theoretical perspectives: the symbolic interactionist perspective, the functionalist perspective, and the conflict perspective.

1.2 Functionalism

Functionalism views ‘society as a system that is a set of interconnected parts which together form a whole’ (India, 2009). It emphasizes on the macro level of society and its various parts are understood mainly in term of their relationship to the whole. The founder, Emile Durkheim suggested that social consensus takes one of two forms: namely mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Mechanical solidarity is a situation where people with similar vision and beliefs together achieve goal in the society. In contrast, organic solidarity said that although people in the society are interdependent they hold different values and beliefs.

1.3 Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

The symbolic interactionist perspective, directs sociologists to consider the symbols and details of everyday life, what these symbols mean, and how people interact with each other (Cliffsnotes, no date). According to this theory, ‘people attach meanings to symbols, and then they act according to their subjective interpretation of these symbols’ (Cliffsnotes, no date).

Early Conflict Theory

Conflict theory was introduced by a great German theorist and political activist, Karl Marx (1818-1883). The founder of this conflict mentioned that history of social life began from providing the basic necessities of life such as- food, clothing and shelter (McClelland, 2000).In order to survive in the danger, humans realize the need to work together to improve the social structure (Hatch and Cunfille,2006, p.28). Karl Marx insisted that all things with values in society are the contribution of labor through their engagement in creating the society for their own existence (McClelland, 2000).

According to Marx, the society is divided into two classes, the bourgeoisie which is the owners of capital and the proletariat- the labors. Division of labor refers to ‘breaking down of large jobs into many tiny components’ (Dhamee, 1995). Division of labors, therefore, leads to alienation that is ‘the disenfranchising of workers from the product of their work efforts’ (Hatch and Cunfille, 2006, p.29). Labor, in fact, is defined as the cost of production rather than merely the means to achieve a collective benefit for the society (Hatch and Cunfille, 2006, p.29). It gives humans a purely instrumental relationship based on their economic value of potential to do work (Hatch and Cunfille, 2006, p.29). Therefore, when the capitalists accepted this alienation, exploitation will take place. As The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (2000) cited in The Free Dictionary (no date), exploitation refers to the ‘utilization of another person or group for selfish purposes’.

The central institution of a capitalist society is private property, the system where the capital owned by the dominant groups is controlled by the small minority of the population (McClelland, 2000). The major conflict is on whether which group should get the biggest share of profit. The owner of the land argued that they are entitled as they are the providers of the factors of production whereas the labor stressed that they are the involving in all production.

Recent Conflict Theory

3.1 Max Weber

Due to the weakness of Karl Marx’s conflict theory which is too ideal, Max Weber reformulated the conflict theory and thus he is also known as ‘bourgeois Marx’ (http://www.change.freeuk.com/learning/socthink/weber.html, no date). In the process of formulation, Weber concerned so much with testing, reassessing or developing Marx’s ideas and thus, also known as the bourgeois Marx (Marxism: Structural Conflict Theory, no date) . From his study of the society, Weber went beyond ideas of Marx, for example, Weber focuses on the action in the social institution which is not the same as Marx and Durkheim who viewed the society as an object in itself (http://www.change.freeuk.com/learning/socthink/weber.html (no date). Although Weber agreed with Marx’s view that class is economic in its origin, stratification in the opinion of Weber, includes also the consideration of status, power and political parties (Marxism: Structural Conflict Theory, no date). Weber (1924) cited in http://www.change.freeuk.com/learning/socthink/weber.html (no date) states that status is ‘social estimation of labours and the development of seen lifestyles. According to Weber, conflict is occurring in any social relationship when an ‘action within it is oriented intentionally to carrying out the actor’s own will against the resistance of the other party or parties’ (Henderson and Parsons, 1947).

In the society today, communication has becoming an important cause of conflict. As defined in Webster’s dictionary, communication involves ‘sending giving, or exchanging information and ideas’, which is often expressed nonverbally and verbally (Relationship- with -self.com, no date). For non verbal communication, messages are expressed through facial gestures, body languages and the impression through dressing, body imaging and so on. Verbal communication, on the other hand, means expressing what is on one’s mind through voicing out.

3.2 Communication: Government and Media

The communication between government and media today has become an important focus and struggle in our society. Governments as the standing pillars of a country, plays a vital role in ruling and maintaining a country in a prosperous state. In order to maintain the harmony, fairness and truthfully are the keys to the stability. In other words, government should treat all the society in a same way and fair. Besides that, government may manage the economy in a good way, so the society can live in a wealthy environment. However, the written communication in Malaysia is implying that the status quo and special treatment of the dominant groups, the Malays cannot be questioned. For instance, Malays are better treated by government than other races.

On the other view, the media plays an important role in delivering the government’s message to the public. Therefore, nowadays, everyone gains current situation on politic, economy and so on through mess media such as television, radio and newspaper. People can know the actual situations or what is currently happen in the society through the news spread by media. However, media is highly dependent on government. The media is in deep dilemma as they want to spread the truth on the other side, while being controlled by government. Intentionally, government possesses power on the media in order to secure the public trust and to build a positive image of themselves for the public. To further elaborate, government restricts and control media not to spread out government scandal and only spread good or something that is benefit for government, The information needed by the media is so scarce. Therefore, media with limited resources to spread for society is required to obey government’s laws and orders and since government is the minority that owns the information. Since media is depending on government to provide them information, government has the power to control and restrict what media can spread out to society.

From the explanation above, we can see the interplay of conflict between government and media. The government whom possesses the resources is possesses the power as well.

The Overlapping Between Early and Recent Conflict Theories

The first overlapping is that both of the conflict theories emphasizes on economic factors. In the olden days, labor and capital are competing over resources. In the world today, labor and capital still exist. The terms just are slightly different. Labor in those days is today’s employee. For example employees are competing for job advancement and position in an organization or company.

The second overlapping between the early conflict and recent conflict theory is on the reason of occurring is due to scarcity. B’s relationship to A when A possesses something that B requires. For example, government got the power over media because government contains the information that media needs to be included in their newspaper, program and so on. Another example in US, many of the candidates are participating in filling the position of a president. But, it is rare. Only one person is entitled, in other words, it is scarce and thus leads to competition. Dependency increases when resources are important, scarce and non-substitutable.

The third overlapping between early and recent conflict theory is inequality. For example in US, there is obviously inequality, the discrimination of the Black by the White. The white always been perceived as the dominant party. As defined in Dictionary.com (2010), discrimination is an act of ‘treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit’. The common discriminations are racial, gender and religious intolerance. Until today where the Black has becoming the president, the Black is still being treated as the lower class despite of the fact the situation is slightly improving.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, conflict theory is a theory that sees the society as a place with inequality which then leads to evolution and social change. In the early conflict theory, an investigation on social class in the free market economy was conducted. It emphasizes merely on the capitalist and the labor as the cause of inequality, which is too ideal. Therefore it leads to the reassessment of the conflict theory by Max Weber. Max Weber, being the supporter of bureaucracy, highlighted more detailed by stating that there are different types of capitalists and skills of labors are vary as well. From our discussion above, semi-struggle between government and media is unavoidable. In my view, conflicts resulted in positivity because it stresses on competition. In order to survive, people will strive to gain the limited resources which then consequence in the improvement of the society.

Ethnography is a form of research focusing on the sociology of meaning through close field observation of sociocultural phenomena. Typically, the ethnographer focuses on a community (not necessarily geographic, considering also work, leisure, and other communities), selecting informants who are known to have an overview of the activities of the community. Such informants are asked to identify other informants representative of the community, using chain sampling to obtain a saturation of informants in all empirical areas of investigation. Informants are interviewed multiple times, using information from previous informants to elicit clarification and deeper responses upon re-interview. This process is intended to reveal common cultural understandings related to the phenomena under study. These subjective but collective understandings on a subject (ex., stratification) are often interpreted to be more significant than objective data (ex., income differentials).

It should be noted that ethnography may be approached from the point of view of art and cultural preservation, and as a descriptive rather than analytic endeavor. The comments here, however, focus on social science analytic aspects. In this focus, ethnography is a branch of cultural anthropology.

Related information is contained in the sections on content analysis and on case study research.

Key Concepts and Terms

The ethnographic method starts with selection of a culture, review of the literature pertaining to the culture, and identification of variables of interest — typically variables perceived as significant by members of the culture. The ethnographer then goes about gaining entrance, which in turn sets the stage for cultural immersion of the ethnographer in the culture. It is not unusual for ethnographers to live in the culture for months or even years. The middle stages of the ethnographic method involve gaining informants, using them to gain yet more informants in a chaining process, and gathering of data in the form of observational transcripts and interview recordings. Data analysis and theory development come at the end, though theories may emerge from cultural immersion and theory-articulation by members of the culture. However, the ethnographic researcher strives to avoid theoretical preconceptions and instead to induce theory from the perspectives of the members of the culture and from observation. The researcher may seek validation of induced theories by going back to members of the culture for their reaction.

Definition. A popular definition of ethnography is found in Hammersley and Atkinson (1995: 1), who write of ethnography, “We see the term as referring primarily to a particular method or sets of methods. In its most characteristic form it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly, in people’s lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questionsaa‚¬”in fact, collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research. More recently, Johnson (2000: 111) defines ethnography as “a descriptive account of social life and culture in a particular social system based on detailed observations of what people actually do.”

Ethnographic methodologies vary and some ethnographers advocate use of structured observation schedules by which one may code observed behaviors or cultural artifacts for purposes of later statistical analysis. Coding and subsequent statistical analysis is treated in Hodson (1999). See also Denzin and Lincoln (1994).

Macro-ethnography is the study of broadly-defined cultural groupings, such as “the English” or “New Yorkers.”

Micro-ethnography is the study of narrowly-defined cultural groupings, such as “local government GIS specialists” or “members of Congress.”

Emic perspective is the ethnographic research approach to the way the members of the given culture perceive their world. The emic perspective is usually the main focus of ethnography.

Etic perspective, is the ethnographic research approach to the way non-members (outsiders) perceive and interpret behaviors and phenomena associated with a given culture.

Situational reduction refers to the view of ethnographers that social structures and social dynamics emerge from and may be reduced analytically to the accumulated effects of microsituational interactions (Collins 1981, 1988). Put another way, the cosmos is best understood in microcosm. Situational reduction, Collins (1981b: 93) wrote, “. . . produces an empirically stronger theory, on any level of analysis, by displaying the real-life situations and behaviors that make up its phenomena. In particular, it introduces empirically real causal forces in the shape of human beings expending energy. It enables us to discover which macro-concepts and explanations are empirically groundable, and which are not…”

Symbols, always a focus of ethnographic research, are any material artifact of a culture, such as art, clothing, or even technology. The ethnographer strives to understand the cultural connotations associated with symbols. Technology, for instance, may be interpreted in terms of how it relates to an implied plan to bring about a different desired state for the culture.

Cultural patterning is the observation of cultural patterns forming relationships involving two or more symbols. Ethnographic research is holistic, believing that symbols cannot be understood in isolation but instead are elements of a whole. One method of patterning is conceptual mapping, using the terms of members of the culture themselves to relate symbols across varied forms of behavior and in varied contexts. Another method is to focus on learning processes, in order to understand how a culture transmits what it perceives to be important across generations. A third method is to focus on sanctioning processes, in order to understand which cultural elements are formally (ex., legally) prescribed or proscribed and which are informally prescribed or proscribed, and of these which are enforced through sanction and which are unenforced.

Tacit knowledge is deeply-embedded cultural beliefs which are assumed in a culture’s way of perceiving the world, so much so that such knowledge is rarely or never discussed explicitly by members of the culture, but rather must be inferred by the ethnographer.

Assumptions

Ethnography assumes the principal research interest is primarily affected by community cultural understandings. The methodology virtually assures that common cultural understandings will be identified for the research interest at hand. Interpretation is apt to place great weight on the causal importance of such cultural understandings. There is a possibility that an ethnographic focus will overestimate the role of cultural perceptions and underestimate the causal role of objective forces.

Ethnography assumes an ability to identify the relevant community of interest. In some settings, this can be difficult. Community, formal organization, informal group, and individual-level perceptions may all play a causal role in the subject under study, and the importance of these may vary by time, place, and issue. There is a possibility that an ethnographic focus may overestimate the role of community culture and underestimate the causal role of individual psychological or of sub-community (or for that matter, extra-community) forces.

Ethnography assumes the researcher is capable of understanding the cultural mores of the population under study, has mastered the language or technical jargon of the culture, and has based findings on comprehensive knowledge of the culture. There is a danger that the researcher may introduce bias toward perspectives of his or her own culture.

While not inherent to the method, cross-cultural ethnographic research runs the risk of falsely assuming that given measures have the same meaning across cultures.

Frequently Asked Questions
Isn’t ethnography a subjective rather than scientific social science research method?

Selection of informants is not based on the researcher’s personal judgments but on identifications made by community members. Likewise, conclusions about cultural understandings of the phenomena of interests are not personal insights of the researcher, or even of particular community members, but are views cross-validated through repeated, in-depth interviews with a broad cross-section of representative informants. Ethnographers may also validate findings through conventional archival research, consultation with experts, use of surveys, and other techniques not unique to ethnography. At the same time, ethnographic interviews are far more in-depth than survey research. Ethnographers respond to charges of subjectivity by emphasizing that their approach eschews preconceived frameworks and derives meaning from the community informants themselves, whereas survey instruments often reflect the conceptual categories preconceived by the researcher prior to actual encounter with respondents.

What are the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF)?

The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), based at Yale University, are a large collection of pre-coded ethnographic field studies of some 350 cultures. Originally available only on microfiche, collection subsets are now available on CD-ROM. Examples of coded subjects include marriage, family, crime, education, religion, and warfare. The researcher must code variables of interest to go beyond the precoding done by HRAF. Hundreds of articles have been based on the HRAF cultural database, and collections of coding schemes are documented in Barry and Schlegel, eds. (1980). The HRAF database is suitable for ethnographic coding methods as described in Hodson (1999)

According to Marxist theory, a standpoint cannot be achieved by mere ascribing to a fact like a perspective is, it is an achieved common identity, and it is “arrived at through the experience of shared political fight (Ruxton, 2004). Feminist standpoint theory began with Hegel’s account of dialectic relationship between a slave and a master, and then it was strengthened by Marx and more specifically Lukacs’ formulation of the concept of the stand point. They argue that a suppressed slave will eventually arise and reach consciousness freedom as an end product of their struggles against the master. Hegel’s theory gave insight to the fact that oppression and injustices can be best analyzed, and a clear understanding made if it is viewed from the oppressed view point (Hardings, 1991).

In a similar view as that of Hegel’s view of the relationship between a master and his slave, it can be deduced, the themes of the feminist stand point theory. According to feminist standpoint theorists Dorothy Smith and Patricia Hill Collins, the socio-political positions that women have been socialized to occupy can become important areas for information about those who are in many aspects of their social lives disadvantaged as well as those who are privileged to occupy the positions of oppressors (Smith, 2012). Thus, Hardings (1991) concludes that, starting a research on women’s life will result in less biased and indistinct accounts for both the men and women the whole social order.

It is for this reason that feminist standpoint theorist Dorothy Smith tries to account for the fault line of gender, in that the male counterparts are privileged socially and politically unlike their female counter parts. She further goes on to attribute the failure of men to sense the disjuncture between daily life and what they know of the world to this social location of the two genders. She defends that women by the idea of being disadvantaged in the gender power relation can relate their daily life to what they know of the world.

The rational by Dorothy smith and the other feminist standpoint theorist to their assertion of this standpoint include three main principles. First, is the assertion that knowledge is socially situated, secondly, is the assumption that less privileged groups both socially and politically, are socially predisposed in a manner that make it possible for them to ask questions and be aware of things that the socially and politically privileged cannot. Finally, for an informative research, especially that which focuses on power relation, it should be carried out beginning with the lives of those marginalized.

It is this three principle assumptions about feminist theories that Smith employs to analyze the reason behind the different viewpoints that men and women have on social and political issues. She puts it that collecting women’s experiences, which in most scenarios is cleaning up, after men’s mess forms rich site for research, for policy reform and most importantly for social change (Smith, 2005). An example is the house holds chores that women do that no one pays for or offers lifelong pension scheme. The society views such tendencies as normal while most women remain oppressed as housewives.

While feminist standpoint theories claim that this status cannot be acquired by mere point of fact, or believing in the struggle, but through being part of the experiences and sharing in the struggle. On the other hand, masculinity is a performed gender identity not a sexual orientation. This is implies that it can be performed by either a male or a female. Hegemonic masculinity could be analogously referred to as an absolute form of masculinity which is virtually unattainable. It is actually the opposite of femininity (Kimmel, 2005). While women find themselves locked in the corners of feminist standpoints and are only relived from this social orders by first attaining a mentally free conscience, masculinity on the other hand, men are socialized to perform it right away from birth.

According to a masculinity sociologist Michael Kimmel, masculinity in men is because of certain cultures, one is that men grow with a mentality that they deserve something, and this culture is normally referred to as the culture of entitlement, where they look forward to having children, a generation, power, and/or women. Secondly, is the culture of silence among men, this comes out in cultures where men are not allowed to do certain things such as cry, or admit emotional pain especially to people considered outsiders to the culture of masculinity. Last is the culture of men protection, which can either be portrayed by assuming that the men would not do such an action especially that which is considered illegal, or they brush it aside as being in men’s nature to do that, for instance in some cultures especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In their culture, men cheating on their wives may as well be given a blind eye as it is in the men’s nature or it is the women’s fault that such happened (Ruxton, 2004).

Now from these two perspectives that is; feminist standpoint and masculine sociology, Dorothy Smith’s view on textually mediated ruling relations brings out clearly the difference. While from a masculine point of view, there is a fixed set of expectation that any of the two genders trying to demonstrate it are expected to fit into. This includes how the society perceives them or is expected to perceive them even before their arrival (Rubin and Rubin, 2005). For instance, men are expected to dominate over women in some cultures and to protect their wives plus to provide for them. Thus when a boy is born he lives trying to reach this expectations that are set out for him. This is contradictory to the feminist standpoint that works to shake off the pre-existing social order. Feminist standpoint theory, which borrows a lot from Hegel’s theories, postulates that those in marginalized in social or political power relations, will rise to challenge the social order within which they find themselves.

The theory bases itself on the idea that women are utterly oppressed. While the situation may be real in some societies some women also have their privileges. Why men have to work all day to feed women who believe it should be so while they still fight for equality is still not clear in the theory. It is for this privilege that most women are never willing to confront the oppression. The ones that do are joined by the oppressed while the rest sit and watch.

Conclusively, it suffices to conclude that the concept of masculinity sociology conflicts ideologically with the feminist standpoint theory. Smith attempts to explore the disjuncture between men and women in society by using the standpoint theory. Her account further attempts to explain the inevitable fault line between the two genders, which she does perfectly. However, she fails to clearly capture why exactly women have to struggle to be at par with their male counterparts.

She fails to answer the oppressed male societies who go through struggle to be named by women equal with their other male strong characters. While men are frowned upon when they portray female characteristics having a list of endless abuses to such men, women who behave like men are adored. Pointing to the problem is not enough, the gap between male and female gender is much perpetuated by perceptions which each of us have to come against.

“Inequality is an inescapable feature of modern society.”

Inequality affects modern society in a variety of ways. It is an inescapable feature of the world we live in. The most common inequality is gender. Men and Women are treated different in a number of ways such as in wages and in sports. This has been the same for centuries. Social class also plays a very big role in inequality. ‘89% of

People are still judged by their class.’ (Glover 2007)

Gender inequality is a huge problem in modern society today. One of the most common issues is wages. It is a known fact that men receive higher wages than women. According to a report by the government in 2006 ‘there is a 13% pay gap between men and women.’ (The Financial Times 2006) The Office for National Statistics website (2008) says that this statistic has risen to 17.1% in 2008 for full time workers and 36.8% for part time workers. The Equal opportunities Commission published an article “Facts about women and men in Great Britain 2006” It stated that 66% of mangers and senior officials are men, while women hold 81% of administrative and secretarial jobs. In the finance sector women are just over half the workforce, yet the average hourly pay for a woman working full time in finance is 41% lower than men. Jenny Watson, the chair of The Equal Opportunities Commission states that: ‘Jobs traditionally seen as ‘women’s work’ such as early years care and education are undervalued and underpaid, and later in life many women are forced to take a pay cut for the flexibility they need to raise their own children’ Men and women usually have an equal start with their career, but when women’s childcare responsibilities kick in, this is where the problems start. Most companies and organisations blame maternity leave and childcare responsibilities for the pay gap between men and women. Women are allowed up to six months maternity leave. Recently men have been able to take just as much as women. So why is there still a gap in wages? Women have always been seen as the nurse the teacher or the secretary. The International Labour Organisation website (2010) claims that ‘women only hold 34% of mangers jobs in great Britain.’ They only receive two-thirds the pay of their male counterparts. According to the International Labour Office ‘Women and men in lower-paid non-manual jobs such as clerks, shop assistants are closest to being equal.’

Growing up we all had the idea of men’s work and women’s work. Men were builders and doctors while women were teachers and nurses. This idea hasn’t changed much as we grow older. We will all automatically look twice if we see a female bus driver, a male nurse or a female foreman. It’s a natural reaction. From birth we see inequalities immediately in boys and girls. Blue is the colour for boys and pink for girls. Girls have their own toys that society deemed appropriate for girls and so do boys. It seems wrong or unnatural in some way to see a boy playing with a Barbie doll or pushing a toy pram. We have all grown up with these perceptions of what colours each sex should wear and what types of toys they should play with, that it’s no wonder men and women are treated differently when they grow up. It is what is natural to all of us.

Gender inequality also exits in the education system. In same sex schools the subject choices concentrate on the gender of the school.

For example in a girls only school it is rare that they would offer subjects such as construction studies or woodwork studies, the same for boys schools, they would rarely offer their male students the choice to take home economics. These subjects can only be taken for both boys and girls in mixed gender schools.

Another area where gender inequality is present is Sports. Women are in a male dominated world when it comes to sport. The ancient Olympic games website (2009) claims that Women have been fighting to gain equality in sport since 776 B.C. at the Olympic Games, originally known as the Games of Hera. Women were not allowed to play nor watch the games. Although women play the same sports as men do, women receive little or no air time. It is very rare that you would see a women’s soccer or rugby match being shown in a sports bar. The media has largely contributed to false stereotypes regarding men, women and sports. They see women as inferior to male athletes. Tennis especially has seen many centuries of gender inequality. Women only play the best of three sets whereas men play the best of five. I’m sure any female tennis player would be more than capable to play five or more sets if given the opportunity. There was also a dramatic difference in prize money up until 2006. There was a big difference in prize money between men and women in Wimbledon. Men were being paid a lot more money than women. A spokesperson for Wimbledon said that the difference in prize money was due to the fact that men’s tennis was more exciting than women’s. The Wimbledon website (2006) said this all changed in 2006 when both the ladies and men’s winners were paid the same amount of prize money. This is a step in the right direction for gender equality in tennis. On the other hand soccer needs to follow in the same path. Women soccer players do not receive the same recognition or the same money that their male counterparts receive. Wayne Rooney earns ?90,000 a week being a professional soccer player for Manchester United and is world famous. I don’t think many people would be able to name one professional female soccer player. Men get all the fame and all the recognition.

Golf is another sport where females are treated unequally. In most golf courses, women can only play on ‘ladies day’ and are not allowed to play alongside the male players. Professional Female golf players just like professional female soccer players, do not receive as much money or recognition. These are some of the many inequalities which women are trying to challenge and overcome today. It has stopped women from advancing as fast as their male counterparts. In my opinion women have been neglected in sports just as they have been in many other areas of life such as education and work.

More often or not people are judged by their social class. They are discriminated against by where they come from. ‘90% of 18-24 year olds say people are judged by their class’ (Glover 2007). This has been happening for centuries and I do not think that it will change in the near future. As suggested by Macionis and Plummer (2008) ‘Gordon Therborn has suggested that social class is one of the key features of modern Europe, as Europe was the first major arena of industrialisation.’ All the main political parties in Britain are trying to work against social class. Gordon Brown claimed recently that a class free society can become a reality in Britain. There are three shapes of class: The upper classes, the middle classes and the working classes. According to Glover (2007) the upper class is almost extinct with only 2% claiming to be part of it. The Middle class used to be the group between rich and poor.

‘In 1998, 41% of people thought as themselves as middle class, exactly the same proportion as today.’ (Glover 2007) The Working Class is the lowest of the classes. A few centuries ago working class people were miners. They are known as the poorest of society. Glover (2007) said, ‘Of people born to working class parents, 77% say they are working class too. One one fifth say they have become middle class.’

The fact that we still have a structure of class shows that people are discriminated because of their class and where they come from. They are discriminated against in the workplace and in schools. As Hutton (2007) described in his article, pupils from schools from middle class or working class areas are receiving little to no places in prestigious schools such as Oxford, even though they have received excellent marks. Their marks sometimes were better than pupils at Upper class schools. This just proves that there is inequality in social class. It obviously depends on where you come from and which school you attend that shapes your future education. No matter where we go in life we will be judged by our class and where we come from.

Karl Marx and Max Weber have different views upon social class. Macionis and Plummer (2008) said that Marx defined class ‘in terms of those who own the means of production and those who do not with a residual class in between’ He says that the owners or the means of production exploit those who produce goods and services, while the working class become alienated consumers. Marx focuses more on the economic side of social class, especially the labour force. Weber and Marx have similar ideas. In Weber’s view, a person’s class status is a determinant of how they will turn out in later life. People will have a better life if they are higher up in class. He thought that a persons possessions and the way they lived was the cause of class conflict. Although Weber believed as Marx did that the economic side of social class was important and caused most of the conflict, he didn’t believe that this was the only cause of the conflict between social classes. He saw society back then as having many status groups who held a vast amount of power. For example teachers do not own their schools they work for people, but they may be higher up in status than a mechanic who owns his owns and runs his own business. Weber thought that people in politics had more power in society. Weber said that conflict between the classes was a result of many different inequalities.

Inequality is definitely an inescapable feature of our society. There are still gender inequalities present in modern society and some that have been around for centuries. I think there will always be inequalities between men and women. It has been around for centuries and nothing has changed, so I do not see it changing in the near future. There will also always be inequalities in social class. It was around in Karl Marx’s era and is still here to the present day. People are being judged and criticized by where they come from. Even though the government is claiming that social class will not exist in years to come, they have not backed up their claims yet.

Functionalism, an approach which dominated much of twentieth century thinking, sought to explain the family through the vital functions it played as a social institution. George Peter Murdock, a notable American Anthropologist and functionalist, conducted a study in 1949 in where he studied the institution of the family in 250 different societies. He concluded by saying that the family plays four different basic functions which he termed reproductive, educational, sexual and economic. Education was vital in teaching the norms and values of society whilst reproduction produced members for society. The family certainly does not perform these functions exclusively, this perhaps more relevant after the industrial revolution when the family lost many of its functions to new specialized social institutions such as factories, schools and hospitals. However the family still makes important contributions to all of the above functions.

Talcott Parsons, a respected American sociologist, also pioneered the functionalist perspective of the family. In addition to serving functions to society as a whole as explained above, it also plays equally vital functions for its individual members. According to Parsons, the family during early years of childhood structures the child’s personality and the internalization of society’s culture. Taught mainly by the child’s parents, the central norms and values of society are internalized into a child to a point where it becomes natural and instinctive. This is the same for every child, and without this internalization, society would not be able to function. An American child for example would grow up with the central idea of independence and a strong motivation to achieve a high status in society as these are the central qualities of American culture.

Once this personality is achieved, it must be maintained and this is the second basic function of the family: the stabilization of adult personalities. In order to balance the stress and strains of life found in a busy society, an individual can seek emotional support by his spouse. This function is especially important in Western societies as the nature of the popular nuclear family means that there is no extended family to rely upon for emotional support. Thus the married couple must solely depend on each other. The introduction of a child in a family also allows for the next step in stabilizing the adult personality. Adults can act out childish elements of their own personalities whilst engaging with his or hers child in a activity. This cannot be done in adult society.

The points discussed above largely derive from two of the most influential functionalists in the 20th century. However, there work in recent times has come under particular criticism. Critics tend to agree upon the fact that both perspectives offer an unrealistic picture of the family, portraying a couple who unwillingly care for each other’s every need. Parsons idea of socialization is also dubious as it fails to consider the child who will not conform to his parent’s values and morals. Parsons and Murdock also both fail to offer functional alternatives to the family unit.

As to affirm these criticisms, this functionalist view of the family has not been adopted by other sociologist who favor a more blunt and critical explanation. Friedrich Engles, with his publication of “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” in 1884 developed the first Marxist perspective of the family. He combined an evolutionary approach with Marxism, explaining how at the early stages of evolution, means of production were communally owned and the family as such did not exist. There were no rules to dictate the boundaries of sexual relationships thus society as a whole was the family. However, with the development of the state later in history, restrictions were applied on sexual relationships and on the production of children, reaching the point in where the nuclear family was born. Coinciding with this new unit was the privatization of both property and means of production. These assets were passed down by the male to his heir, and in order to ensure the legitimacy of the link, greater control was placed on women in order to ensure that there was no question about the paternity of the offspring. Summarized by Eagles himself in the original book, “It is based on the supremacy of the man, the express purpose being to produce children of undisputed paternity; such paternity is demanded because these children are later to come into their father’s property as his natural heirs.”

Alternative Marxist perspectives sought to study the role families played in industrial societies. They argued that the capitalist system exploited the free domestic labor of the housewife, seeing childrearing and housework as an essential part of the economy. However the central argument was that the employer only paid for the services of the male breadwinner, securing the housewife’s contribution for free. In addition to this, Marxist also saw that the worker was only able to work long hours for his employer as the domestic labor of looking after the children for example was done by the housewife. The housewife, in addition to the above work, also benefited the employer by reproducing potential workers. Expanding upon this idea, families acted as an ideological conditioning device which reproduced ideologies which prop up capitalism. Children are in affect a reflection of their parents in terms of values and behaviors and so uninspiringly follow them into the same work and patterns. Outside of the household, women were seen as a reserve army of labor that could be drawn in when there was a labor shortage and returned home when demand fell. All of these valuable services were provided to the employer for free, with him only having to pay the male breadwinner.

The Marxists approach compared with the functionalist idea is much more critical of the family unit, and this trend continues with the feminist’s perspective.

In their book “Familiar Exploitation”, radical feminists Christine Delphy and Diana Lenoard attached importance in Marxist methodology in explaining the family unit but nevertheless were of the opinion that men, not capitalism, were the main beneficiaries of the exploitation of women’s labor in the household. They began their explanation by detailing how they saw the family as an economic system in where men benefit from, and exploit the work of women. They identified several factors that related to the family as an economic system, for example that the family structure typically involves two roles and that the male usually occupies the most important one, head of household, and the women and children are left with being helpers. What makes the role of head of household so important is that he has final say on important decisions and assigns duties to other members of the family. These duties vary according to the status and sex of the person in the family as women for example are usually given the task of doing the domestic and reproductive work. The head of household usually has control over finances and spending decisions and this still applies even when the woman is in paid employment. As concluded by Delphy and Leonard, ‘The head of the family may have a near monopoly over, and he always has greater access to and control of, the family’s property and external relations.’

Both of these radical feminists perhaps offer the most comprehensive radical feminist insight into the family unit. They depict a patriarchal and hierarchal structure in where men dominate and receive “57 varieties of unpaid services”. It would be wrong to suggest that women are not oblivious to their exploitation but economic and social constraints make it difficult for women to escape from the patriarchal family. However their assumption that all families have a head has earned their work criticism. The data where this theory derived from is also questionable as it is said to be dated, and more contemporary data show in actual fact show less gender inequality in middle class families than in working class families.

Both of the above approaches tend to agree on the fact that woman are often exploited by men in family life and in the case of Marxism, also benefit capitalism. As already mentioned, both fail to take into account the variety family life can adopt in various societies and the effect this can have on individuals. Difference feminist ensure that the variety of positions women can find themselves in is central to their argument, taking into account lesbian couples, single parent families and the impact social position and race has on the woman’s position. Leading difference feminist Linda Nicholson in her book ‘The myth of the traditional family’ began by defining what is meant by the traditional family. She saw it as the “the unit of parents with children who live together”, separating it from other kin and emphasized the important bond between husband and wife. This simple image of the family is the one often associated with the nuclear family and it became popular among commentators in the 1950s. Alternative families to this image however were not regarded with the same esteem but Nicholson rejected this notion, arguing that alternative families offered greater benefits than the nuclear family for the women who live in them. In her particular study, she saw poor black women in the USA at more of an advantage when at the head of the household without men. Reason being was that their tended to be a stronger relationship between other friends and kin which in turn provided support and insurance, helping out families most in need at a particular time. This theory evidently had disadvantages, namely the lack of a father model which is integral for a child’s upbringing. However traditional families also share several disadvantages such as the inability of a child to turn to other relatives for help when abused by his parent. Nicholson concluded her work in a very liberal manner, advocating greater choice in individuals choosing their preferred living arrangements according to what best suited them. She disagreed with the distinction between traditional and alternative families, citing that traditional families often give the impression that they have long been the norm whilst this is not true.

The summary given above is only one take on the family by a difference feminist among dozens. On the whole however, they all tend to avoid narrowly define the role women play in families and instead show a degree of sensitivity towards different experiences of family life experienced by women of different classes, sexual orientation and ethnicity. It would therefore be fair to say that difference feminists offer the most advance perspective on family life.

In order to expand upon the perspectives explored above, various themes must be examined to gain a comprehensive understanding of the family as a unit of social organization. Perhaps the greatest process to have an effect on family life was the advent of industrialization and modernization in the eighteenth century. Modernization refers “to the development of social, cultural, economic and political practices and institutions which are thought to be typical of modern societies whilst industrialization refers to the “mass production of goods in a factory system which involves some degree of mechanized production technology.” Sociologists regard the above factors to be the detrimental reasons responsible for change in Western societies in the early eighteenth century. Embroiled in this was of course the family unit which found problems relating itself to industrialization or modernization. For example, every society experienced the above changes differently with each social institution effected in differing ways. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that industrialization and modernization is a developing process, our different culture, politics and society to those of our ancestor evidence of this. The complexity of trying to associate families and industrialization and modernization allows for plentiful confusion among academics as to what a pre-industrial family consist of.

Michael Young and Peter Willmott were among those who traced the development of the family from pre-industrial England to contemporary times. Specific to their study, which was published in a book titled ‘The Symmetrical Family’ in 1973, they traced the changes experienced by the family up to the 1970s. They concluded, using a variety of sources and social surveys, that the family had gone through four main stages.

Stage one belonged to the pre-industrial family which was seen as an unit of production consisting mainly of a husband, wife and unmarried children who cooperate as a team. With the advent of industrial revolution however, this form of family became largely extinct with the exception of some farming communities in the nineteenth century.

Followed closely after was stage 2 which coincided with the beginning of the industrial revolution and continued throughout the nineteenth century. As discussed earlier, the family lost many of its functions to other social institution and thus ceased to be an unit of production. The nineteenth century witnessed chronic poverty and high unemployment and therefore the family responded by breaking away from the traditional nuclear model into an extended network which included grandparents and grandmothers. This allowed for an insurance policy and someone to rely on in tough times. As with stage 1, stage 2 declined in importance in the twentieth century but still found prominence in low income, working class areas.

Finally, and still predominating today according to Young and Willmott, is stage 3 which the two sociologist conducted a large scale social survey in order to prove and later became the basis of their book. Stage 3 saw the return of the nuclear family with the exception of it being now more home centered. Free time was usually spent doing domestic work at home and leisure time allowed parents to play with their children and watch television. Stage 3 witnessed a stronger conjugal bond between husband and wife and a notable self-reliance now associated with the nuclear family. The term used to describe this type of nuclear family is ‘symmetrical family’, referring to the now equally shared duty of maintaining the household between two spouses. Radically different to the inequality described above about the allocation of chores and responsibility of finances, couples in stage 3 now share many of the chores and decisions.

Many of the above points are open to criticism, especially by feminists who disagree with the concept of the symmetrical family and instead still seeing oppressive inequality between husband and wife. Despite this, Young and Willmott accomplish in tracing the family before, during and after the industrial revolution and the various forms it adopted according to the needs of society.

Many criticisimis raised about the sociological prespectives is that they fail to consider other forms family may adopt in society.

The family is the main element of the society, but, also are the two themes most important in the books, “The Ellen Foster” and the “Lovely bones”, in these books talk about the family but in different contexts for example in the book the “Ellen Foster”, we found that the main character, Ellen is always in search an family for example, she wants the Scarlett’s family, although was a black family, however in the book, the “Lovely bones”, has another concept about the family, for example, in this family found that is a close family, but nowadays, what is the real concept of the family?.According with the society the family is the base of the education, because is the main source of information when we are children.

Other definition is obtained by Universal declaration of human rights this explain in the next sentence “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State” [1] from this point of view, the family have an important role inside the society, nowadays we are living different changes inside this society because each day the human have more necessities, and this entail that we forget of spent the time with the family, and this have as consequences the family breakup a big problem in this era.

The family breakup is an event of the society that lie in the breakup the different bonds emotional and materials, in the same time is the breakup and dissolution of the marriage based in the common life between parents and other members of the family mainly in the children. One example is in the book “Lovely bones” in this book there is a family that has a quiet life, but unfortunately one day their lives have a drastic change, a member of the family is raped and dies, this event have with consequences the family breakup, because as a result of the family little by little begins to separate, because after the death the parents begins to have different problems provoking a lot tension in the family. In the real life the tension is an important stage for the family breakup, because mainly the parents when they arrive of their jobs and they have some problem they have bad humor, relieve it in their house, causing an uncomfortable atmosphere and provoke another situations that can disrupt family relationships if not addressed calmly, wisely and in a healthy manner, but also the growing tension between parents leads to physical separation and the decision to divorce.

Another common event in this era that provoke the family breakup is the divorce or separation because when the parents are separated should give more affection of the necessary and appropriate for their children, despite what happens, the children always need to have someone to guide them and guide them through the right path because if they feel alone only can lead to other problems. For example in the book the “Lovely bones” when the main character, Susie Salmon dies, some days after her mother leave her family, this event is hard blow for the family because the others children don’t know what happen and why her mother has this attitude, there are in real life many cases when a member of the family leave it, this event is sadly for all family and is the main reason for that many families breakup. Abandonment entail that relation between parent and children little by little could be affect, because other important element is the communication between this elements, parents and children, the communication inside of family is important because through communication can share feelings, longings, desires, material goods, based on a real community but what happen when this communication becomes in lack of communication. The lack of communication is another element that is aforementioned with family breakup and the same time there is an example in the book “Ellen foster” in this book stand out the relationship between, Ellen the main character, and her father, both have a cold and distant relationship, her father takes refuge day by day in the alcohol, and Ellen constantly search a family who fill the emptiness that has left her mother’s death, as the book shows a lack of communication makes family breakup, and what is worse than a child affected by this, until the point as to move from family to family or in this case of adoption for adoption.

When a family breakup the society also is affect because the human naturally is sociable, sometimes the society is the reflection of the a families, nowadays the society is going through a critical state, this critical state is hart for the family because always only is one a prose the happiness of the family, also as my point of view the society each day is more and more individualist, as example inside book “Lovely bones” show us the Susie’s mother the independent part of the book, because after the death of her daughter she has leave her family because is part of her personal change with a real person, but without family, actually the society change maybe the concept of family as well the individualist each day has more weight, until the point that the family is a obstacle for obtain the personal objectives, creating also a society individualist where the work in team doesn’t exist.

The society play an important role inside own life because somehow a measure of our performance, so what do the society for fight the family breakup as well is important for our growth. For example in the “Ellen foster” book the society had a role important because it built the concept of the perfect family even thinking that one day she would find a mother like women who went to church. Sometime to be part of the society is a little complicated because the society is “a group of people living or working together, the origin of the word society comes from the latin societas, a “friendly association with others.” Societas is derived from socius meaning “companion” and thus the meaning of society is closely related to what is social. Implicit in the meaning of society is that its members share some mutual concern or interest in a common objective. As such, society is often used as synonymous with the collective citizenry of a country as directed through national institutions concerned with civic welfare.” [2]

From there the family is an essential part of good development for society as it not only helps with affection, also provides the basic foundation of society, so adding individuals to develop positive action within society resulting in social growth, helping to have positive changes in the same way with other individuals.

In this case show us an example the book “Ellen foster” because the society and contact with this make that Ellen change her way of thinking about black people, in the same time this action I think that help to Ellen because in the future her children will not be racist, contributing this way to a change family that simultaneously will have a positive change in the society, but what happened when the society didn’t contribute in this change and also the family didn’t also anything for make the change, both could be affected.

“Ellen foster” and “Lovely bones” are two books that have an element in common, the family breakup, these writers write the novel in different time, but , we can that the family breakup is a topic that affect the society all the time, because the family always is an important part of the society. The same time the books represent the concept of the family in different way, the writer of “Ellen foster” shows the cruel side of the society, because she tell us as a society can make irresponsible when it comes to deal with a problem that society often doesn’t help solve the problem, and just try to justify it, family breakup is now a matter of concern, today’s young society does not want any children because this new society think they may not realize their personal goals a cause of the family , or don’t want to repeat the same patterns as their parents, because almost a quarter of the population in Mexico is divorced, with the consequence of family breakdown. The book “lovely bones” reflects another point of view about family breakup, because in this case the family breakup occurs when your character dies, causing emotional imbalance inside the family, since parents did not know how to react the tragedy, forgetting themselves also their other children.

In real life this too often because like anyone how to be parents also can learn to act when a child dies the pain that the family has to gradually be separating like in the book “Lovely bones”, The writers mention some examples of the consequences about family breakup brings, both agree with the loneliness that this generates. The loneliness in the family owes to the lack of communication little by little to the lack of attention since always we think only about us themselves, leaving aside other members of the family, since we think that this couldn’t to affect them, since my point of the view in this era only have the family, nowadays everybody have many changes positive and negatives but I think that each family have the bases necessaries for confront the society each day could be a better society, we think that the family only is a terminology but is more that, is a

A family can simply be defined as a group of people connected by blood or marriage. They can either be living together in a household, for example, a couple and their never married children living in one place as a family or are related based on ‘blood’ but are not immediate family -for example, genetic relationships and this can simply be referred to as ‘kin’.

According to the American anthropologist George Peter Murdock, ‘The family is a social group characterised by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults’

The two most common forms of family are nuclear family and extended family. The nuclear family comprises of a husband and a wife with one or more children, own or adopted. According to Murdock, the nuclear family is ‘a universal social grouping’ which means, it is found in all societies. The extended family is a family structure which is often made up of three generations e.g. grandparents, parents and children. Basically, it is the extension of the nuclear family and this can be done in various ways.

Unlike the western society marriage which is monogamous, that is, one wife and one husband, many other societies practice polygamous marriage where by a person can marry more than one wife or husband. It is found in many small-scale traditional societies, particularly in Africa. A part from that, families can be extended if for example grand parents, brothers and sisters of the married couple live in one household. This is mostly practiced by the Indian communities in the UK.

During the pre-industrial period, societies were divided in to kinship groups called lineages, which consist of people descended from a common ancestor. Lineages may contain hundreds or even thousands of members, it is mostly found in traditional societies such as the Nuer of southern Sudan and the Bunyoro of western Uganda. Anyone in that group sees each other as relatives. The only source of livelihood was farming and livestock, for this reason; the most common family structure was extended families because, they work together and to some extent, they share domestic tasks and income. Any member is allowed to farm and graze their livestock in the land owned by the Lineages. People who would be seen as very distant relatives in western societies may be defined as close relatives within a lineage.

According to the 19th century historical research by Michael Anderson (1971), the early stages of industrialisation may have encouraged the development of extended families. He found that 23% of working class households in Preston contained kin beyond the nuclear family. This was due to the fact that, there was widespread poverty, high birth and death rates and without welfare support from the government, people had to depend on their kin for care and support. The working class extended family continued well in to the 20th century. Michael Young and Peter Willmott defined an extended family after their study of Bethnal Green in the east end of London (1957) as ‘a combination of families who to some large degree form one domestic unit’. The family members does not have to share one household as long as they contact regularly and share services such as caring for children and elderly relatives.

The industrial revolution gradually undermined and disrupted the existence of extended family because; men were increasingly drawn out of the home in to industrial employment. Long working hours and movement of individuals between different regions affected family socialisation. Despite that, low income working class areas such as Bethnal Green did not break their extended family ties up until the 20th century.

By the 1970s, the family structure changed to home-centred and privatised nuclear family. Family life is focused on the home. Husband and wife depend on each other for companionship. During free time, they silently watch TV at home with less contact of the wider kinship network. According to Talcott Parsons, the isolated nuclear family is the typical form in modern industrial society, on the other hand, Michael Haralambos states in his book, Sociology in focus that, a number of sociologists argue that, the so called modern, self-sufficient and self-centred nuclear family process has been exaggerated and that nuclear family members still contact their extended kin when the need arises though the relationship is not as strong as those in the traditional extended family.

According to Janet Finch and Jennifer Mason (1993) in their study of Greater Manchester, they found that, over 90% of the people they approached had given or received financial help from relatives and almost 60% had shared a household with an adult relative(not parents) at some time in their live. Finch and Mason also found that help was subject to negotiation and not a right

However, the British Social Attitudes have disputed the above study after they conducted a survey representing adults aged 18 and over during 1986 and 1995. They were looking at frequency of contact with kin. They found out that people are less likely to visit or be visited by anybody at all, be it relative or friends because there was no evidence to show that friends have substituted relatives and a large number of women are working outside their home which resulted in 20% drop of seeing their mother at least once a week (McGlone et al, 1999).

People from different backgrounds have different family structure from the indigenous population. For example, the Asian families in Britain have strengthened their ties with their family members more in reaction to lack of value attachment between British family members and their kin. They are worried of losing their values and culture. To help overcome that fear, they maintain links with their villages of origin in Asia.

The main sociological theories of the family are functionalist, Marxists and feminists. Functionalists consider the nuclear form of family as the best type. They believe that family is a vital element at the heart of society and a good source of socialisation. However, they only endorse the nuclear family as the norm, idealistic and more home centred, whereas, they consider the other types of family as harmful. Functionalists see family as a social institution which is there for a purpose that is beneficial to both its members and society.

According to Murdock (1949),’ the family is a universal institution with universal functions’. Their theories contain strong arguments that are vital for the wellbeing of society. They argue that, the family help to stabilise the social system by monitoring or setting some limits on their members not engage in sexual relationships outside marriage with some societies completely forbidding such acts unless married. This helps to reduce conflict. The functionalists also see family as a unit of production, for example, a farming family produce food while here in the west, the family is a unit of consumption, families buy goods and services for the rest of their family members, therefore contribute to the economy and to the wider society. The most interesting point of the functionalist’s theory is that, the family is responsible for primary socialisation. The first year of our life is very crucial to the rest of our life and all that is made possible by the immediate family members. Murdock believes that, ‘no society has succeeded in finding an adequate substitute for the nuclear family’ however, the American sociologist Talcott Parsons argues that, the nuclear family in the modern industrial society have become more specialised and unlike the pre-industrial societies, some family functions like looking after the elderly have been taken over by specialised institutions such as social services but he claims that they still perform the basic function which is, the primary socialisation of children.

Despite the strengths of the functionalist theory, there are some weaknesses associated with their views of the family. The first one is that, they ignore the dark side of family life, for example, conflict between husband and wife, child abuse and male dominance etc. They also pay less attention on the harmful effects the family may have on the wider society. Unlike the Marxists, the functionalists never consider variations in family life based on class, ethnicity, religion and locality

The second sociological theory of family which is Marxists concentrates on nuclear family as well but they reject the view that the family is there for the benefit of all, instead they see the family as maintaining the position of the ruling class. They believe that nuclear perpetuate capitalism and that the economy shapes the rest of society. In comparison to the functionalists, Marxists don’t accept that the family is largely responsible for primary socialisation, instead they argue that, children are socialised in stereotypically predetermined roles. The Marxists strongly argue that, the status of the society is largely determined by the economy and the capitalist economic system will produce a certain type of society. Basically, they see the family as an institution which is twisted by the requirements of capitalism. According to Friedrich Engels, the modern nuclear family developed in capitalist society. They also pointed out the great inequalities of wealth and income in modern societies. A small minority of the population who privately own economic institutions like banks and factories rule the larger population who are workers. The workers produce goods and services and are paid wages. The Marxists argue that, the minority ruling class exploit the majority of the population by gaining at the workers expense through profit making. The fact that they only endorse nuclear form of family, they argue that, this solved inheritance disputes because there is no doubt about the paternity of the children unlike the monogamous nuclear family. Both functionalist and Marxists see the family as a unit of reproduction and socialisation of children.

The weaknesses associated with the Marxists view are; they ignore the degree of stability in society, instead they concentrate on the idea of power and domination. They also undermine the role of women in the society. Sociologists agree to some extent that the economic system has some influence in the family. However, majority disagree with the Marxist view that the shape of the family is determined by the economic system.

Unlike the Marxists and functionalists, the feminist which is the other sociological theory of the family, criticize the power of men over women. They argue that male dominate the family and that they often control key areas of decision making e.g. moving house. The two main types of feminists which are radical and Marxists have different point of view in regards to unfair treatment of women in the family. The radical feminists see male dominance influence the structure of society and as a result, there is widespread domestic violence of which women suffer most. They promote lesbianism. The Marxists feminists argue that women serve as cushion for the man to release their tension of the day and these inequalities resulted from class variation in capitalist society. The feminists strongly point out that, most of the unpaid domestic work is done by women irrespective of them working full time outside home or not. According to Delphy & Leonard, 1992, Women make the main contribution to family life, men receive the main benefits. They also argue that, in most cases, the wife gives up her work to care for the children and economically depend on her husband.

Feminists base their view from negative perspective and ignore the positive side of family. It is possible that many women are happy to raise their children and do most of the housework. Feminists are criticised by some people as preaching hatred against men and undermining traditional gender roles. In modern societies, there is greater evidence of equality between partners but feminists are criticised for not acknowledging that progress but instead they still remain determined to address remaining inequalities.

Contrary to Murdock’s explanation of family which includes at least one adult of each sex, there is significant number of children who were raised by single parents or same sex parents living in a household. A woman with her dependent children, whether adopted or her own is a unit of family. There are a high number of single-parent families in Britain. According to Government statistics, in 1961, 2 percent of the population lived in households consisting of lone parent with dependent children. Lone parenthood can come about through different circumstances eg divorce, separation and death of spouse. In the case of unmarried partners with children break up, one of them will be a lone parent. There are a high number of divorced or separated couples who still keep in touch for the common interest of their children. They share responsibilities of raising their children; In this case they are described as co-parenting or joint parenting. Neal & Smart, 1977 see it difficult to describe such scenarios as lone-parent families. Some Sociologists suggest using the term lone-parent household rather than lone-parent family, this means, one of the parents does not share the same household with the rest but still contributes to the family. Becoming a lone parent is never the first option for both married couples but due to un avoidable circumstances, many choose to be lone parent than living in an unhappy relationship. According to Hantrais and Letablier(1996), Britain has the second highest rate of lone parenthood after Denmark in Europe.

Another type of household is the Gay and Lesbian households. Contrary to Murdock’s explanation of family, Gay and Lesbian households do not contain adults of both sexes but they can as well care for children from their past heterosexual relationships, adoption or may have been produced using new reproductive technologies. Diversification of family in modern societies was contributed by high divorce rate, decline of marriage rate and increase in the number of stepfamilies.