Understanding the Concept of 'The Family': Institution, Norms, and Social Constructs - Pro, Study notes of Introduction to Sociology

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What is “The Family”?

Lecture 1

SOC 3420

What is Family?

• (^) An institution
• (^) Set of institutionalized arrangements
  • (^) Norms of: reproduction, care, support
    • (^) Guides behaviors and activities
    • (^) Without formal structure or governing principles

Universal

• (^) Yes, but meanings vary greatly.
• (^) Vary: who included, expectations, living arrangements, functions, ideology
• (^) Despite variance continuous part of human experience

Issues in Defining

• (^) Personal experience:
  • (^) Family values
  • (^) Individual meanings
• (^) “Good ole days”

US Census Definition

• (^) “A group of two or more people, related by birth, marriage or adoption and residing together.” - (^) W/o meeting these definitions relegated to status of “household”, merely occupying a dwelling together. - (^) Family is always a hhld, but a hhld is not always a family.

Family vs. Kinship

• (^) Kinship: “Ties between individuals

bound by descent or marriage.”

• (^) Concerned with mating (regulation and organization), classification of relatives, rights, etc.
• (^) Acknowledges social constructs.
  • (^) Biological or social (fictive), extends beyond restrictive definitions

Why are definitions important?

• (^) “Family” is both inclusive and exclusive
  • (^) Who gets to be designated as family?
  • (^) Who is left out?
  • (^) This distinction is not a mundane difference.
    • (^) Power/Definers
    • (^) Benefits:
      • (^) Tangible
      • (^) Non-tangible

Family

• (^) Often used as reference to nuclear or SNAF:
  • (^) Dominant culture’s interpretation of family
    • (^) Politicians, media, moral leaders
      • (^) Ideological code » (^) Used as yard stick to measure all families, including some and othering those that remain. » (^) One parent families, racial-ethnic families, never married, same-sex couples » (^) Social control: how to look and behave » (^) Reproduce dominant family forms

Family v. Non-family

• (^) Expect bonds between cousins to be stronger than two co-workers.
• (^) Culturally enacted.
  • (^) Expect stronger familial bonds so “see” bonds, experienced as natural, unnoticed.
• (^) When considering time/intensity of relationships it may not make sense to premise family over friends/non-family networks.

Time/Intensity/Longevity/Proximity Consider the above in the following relations: Coworkers Neighbor BFF Cousin Spouse Even though time and intensity may be stronger with coworkers and BFF, cousin and spouse are often privileged. Longevity expected in family relations, despite intensity/time. -Not always hold true: Disown, Divorce. Ex. Hansen. Neighbor relations were “thin and brittle”, dependent upon proximity.

Disadvantages

• (^) Social pressure/constraint
• (^) Not so sweet benefit package
  • (^) Schedule, pay

Public/private

• (^) Privately Experienced
• (^) Set of individuals, but also a social unit
  • (^) Simultaneously a Public Institution
  • (^) Appear distinct from social, but impossible to separate
  • (^) All is social
    • (^) Experience/view family through cultural norms and expectations
    • (^) Influenced by history, culture, economics, politics, religion and media

Theories

• (^) Interactionist
  • (^) Constructionist
• (^) Functionalist
• (^) Conflict/Feminist

Structural/Functionalism

• (^) The family is an institution
  • (^) Functions to maintain own needs, as well as needs of society - (^) Control and regulation of reproduction - (^) Socialization - (^) Culturally dependent: individualism, achievement
  • (^) Pitfalls: nuclear family, gender inequality, conflict