sociology family essay

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15.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Learning objective.

• Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories.

Sociological views on today’s families generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced earlier in this book. Let’s review these views, which are summarized in Table 15.1 “Theory Snapshot” .

Table 15.1 Theory Snapshot

Social Functions of the Family

Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. As such, the family performs several important functions.

First, the family is the primary unit for socializing children . As previous chapters indicated, no society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help socialize children from the time they are born.

One of the most important functions of the family is the socialization of children. In most societies the family is the major unit through which socialization occurs.

Colleen Kelly – Kids Playing Monopoly Chicago – CC BY 2.0.

Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, help in times of emotional distress, and other types of intangible support that we all need.

Third, the family helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction . All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate emotional and practical care when they are born. The incest taboo that most societies have, which prohibits sex between certain relatives, helps minimize conflict within the family if sex occurred among its members and to establish social ties among different families and thus among society as a whole.

Fourth, the family provides its members with a social identity . Children are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. As we have seen in earlier chapters, social identity is important for our life chances. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race/ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Beyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and by extension the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.

The Family and Conflict

Conflict theorists agree that the family serves the important functions just listed, but they also point to problems within the family that the functional perspective minimizes or overlooks altogether.

First, the family as a social institution contributes to social inequality in several ways. The social identity it gives to its children does affect their life chances, but it also reinforces a society’s system of stratification. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (see earlier discussion), helping to ensure men’s status at the top of the social hierarchy.

Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, and as the news story that began this chapter tragically illustrated, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.

Families and Social Interaction

Social interactionist perspectives on the family examine how family members and intimate couples interact on a daily basis and arrive at shared understandings of their situations. Studies grounded in social interactionism give us a keen understanding of how and why families operate the way they do.

Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001). A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964) found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred. Such gender differences seem less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976) found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.

Other studies explore the role played by romantic love in courtship and marriage. Romantic love , the feeling of deep emotional and sexual passion for someone, is the basis for many American marriages and dating relationships, but it is actually uncommon in many parts of the contemporary world today and in many of the societies anthropologists and historians have studied. In these societies, marriages are arranged by parents and other kin for economic reasons or to build alliances, and young people are simply expected to marry whoever is chosen for them. This is the situation today in parts of India, Pakistan, and other developing nations and was the norm for much of the Western world until the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Lystra, 1989).

Key Takeaways

• The family ideally serves several functions for society. It socializes children, provides practical and emotional support for its members, regulates sexual reproduction, and provides its members with a social identity.
• Reflecting conflict theory’s emphases, the family may also produce several problems. In particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict.
• Social interactionist understandings of the family emphasize how family members interact on a daily basis. In this regard, several studies find that husbands and wives communicate differently in certain ways that sometimes impede effective communication.

For Your Review

• As you think how best to understand the family, do you favor the views and assumptions of functional theory, conflict theory, or social interactionist theory? Explain your answer.
• Do you think the family continues to serve the function of regulating sexual behavior and sexual reproduction? Why or why not?

Komarovsky, M. (1964). Blue-collar marriage . New York, NY: Random House.

Lystra, K. (1989). Searching the heart: Women, men, and romantic love in nineteenth-century America . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, L. B. (1976). Worlds of pain: Life in the working-class family . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation . New York, NY: Quill.

Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Learning objective.

• Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories.

Sociological views on today’s families generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced earlier in this book. Let’s review these views, which are summarized in Table 15.1 “Theory Snapshot” .

Table 15.1 Theory Snapshot

Social Functions of the Family

Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. As such, the family performs several important functions.

First, the family is the primary unit for socializing children . As previous chapters indicated, no society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help socialize children from the time they are born.

Colleen Kelly – Kids Playing Monopoly Chicago – CC BY 2.0.

Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, help in times of emotional distress, and other types of intangible support that we all need.

Third, the family helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction . All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate emotional and practical care when they are born. The incest taboo that most societies have, which prohibits sex between certain relatives, helps minimize conflict within the family if sex occurred among its members and to establish social ties among different families and thus among society as a whole.

Fourth, the family provides its members with a social identity . Children are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. As we have seen in earlier chapters, social identity is important for our life chances. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race/ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Beyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and by extension the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.

The Family and Conflict

Conflict theorists agree that the family serves the important functions just listed, but they also point to problems within the family that the functional perspective minimizes or overlooks altogether.

First, the family as a social institution contributes to social inequality in several ways. The social identity it gives to its children does affect their life chances, but it also reinforces a society’s system of stratification. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (see earlier discussion), helping to ensure men’s status at the top of the social hierarchy.

Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, and as the news story that began this chapter tragically illustrated, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.

Families and Social Interaction

Social interactionist perspectives on the family examine how family members and intimate couples interact on a daily basis and arrive at shared understandings of their situations. Studies grounded in social interactionism give us a keen understanding of how and why families operate the way they do.

Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001). A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964) found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred. Such gender differences seem less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976) found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.

Other studies explore the role played by romantic love in courtship and marriage. Romantic love , the feeling of deep emotional and sexual passion for someone, is the basis for many American marriages and dating relationships, but it is actually uncommon in many parts of the contemporary world today and in many of the societies anthropologists and historians have studied. In these societies, marriages are arranged by parents and other kin for economic reasons or to build alliances, and young people are simply expected to marry whoever is chosen for them. This is the situation today in parts of India, Pakistan, and other developing nations and was the norm for much of the Western world until the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Lystra, 1989).

Key Takeaways

• The family ideally serves several functions for society. It socializes children, provides practical and emotional support for its members, regulates sexual reproduction, and provides its members with a social identity.
• Reflecting conflict theory’s emphases, the family may also produce several problems. In particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict.
• Social interactionist understandings of the family emphasize how family members interact on a daily basis. In this regard, several studies find that husbands and wives communicate differently in certain ways that sometimes impede effective communication.

For Your Review

Komarovsky, M. (1964). Blue-collar marriage . New York, NY: Random House.

Lystra, K. (1989). Searching the heart: Women, men, and romantic love in nineteenth-century America . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, L. B. (1976). Worlds of pain: Life in the working-class family . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation . New York, NY: Quill.

Introduction to Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Introduction to the Sociology of Family

Special thanks goes to author Katie Nutter-Pridgen for this comprehensive introductory chapter to the Sociology of Family. Her work is published to the OER commons.

• Describe society’s current understanding of family
• Define the sociological imagination and apply it to the study of family
• Identify two organizations that provide scholarly information about families
• Name the cross-cultural functions of the family
• Recognize changes in marriage and family patterns
• Differentiate between lines of decent and residence

Introduction: What is Family?

What is a family? A husband, a wife, and two children—maybe even a pet—has served as the model for the traditional U.S. family for most of the twentieth century. But what about families that deviate from this model, such as a single-parent household or a homosexual couple without children? Should they be considered families as well?

The question of what constitutes a family is a prime area of debate in family sociology, as well as in politics and religion. Social conservatives tend to define the family in terms of structure with each family member filling a certain role (like father, mother, or child). Sociologists, on the other hand, tend to define family more in terms of the manner in which members relate to one another than on a strict configuration of status roles. Here, we’ll define family as a socially recognized group (usually joined by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption) that forms an emotional connection and serves as an economic unit of society. Sociologists identify different types of families based on how one enters into them. A  family of orientation refers to the family into which a person is born. A  family of procreation describes one that is formed through marriage. These distinctions have cultural significance related to issues of lineage.

Drawing on two sociological paradigms, the sociological understanding of what constitutes a family can be explained by symbolic interactionism as well as functionalism. These two theories indicate that families are groups in which participants view themselves as family members and act accordingly. In other words, families are groups in which people come together to form a strong primary group connection and maintain emotional ties to one another over a long period of time. Such families may include groups of close friends or teammates. In addition, the functionalist perspective views families as groups that perform vital roles for society—both internally (for the family itself) and externally (for society as a whole). Families provide for one another’s physical, emotional, and social well-being. Parents care for and socialize children. Later in life, adult children often care for elderly parents. While interactionism helps us understand the subjective experience of belonging to a “family,” functionalism illuminates the many purposes of families and their roles in the maintenance of a balanced society (Parsons and Bales 1956).

How Do We Define Family?

People in the United States as a whole are somewhat divided when it comes to determining what does and what does not constitute a family. In a 2010 survey conducted by professors at the University of Indiana, nearly all participants (99.8 percent) agreed that a husband, wife, and children constitute a family. Ninety-two percent stated that a husband and a wife without children still constitute a family. The numbers drop for less traditional structures: unmarried couples with children (83 percent), unmarried couples without children (39.6 percent), gay male couples with children (64 percent), and gay male couples without children (33 percent) (Powell et al. 2010). This survey revealed that children tend to be the key indicator in establishing “family” status: the percentage of individuals who agreed that unmarried couples and gay couples constitute a family nearly doubled when children were added.

The study also revealed that 60 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that if you consider yourself a family, you are a family (a concept that reinforces an interactionist perspective) (Powell 2010). The government, however, is not so flexible in its definition of “family.” The U.S. Census Bureau defines a family as “a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together” (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). While this structured definition can be used as a means to consistently track family-related patterns over several years, it excludes individuals such as cohabitating unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples. Legality aside, sociologists would argue that the general concept of family is more diverse and less structured than in years past. Society has given more leeway to the design of a family making room for what works for its members (Jayson 2010).

Family is, indeed, a subjective concept, but it is a fairly objective fact that family (whatever one’s concept of it may be) is very important to people in the United States. In a 2010 survey by Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, 76 percent of adults surveyed stated that family is “the most important” element of their life—just one percent said it was “not important” (Pew Research Center 2010). It is also very important to society. President Ronald Regan notably stated, “The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms” (Lee 2009). While the design of the family may have changed in recent years, the fundamentals of emotional closeness and support are still present. Most responders to the Pew survey stated that their family today is at least as close (45 percent) or closer (40 percent) than the family with which they grew up (Pew Research Center 2010).

Alongside the debate surrounding what constitutes a family is the question of what people in the United States believe constitutes a marriage. Many religious and social conservatives believe that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, citing religious scripture and the basics of human reproduction as support. Social liberals and progressives, on the other hand, believe that marriage can exist between two consenting adults—be they a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman—and that it would be discriminatory to deny such a couple the civil, social, and economic benefits of marriage.

A Sociological Perspective on Family: Developing Your Sociological Imagination

Sociological imagination.

According to C. Wright Mills, the average person lives too narrow a life to get a clear and concise understanding of today’s complex social world. Our daily lives are spent among friends and family, at work and at play, and watching TV and surfing the internet. There is no way one person can grasp the big picture from his or her relatively isolated life. There’s just not enough time or capacity to be exposed to the complexities of a society of over 315 million people. There are thousands of communities, millions of interpersonal interactions, billions of internet information sources, and countless trends that transpire without many of us even knowing they exist. What can we do to make sense of it all?

Psychology gave us the understanding of self-esteem, economics gave us the understanding of supply and demand, and physics gave us the Einstein theory of E=MC2. When I learned of the sociological imagination by Mills, I realized that it gives us a framework for understanding our social world that far surpasses any common-sense notion we might derive from our limited social experiences. C. Wright Mills (1916-1962), a contemporary sociologist, suggested that when we study the family we can gain valuable insight by approaching it at two core societal levels. He stated, “neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both” (Mills, C. W. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford Univ. Press, p. ii). Mills identified “Troubles” (challenges on the personal level) and “Issues” (challenges on the larger social level) as key principles for wrapping our minds around many of the hidden social processes that transpire in an almost invisible manner in today’s societies.

Personal troubles  are private problems experienced within the character of the individual and the range of their immediate relation to others. Mills identified the fact that we function in our personal lives as actors and actresses who make choices about our friends, family, groups, work, school, and other issues within our control. We have a degree of influence in the outcome of matters within the personal level. A college student who parties 4 nights out of 7, who rarely attends class, and who never does his homework has a personal trouble that interferes with his odds of success in college. But when 50 percent of all college students in the country never graduate, we call it a larger social issue.

Larger social issues  lie beyond one’s personal control and the range of one’s inner life. These pertain to society’s organization and processes. To better understand larger social issues, we need to define social facts.  Social facts  are social processes rooted in society rather than in the individual. Émile Durkheim (1858-1917, France) studied the “science of social facts” in an effort to identify social correlations and ultimately social laws designed to make sense of how modern societies worked given that they became increasingly diverse and complex (Durkheim, Émile. 1982. The Rules of the Sociological Method. Ed. Steven Lukes; trans. W.D. Halls. New York: Free Press, p. 50-59).

The real power of the Sociological Imagination is found in learning to distinguish between the personal and social levels in our own lives. Once we do that, we can make personal choices that serve us the best, given the larger social forces that we face. We can also better understand the circumstances and experiences of others.

Family Culture

Another key point in studying the family from a sociological perspective is to understand that all families have some cultural traits in common, but all also have their own unique family culture. Culture is the shared values, norms, symbols, language, objects, and way of life that is passed on from one generation to the next. Culture is what we learn from our parents, family, friends, peers, and schools. It is shared, not biologically determined. In other words, you are only born with drives, not culture. Most families in a society have similar family cultural traits. But, when you marry you will learn that the success of your marriage is often based on how well you and your spouse merge your unique family cultures into a new version of a culture that is your own.

Yet, even though family cultures tend to be universal and desirable, we often judge other cultures as being “good, bad, or evil” while we typically judge our own culture as being good. We have to consider our perspective when studying families from different cultures. Are we ethnocentric or cultural relativist?

Ethnocentrism  is the tendency to judge others based on our own experiences. In this perspective, our culture is right, while cultures that differ from our own are wrong. I once visited a beautiful Catholic cathedral, Cathédrale St. Jean in Lyon, France. I fell in love with this beautiful and historic monument to the religious devotion of generations of builders. I learned that it took about 300 years to build, that England’s King Henry the VIII married his Italian bride there, and that a few families had nine generations of builders working on it. I left with a deep sense of appreciation for it all. On the bus back to our hotel, we met two American tourists who reacted very differently to their vacation in France. The gentleman said, “These people will eat anything that crawls under the front porch, they never bathe, they dress funny, and they can’t speak one *#&@ word of English!”

Another more valuable and helpful perspective about differing cultures is the perspective called cultural relativism , which is the tendency to look for the cultural context in which differences in cultures occur. If you’ve eaten a meal with a friend’s family, you have probably noticed a difference in subtle things like the food that is served and how it is prepared. You may have noticed that the friend’s family communicates in ways different from your own. You might also notice that their values of fun and relaxation also vary from your own. To dismiss your friend’s family as being wrong because it isn’t exactly like yours is being closed-minded. Cultural relativists like all the ice-cream flavors, if you will. They respect and appreciate cultural differences even if only from the spectators’ point of view. They tend to be teachable, child-like, and open-minded. They tend to enjoy or learn to enjoy the many varieties of the human experience.

An ethnocentric person thinks on the level of carrot soup: peel carrots, add water, and boil. The cultural relativist thinks on the level of a complex stew: peel and prepare carrots, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, broth, tofu, and 10 secret herbs and spices, and simmer for two hours. The diversity of the human experience is what makes it rich and flavorful.

Family Research

The American Sociological Association ( ASA ) is the largest professional sociology organization in the world. One section of ASA members focuses its studies specifically on the family. Here is an excerpt of that section’s mission statement:

“Many of society’s most pressing problems — teenage childbearing, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, domestic violence, child and elder abuse, divorce — are related to or rooted in the family. The Section on Family was founded to provide a home for sociologists who are interested in exploring these issues in greater depth.” (Retrieved 18 May 2010)

Many family sociologists also belong to the National Council on Family Relations ( NCFR ). This council’s mission statement reads as follows:

“The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) provides an educational forum for family researchers, educators, and practitioners to share in the development and dissemination of knowledge about families and family relationships, establishes professional standards, and works to promote family well-being.” (Retrieved 30 May 2014)

There are other family-related research organizations in the world, but these two rank among the largest and most prestigious organizations in the field of family studies. As with all of sociology and other social sciences, science and scientific rigor are paramount. It is not enough to simply study the family from our narrow personal points of view. We have to reach into the larger social picture and see the hidden social processes that teach us how to inform marriage and family therapy, provide useful and accurate data to governmental and policy-making figures, and provides reliable advice that will help the most people in the most efficient way.

This becomes a scientific endeavor then to study and examine the family with rules of scientific engagement and analysis. Those earning a Ph.D. in a family-related field learn and execute this science with rigor. If researchers make the results of their study public and present them for critical review by other family scientists, then scientific rigor is even stronger and the findings can be afforded more credibility. For example, studies have shown that the leading factor of divorce is not any of the following: sex problems, failures to communicate, money mismanagement, nor even in-law troubles. What is the leading cause of divorce? Would you believe it is marrying too young? Specifically, if you marry at 17, 18, or 19 you are far more likely to divorce than if you wait to marry until your 20s. This was discovered and confirmed over decades of studying who divorced and which factors contributed more to divorce than others (see chapter 12). The cool thing about knowing the risks of marrying as a teen is that you can choose to wait until you are older, more established in your sense of self, and more experienced in knowing your own likes and dislikes.

Cross-Cultural Functions of the Family

What are the functions of families? In studying the family, sociologists have identified some common and nearly universal family functions, meaning that almost all families in all countries and cultures around the world have at least some of these functions in common.

Economic Support

By far, economic support is the most common function of today’s families. When your parents let you raid their pantry, wash your clothes for you, or replenish your checking account, that’s economic support. For another young adult, say in New Guinea, if she captures a wild animal and cooks it on an open fire, that’s also economic support in a different cultural context. I’ve always been amazed at how far family economic cooperation extends. Some families cooperate in businesslike relationships. In Montreal, Quebec, Canada, there is an established pattern of Italian immigrants helping family and friends emigrate from Italy to Canada. They subsidize each other’s travel costs, help each other find employment once in Canada, and even privately fund some mortgages for one another. Each immigrant supported through this system is expected to later support others in the same manner. To partake in this form of economic cooperation is to assume a very businesslike relationship.

Emotional Support

Emotional relationships are also very common, but you must understand there is a tremendous amount of cultural diversity in how intimacy is experienced in various families around the world. Intimacy is the social, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical trust that is mutually shared between family members. Family members share confidences, advice, trust, secrets, and ongoing mutual concern. Many family scientists believe that intimacy in family relationships functions as a strong buffer to the ongoing stresses family members experience outside of the home.

Socialization of Children

Socialization of children is covered in more detail in future modules. For now, keep in mind that children are born with the potential to be raised as humans. Through the process of socialization , children must acquire the tools they need to survive in their culture. In addition to learning the basics about how to feed themselves, children also need older family members or friends to take the time to protect and nurture them into their cultural and societal roles. Today the family is the core of primary socialization  (where our initial socialization takes place, usualy as children). But many other societal institutions contribute to the socialization process, including schools, peer groups, religious establishments, workplaces, and media.

Control of Sexuality and Reproduction

The family has traditionally asserted control over sexuality and reproduction. A few centuries ago many fathers and mothers even selected the spouses for their children (they still do in many countries). Today, U.S. parents want their adult children to select their own spouses. Older family members tend to discourage unwed mothers and encourage pregnancy and childbirth only in marriage or a long-term relationship. Unwed Mothers are mothers who are not legally married at the time of the child’s birth. Being unwed brings up concerns about economic, emotional, social, and other forms of support for the mother that may or may not be available from the father. Many unwed fathers reject their fatherly obligations.

When an unwed mother delivers her baby, it is often the older female family members rather than the birth father who end up providing the functions of support for that child. Most of the live U.S. births each year are to married mothers. Only about 10 percent of teen mothers and 35 percent of all mothers were unwed (retrieved 30 May 2014  SOURCE ). This trend of relatively high unwed birth rates suggests that more and more families have less control over sanctioning childbirth only within marriage. On the other side of the coin, it also shows that people are able to exercise more choice in building their family instead of relying on cultural stereotypes and expectations.

Ascribed Status

Finally, ascribed status is given to children by their families because it is a type of status that is present at birth. With your friends, have you noticed that one or two tend to be informally in charge of the details? You might be the one who calls everyone and makes reservations or buys the tickets for the others. If so, you would have the informal role of “organizer.” Status is a socially defined position, or what you do in a role. There are three types of status considerations:  Ascribed status  is present at birth (race, sex, or class), achieved status  is attained through one’s lifetime and can be positive or negative (college student, movie star, teacher, athlete, or felon), and master status  stands out above our other statuses and can distract others from seeing who we really are.

You were born into your racial, cultural-ethnic, religious and economic statuses. Those shaped to some degree the way you grew up and were socialized. By far in our modern societies, achieved status (which comes as a result of your own efforts) is more important than ascribed status (which you’re born with) for most members of society. However, the degree of achievement you attain often depends heavily on the level of support your family gives to you.

Another consideration about roles is the fact that one single role can place a rather heavy burden on you (e.g., student).  Role strain  is the burden one feels within any given role. And when one role comes into direct conflict with another or other roles, you might experience role conflict.  Role conflict  is the conflict and burdens one feels when the expectations of one role compete with the expectations of another role.

Marriage Patterns

With single parenting and cohabitation (when a couple shares a residence but not a marriage) becoming more acceptable in recent years, people may be less motivated to get married. In a recent survey, 39 percent of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether marriage is becoming obsolete (Pew Research Center 2010). The institution of marriage is likely to continue, but some previous patterns of marriage will become outdated as new patterns emerge. In this context, cohabitation contributes to the phenomenon of people getting married for the first time at a later age than was typical in earlier generations (Glezer 1991). Furthermore, marriage will continue to be delayed as more people place education and career ahead of “settling down.”

One Partner or Many?

People in the United States typically equate marriage with monogamy , when someone is married to only one person at a time. In many countries and cultures around the world, however, having one spouse is not the only form of marriage. In a majority of cultures (78 percent),  polygamy , or being married to more than one person at a time, is accepted (Murdock 1967), with most polygamous societies existing in northern Africa and east Asia (Altman and Ginat 1996). Instances of polygamy are almost exclusively in the form of polygyny. Polygyny refers to a man being married to more than one woman at the same time. The reverse, when a woman is married to more than one man at the same time, is called  polyandry . It is far less common and only occurs in about 1 percent of the world’s cultures (Altman and Ginat 1996). The reasons for the overwhelming prevalence of polygamous societies are varied but they often include issues of population growth, religious ideologies, and social status.

While the majority of societies accept polygyny, the majority of people do not practice it. Often fewer than 10 percent (and no more than 25–35 percent) of men in polygamous cultures have more than one wife; these husbands are often older, wealthy, high-status men (Altman and Ginat 1996). The average plural marriage involves no more than three wives. Negev Bedouin men in Israel, for example, typically have two wives, although it is acceptable to have up to four (Griver 2008). As urbanization increases in these cultures, polygamy is likely to decrease as a result of greater access to mass media, technology, and education (Altman and Ginat 1996).

In the United States, polygamy is considered by most to be socially unacceptable and it is illegal. The act of entering into marriage while still married to another person is referred to as bigamy and is considered a felony in most states. Polygamy in the United States is often associated with those of the Mormon faith, although in 1890 the Mormon Church officially renounced polygamy . Fundamentalist Mormons, such as those in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), on the other hand, still hold tightly to the historic Mormon beliefs and practices and allow polygamy in their sect.

The prevalence of polygamy among Mormons is often overestimated due to sensational media stories such as the Yearning for Zion ranch raid in Texas in 2008 and popular television shows such as HBO’s Big Love and TLC’s  Sister Wives . It is estimated that there are about 37,500 fundamentalist Mormons involved in polygamy in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, but that number has shown a steady decrease in the last 100 years (Useem 2007).

U.S. Muslims, however, are an emerging group with an estimated 20,000 practicing polygamy. Again, polygamy among U.S. Muslims is uncommon and occurs only in approximately 1 percent of the population (Useem 2007). For now polygamy among U.S. Muslims has gone fairly unnoticed by mainstream society, but like fundamentalist Mormons whose practices were off the public’s radar for decades, they may someday find themselves at the center of social debate.

Residency and Lines of Descent

When considering one’s lineage, most people in the United States look to both their father’s and mother’s sides. Both paternal and maternal ancestors are considered part of one’s family. This pattern of tracing kinship is called bilateral descent . Note that  kinship , or one’s traceable ancestry, can be based on blood or marriage or adoption. Sixty percent of societies, mostly modernized nations, follow a bilateral descent pattern. Unilateral descent (the tracing of kinship through one parent only) is practiced in the other 40 percent of the world’s societies, with high concentration in pastoral cultures (O’Neal 2006).

There are three types of unilateral descent: patrilineal , which follows the father’s line only; matrilineal , which follows the mother’s side only; and  ambilineal , which follows either the father’s only or the mother’s side only, depending on the situation. In partrilineal societies, such as those in rural China and India, only males carry on the family surname. This gives males the prestige of permanent family membership while females are seen as only temporary members (Harrell 2001). U.S. society assumes some aspects of partrilineal decent. For instance, most children assume their father’s last name even if the mother retains her birth name.

In matrilineal societies, inheritance and family ties are traced to women. Matrilineal descent is common in Native American societies, notably the Crow and Cherokee tribes. In these societies, children are seen as belonging to the women and, therefore, one’s kinship is traced to one’s mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and so on (Mails 1996). In ambilineal societies, which are most common in Southeast Asian countries, parents may choose to associate their children with the kinship of either the mother or the father. This choice maybe based on the desire to follow stronger or more prestigious kinship lines or on cultural customs such as men following their father’s side and women following their mother’s side (Lambert 2009).

Tracing one’s line of descent to one parent rather than the other can be relevant to the issue of residence. In many cultures, newly married couples move in with, or near to, family members. In a patrilocal residence system it is customary for the wife to live with (or near) her husband’s blood relatives (or family or orientation). Patrilocal systems can be traced back thousands of years. In a DNA analysis of 4,600-year-old bones found in Germany, scientists found indicators of patrilocal living arrangements (Haak et al 2008). Patrilocal residence is thought to be disadvantageous to women because it makes them outsiders in the home and community; it also keeps them disconnected from their own blood relatives. In China, where patrilocal and patrilineal customs are common, the written symbols for maternal grandmother ( wáipá ) are separately translated to mean “outsider” and “women” (Cohen 2011).

Similarly, in matrilocal residence systems, where it is customary for the husband to live with his wife’s blood relatives (or her family of orientation), the husband can feel disconnected and can be labeled as an outsider. The Minangkabau people, a matrilocal society that is indigenous to the highlands of West Sumatra in Indonesia, believe that home is the place of women and they give men little power in issues relating to the home or family (Joseph and Najmabadi 2003). Most societies that use patrilocal and patrilineal systems are patriarchal, but very few societies that use matrilocal and matrilineal systems are matriarchal, as family life is often considered an important part of the culture for women, regardless of their power relative to men.

Currently, most relationships in the United States follow a neolocal residence pattern, where a new couple moves away from their family and establishes a entirely new home.

Sociologists view marriage and families as societal institutions that help create the basic unit of social structure. A sociological perspective on families means appreciating the role of large-scale (macro) social forces (like history and social institutions) and using scientific research to gather information. Family may be defined differently—and practiced differently—in cultures across the world, but there are features that are shared by families, as well.

Key terms found in this reading. You should be able to define all of this important vocabulary.

• achieved status
• Ascribed status
• bilateral descent
• Cohabitation
• Cultural relativism
• Ethnocentrism
• family of orientation
• family of procreation
• Larger social issues
• master status
• Matrilineal
• matrilocal residence
• neolocal residence
• Patrilineal
• patrilocal residence
• Personal troubles
• primary socialization
• Role conflict
• Role strain
•  Social facts
• Socialization
• sociological imagination

Questions for Review

1. What does it mean to look at family from a sociological perspective? In other words, when you use a sociological imagination to examine families, what can you see?

2. Summarize the cross-cultural functions of the family. Which of these functions do you think U.S. society finds most important? Which of these functions to YOU find most important? Why?

3. Using your family of origin, your family of procreation, or another kinship grouping (ie: your chosen family) to complete a ‘fact sheet’ that includes aspects of your family’s structure, authority, marriage norms, residence, and decent. Try to find another (real or imagined) family with traits different from yours. How might the differences on the ‘fact sheet’ contribute to different lifestyles, opportunities, or experiences?

4. Name two organizations that conduct and present useful research about families in the United States.

Altman, Irwin, and Joseph Ginat. 1996. Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Cohen, Philip. 2011. “Chinese: Maternal Grandmothers, Outside Women.” FamilyInequality.com , Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/chinese-maternal-grandmothers-outside-women/ ).

Glezer, Helen. 1991. “Cohabitation.” Family Matters 30:24–27.

Glick, Paul. 1989. “The Family Life Cycle and Social Change.” Family Relations 38(2):123–129.

Griver, Simon. 2008. “One Wife Isn’t Enough … So They Take Two or Three.” The Jewish Chronicle Online , April 24. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/one-wife-isn’t-enough-so-they-take-two-or-three ).

Haak, Wolfgang et al. 2008. “Ancient DNA Reveals Male Diffusion through the Neolithic Mediterranean Route.” Proceedings of the National Association of Sciences , November 17. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://www.pnas.org/content/105/47/18226 ).

Harrell, Stevan. 2001. “Mountain Patterns: The Survival of Nuosu Culture in China.” Journal of American Folklore 114:451.

Jayson, Sharon. 2010. “What Does a ‘Family’ Look Like Nowadays?” USA Today , November 25. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/sex-relationships/marriage/2010-11-18-pew18_ST_N.htm ).

Joseph, Suad, and Afsaneh Najmabadi. 2003. “Kinship and State: Southeast Asia, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific.” Pp. 351–355 in Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Family, Law, and Politics . Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers.

Hammond, Ron, Paul Cheney, and Raewyn Pearsey. 2015.  Sociology of the Family Textbook,  Retrieved May 22, 2020 from http://www.freesociologybooks.com.

Lambert, Bernd. 2009. “Ambilineal Descent Groups in the Northern Gilbert Islands.” American Anthropologist 68(3):641–664.

Lee, Richard. 2009. The American Patriot’s Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America . Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

Mails, Thomas E. 1996. The Cherokee People: The Story of the Cherokees from Earliest Origins to Contemporary Times . New York: Marlowe & Co.

Murdock, George P. 1967. Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary . Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Murphy, Patrick, and William Staples. 1979. “A Modernized Family Life Cycle.” Journal of Consumer Research 6(1):12–22.

Museum of Broadcast Communications. 2010. “Family on Television.” Retrieved January 16, 2012.

O’Neal, Dennis. 2006. “Nature of Kinship.” Palomar College. Retrieved January 16, 2012 ( http://anthro.palomar.edu/kinship/kinship_2.htm ).

Parsons, Talcott, and Robert Bales. 1955. Family Socialization and Interaction Process . London: Routledge.

Pew Research Center. 2010. “The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families.” November 18. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1802/decline-marriage-rise-new-families ).

Powell, Brian, Catherine Bolzendahl, Claudia Geist, and Lala Carr Steelman. 2010. Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans’ Definitions of Family . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Respers France, Lisa. 2010. “The Evolution of the TV Family.” CNN , September 1. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/01/families.on.tv/index.html ).

Ruoff, Jeffrey. 2002. An American Family: A Televised Life . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Strong, B., and C. DeVault. 1992. The Marriage and Family Experience . 5th ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2010. “Current Population Survey (CPS).” Retrieved January 16, 2012 ( http://www.census.gov/population/www/cps/cpsdef.html ).

Useem, Andrea. 2007. “What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Co-Wife.” Slate , July 24. Retrieved January 16, 2012 ( http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2007/07/what_to_expect_when_youre_expecting_a_cowife.html ).

Sociology of Family Copyright © by donnagiuliani is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Table of Contents

Last Updated on May 25, 2023 by Karl Thompson

This is the first of seven* broad topics within the sociology of the family for A-level sociology (*as defined by most A-level text books!)

Perspectives on the family: a summary

Below is a brief summary of the seven main perspectives, click the links for further details!

Being able to critically apply different perspectives is the most important skill you can demonstrate in Sociology. You can also apply the perspectives to many of the other topics within the family, most obviously Marriage and Divorce and Social Policies.

Key concepts, research studies and case studies

Please click here for a post containing brief definitions of many of these key terms.

Possible exam style short answer questions

Please click here for my hub-post on exam advice with links to some of the questions below. 

Outline and briefly explain two positive functions that the nuclear family might perform (10)

Using one example, explain what is meant by the term ‘the stabilisation of adult personalities’ (4)

Using one example explain how the nuclear family’ fits’ industrial society? (4)

Using one example, explain what is meant the phrase ‘the family is a unit of consumption’ (4)

Using one example explain postmodern society has influenced family life in recent years (4)

Possible Essay Questions

Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the contribution of feminist sociologists to an understanding of family roles and relationships

Evaluate the New Right Perspective on the family (20)

Using material from Item 2B and elsewhere, assess the view that, in today’s society, the family is losing its functions (20)

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Theories of the Family and Social Change – AS & A Level Notes

Synopsis: This article provides an overview of the some of the theories of family and social change. It explores the roles of family through different sociological perspectives (Functionalism, Marxism, and Feminism) and explores the changing patterns of family relations and other social institutions such as marriage and divorce.

Introduction

Sociological Perspectives on the Role of the Family

Functionalism

From the functionalist perspective, there are certain functions in a society that a family performs – the family is seen as a unit of society required for its effective functioning and well-being. According to functionalists, the universality of a family unit all over human society is due to its fulfillment of certain basic needs – both for an individual’s survival and the for the society as a whole.

Further, the family also helps individuals meet some of their intrinsic needs, such as food and shelter. Through reproduction, families also provide the economy with human capital and labour power or workforce, therefore playing a key role in the processes of economic production. The economic function of families can also be seen in maintenance of individuals who are not self-sufficient to provide for themselves financially – for example, children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities who might not be able to work. Families also serve as a safety net for individuals. They are often the key sources of support and comfort, both emotionally and socially. Family performs the function of providing safety, stability, love, empathy and fulfilling all other intangible needs of individuals.

In his famous work, The Communist Manifesto, Marx posited that the “bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation” (Marx & Engels, 1848, p. 16). In other words, for Marx and in Marxist understanding, capitalism has reduced the unit of family in society to nothing but a financial transaction, therefore making the family an exploitative mechanism in itself.

Feminist Responses to the Functionalist View of Family

The functionalist perspective receives extensive criticism whenever it is examined from the lens of any critical theory, and feminism is no different. Functionalists assume that the social institution of family proves to be conducive or advantageous to all the member-individuals equally, thereby painting the family in a positive light. The feminist viewpoint is critical of this functionalist notion as the family exists within and as an extension of the intrinsically patriarchal human society and also serves to propagate patriarchal ideals and maintain stereotypical gender roles and unequal gender relations.

Power in a family is unequally distributed between the males and the females. For instance, in a family formed through heterosexual marital relations, it is the father who is considered the ‘head’ of the family and who embodies the most power and authority, while the position of the mother is relegated to a secondary position below the father. The family perpetuates stereotypical gender ideals of women by appointing the household as the primary responsibility of the women. Women are seen akin to machines responsible for reproduction, caregiving – both for the children, the elderly, and all other family members, and performing other household chores which essentially keeps the family running smoothly, all without any remuneration because these work are not considered economically productive. For men, such household tasks come at a secondary position after they have effectively managed their careers and jobs, which are considered a secondary priority for the women. Further, feminists argue that through the socialization function of families that functionalists point out as essential, unequal gender roles are inculcated in children – girls are taught to be more docile, caring, nurturing, and ‘feminine’ whereas boys are taught assertion, dominance, even violence, and to be ‘masculine’. For feminists, therefore, the family essentially serves as a restrictive institution for women which establishes and maintains their subordinate position in society.

Marxist perspective on family views the family as an economic institution that serves the interests of capitalism by reproducing the labor force and maintaining the class system. This perspective argues that the family acts as a unit of consumption and a source of labor, and that it helps to preserve and reinforce class relationships. However, feminist criticism of this perspective argues that it overlooks the role of patriarchal power and the oppression of women within the family structure. While Marxists see the family as serving economic interests, feminists argue that the family also serves as a site of patriarchal domination, where women are oppressed and exploited through their domestic and reproductive labor.

Another important feminist critique of Marxist perspective on family is that it does not adequately address the intersections of race, gender, and class in the exploitation of women within the family. This perspective tends to view the family as a single, homogeneous unit, when in reality, families are diverse and can be shaped by multiple identities and experiences. For example, women of color may experience additional forms of oppression based on their race, in addition to the patriarchal oppression they experience within the family. To address these shortcomings, feminists call for a more intersectional analysis that recognizes the multiple ways in which women are oppressed within the family and society as a whole. This approach acknowledges that patriarchal, racial, and class-based systems of oppression are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, and that they cannot be fully understood in isolation from one another. By taking an intersectional approach, feminists aim to better understand the complex experiences of women within the family and to work towards ending all forms of oppression and exploitation.

Diversity, Social Change, and Family

Different family and household forms

Causes and consequences of changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation, divorce, and separation

A declining marriage rate can also be explained by changes in attitudes towards divorce. Previously relegated to a position of sacrilege by religious institutions due to being a mechanism that brought the ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ bond created through marriage to an end, divorce has become more popular in the past few decades. There are several reasons for this changing pattern of legal separation among married couples, the primary being easier access to divorce procedures and a change in the way society views divorce. Changes in expectations of people regarding desirable qualities in their partners and life, elimination of the sanctity previously accorded to a marriage, more acceptance towards same-sex relationships (and other sexualities) along with an increased opportunity among people to explore themselves more, greater focus towards mental health, etc., are a few reasons why divorce is becoming increasingly popular among people. One important reason can also be the rise of the feminist movement and empowerment of women – with greater financial independence and decrease in the social stigma single women face, it has been easier for women to choose a better life for themselves than stay in a marriage which is suitable for them.

Henslin, J. M. (2017). Marriage and family. In Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach (pp. 460–492). Pearson Education.

Little, W., & McGivern, R. (2014). Chapter 14: Marriage and family. In Introduction to Sociology – 1st Canadian Edition . Pressbooks. https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter14-marriage-and-family/

PTI. (2022, July 15). Proportion of unmarried youth rising, finds govt survey. The Economic Times . https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/proportion-of-unmarried-youth-rising-finds-govt-survey/articleshow/92878668.cms?from=mdr

Soumili is currently pursuing her studies in Social Sciences at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, focusing on core subjects such as Sociology, Psychology, and Economics. She possesses a deep passion for exploring various cultures, traditions, and languages, demonstrating a particular fascination with scholarship related to intersectional feminism and environmentalism, gender and sexuality, as well as clinical psychology and counseling. In addition to her academic pursuits, her interests extend to reading, fine arts, and engaging in volunteer work.

The Sociology of the Family Unit

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Sociology of the family is a subfield of sociology in which researchers examine the family as one of several key social institutions and units of socialization. The sociology of the family is a common component of introductory and pre-university academic curricula because the topic makes for a familiar and illustrative example of patterned social relations and dynamics.

Culture of the Family

To consider the sociology of a family, sociologists utilize family culture as the biggest research tool at their disposal. They do this by examining the existing structures and practices of each family to make sense of the pieces of the larger unit. The sociology of a family is founded on many cultural factors that shape its structures and processes, and sociologists must look at these to understand many complexities of the field.

Factors like gender , age, race , and ethnicity are just some of the factors that influence the relationships, structures, and practices within each family. Shifting demographics also tend to affect family culture and sociologists seek to understand why and how.

Family Relationships

Relationships should be closely investigated to better understand family dynamics. The stages of coupling (courtship, cohabitation, engagement, and marriage ), relationships between spouses through time and parenting practices and beliefs must all be examined.

These elements of relationships can be approached differently, depending on the goals for research. For example, some sociologists have studied how differences in income between partners influences the likelihood of infidelity, while others have examined how education affects the success rate of marriage. Relational nuances contribute substantially to the sociology of the family.

Parenting is especially significant to the sociology of a family unit. The socialization of children, parental roles, single parenting, adoption and foster parenting, and the roles of children based on gender are each handled differently by every family. Sociological research has found that gender stereotypes influence the parenting of children at a very young age and could even manifest in a gender pay gap for children's chores. Sociologists have also studied the effects of homosexuality on parenting to understand the influence of this type of romantic parental relationship on children. Parenting relationships are deeply important to family culture.

Family Structures

Common and alternative family forms are also leveraged to gain insight into the sociology of the family. Many sociologists study the roles and influence of family members within and beyond the nuclear or immediate family, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, godparents, and surrogate kin. Families affected by marital disunions and divorce often have very different dynamics than families with stable, healthy marriages. Singlehood is another structure that is important to study.

Family Systems and Other Institutions

Sociologists who study the family also look at how other institutions and family systems affect each other. The influence of religion on a family is often worth considering and the influence of a family on religion can be equally insightful. Even unreligious and agnostic families often have some spiritual practices. Likewise, sociologists are interested in the way that a family is affected by work, politics, mass media, and the effect of family on each of these.

Overview of Focus Areas

The following gives a brief summary of the technical themes present in the study of the sociology of the family. Understanding each of these concepts makes it possible to understand the sociology of the family.

Demographics

A focus on the demographic makeup of families and how they shift with time or location is a major point of discussion in the sociology of the family. For example, research in 2019 found that millennial adults were most likely to live at home with their parents in smaller cities than any other generation and were also responsible for increasing racial diversity most within their families.

Social Class

How social class affects a family and how the family itself might help or hinder individual social mobility, or movement through systems of society, is another key topic of discussion in beginning sociology. Disparities not only within a family but between impoverished and wealthy families are often very informative.

Social Dynamics

When researching the sociology of the family, it is important to study familial social dynamics and note the various interactions that take place. This includes looking at the relative roles and routines of family members in a larger unit over a long period of time.

Other Topics

Other topics likely to be covered when exploring the sociology of the family include:

• How social and economic changes affect families.
• The diversity of families and households.
• How family beliefs and principles influence choices and behaviors.

Edited by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

Unknown. "American Time Use Survey — 2017 Results." Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 28, 2018, Washington, D.C.

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Sociology The Family

Sociology         The Family

Family structures and how they have developed over time, as the result of the social changes brought about by industrialisation is of particular interest to those studying the sociology of the family. Three key sociological theories in the study of the family are functionalism, Marxism and feminism. It is the intention of this essay to discuss and evaluate these theories using sociological studies which support these schools of thought.

Functionalism describes the family as having its role or function within society. Functionalists normally assume that if a social institution is evident then it must have a role or function. The family is looked at in terms of its functions being beneficial for society and the individual. When a child is born it must be looked after and cared for by, in most societies, the parents of the child. Therefore the function of the family is to look after the next generation and aid them through childhood. The role the family has effectively allows the child to learn many different things for example, language, society, values and norms. Not only does the family support the individual through childhood but for most of adult life. However it is the first few years of life that are important as sociologists argue that this is when an individual’s personality is developed. Although the family has the role of passing on social skills and knowledge in childhood, specialist social institutions outside the family, such as schools and colleges, provide an individual with the necessary skills to co-ordinate their adult roles.

We can say that the family performs important basic functions. The functionalist theory is supported by studies such as Parson’s “Social Structure of the Family” in which Parson’s describes the family becoming increasingly specialized in industrial societies and concentrating on a few important functions. For example in many small societies, caring for the elderly is undertaken by their family but in industrial societies this is becoming the role of specialized agencies such as care homes and hospitals. According to Parson’s the family has two basic and irreducible functions: the primary socialization of children and the stabilization of adult personalities. Primary socialization looks at the socialization during the early years of childhood which takes place within the family. There are two processes involved with primary socialization. These are the internalization of society’s culture and the structuring of the personality. Parson’s states that unless culture is internalized or absorbed and accepted then society would not exist. As without shared norms and values, social life would not be possible.

“However, culture is not simply learned, it is ‘internalized as part of the personality structure’ ”

Harolambos and Holborn (2004: 469).

This is a preview of the whole essay

A childs personality is shaped and moulded to the point where the values of a particular society become a part of them. Parsons saw the family as being important in creating personality and saw no other social institution that could achieve this. Once the personality has been produced it must then be kept stable. This is the second basic function of the family according to Parsons. By having a source of release from the stresses of everyday life and having emotional security this keeps the personality stable. The relationship of marriage and the opportunity for adults to indulge in childish behaviour with their children helps to prevent overwhelming the individual. ASCHNCSociologyBSK/Family(11.8.07:6)

Strengths and weaknesses exist within the functionalist framework. Functionalist theories seem to look at the positive functions of the family and give little look into negative aspects of family life. Parson’s has been said to idealize the image of the family (Harolambos and Holborn 2004:470).  For example, feminists look at the male dominated nature of the traditional family structure and the existence of violence within the private sphere. Functionalists do not tend to consider alternatives to the family. For example an Israeli kibbutz carries out the functions of the family but it does not fit the ‘typical’ or ‘nuclear’ definition of a family. Also there are many varying family types, even in one society, which have differences based on class, religion and ethnicity.

In contrast the Marxist theory looks at the interests of powerful groups determining the way society is organized. The family is seen as part of the structure of society and is one of a number of social institutions which help maintain this structure or the economic system. Marxists state that it is the requirements of the capitalist system that have come to shape the family in industrial societies (ASCHNCSociologyBSK/Family 11.8.07:9).The work of Friedrich Engels “The Origin of the Family” provides a basis for the Marxist view of society. Engels had an evolutionary view of society and attempted to trace its origin through time. Engels combined Marxist theory and his evolutionary approach arguing that as the mode of production changed then so did the family. Engels approved of monogamy and argues that the monogamous nuclear family developed with the emergence of private property or private ownership of the means of production. Engels argued that because of the ownership of private property came about, the state needed to initiate laws in which to solve the problem of inheritance of private property (property was owned by men and if the heirs of men were to inherit property then legitimacy of those heirs needed to be secure). Men therefore needed greater control over women so that there would be no doubt of the paternity of their offspring. The monogamous family provided for this purpose. (Harolambos and Holborn 2004:471)

The Marxist approach to the family also has strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately Engels theory was based upon early unreliable anthropological evidence and his view upon early society no longer seems to stand ground within society today. Although his theory on the origins of sexual equality have led to the Marxist approach of the monogamous family.

The third sociological theory (another conflict theory) is feminism. The feminist perspective focuses on a number of social, cultural and political movements and theories that are concerned with gender inequalities and prejudice against women. Feminism can also be seen to be an ideology based on the equality of both sexes. The feminist approach of the family tends to emphasise the negative effects of the family upon women. Anne Oakley’s studies “The Sociology of Housework” and the “Housewife” depicts the feminist tradition of viewing women in a subordinate social role to men. Anne Oakley looked at conjugal roles within the family and the divide of housework between men and women. Oakley analysed the research of Willmott and Young (1973) in which the researchers asked only one question to a husband, “Do you help with the housework?” If husbands answered ‘yes’ to this question it would include men who do the washing up once a week and men who help on a daily basis. Therefore the results would be unrepresentative of the actual demographics of this population. Anne Oakley’s research was based on in depth interviews with unemployed housewives, giving a difference in the perception of who does the housework between the two sexes. Anne Oakley’s findings brought her to the conclusion that men are not willing to carry out undesirable tasks but are more willing to help in those they enjoy. This had also shown that men were able to easily avoid chores they disliked. For example they would be willing to play with a child but not willing to change a dirty nappy. Oakley suggested that in a society where the women are seen to be the homemaker and these are tasks for her makes it easier for men to opt out of certain tasks within the home.

Conjugal roles are created by views in which people see how they should behave. These are influenced by the media and several agents of socialization and until these views are changed the roles of men and women will still be largely segregated. The running of the household is still separated in to men’s and women’s jobs, although there has been an increase in the willingness of the male to “help” around the home the jobs are still not distributed equally between the sexes which in my opinion is due to the view that men have of what men and women’s roles should be. Also with the increase of women finding better career opportunities, roles are still not divided equally. A woman may work hard and earn a good wage in her career but she still has to carry out the majority of household work.  If the male also works he is more likely help but again the housework is not distributed equally. As women still tend to carry out the majority of household tasks this backs up the theories of feminists who see domestic labour as exploitation. (ASCHNCSociology/Oakley HW/SK 13.8.07:4)

There are strengths and weaknesses to the feminist perspective of the family. When the views on the family are analysed we seem to look at the ‘nuclear’ family, a married couple with children, where the husband provides and the wife stays at home to do the housework, as an ideal type of family structure. This type of family is becoming less common within society and therefore using the nuclear family to look at inequalities between males and females may be discrediting to actual differences between them. Aspects like practices of families of different religions and those of lone-parent families are also not often taken into account; because of this feminists may exaggerate the actual effects of the family on women when not taking other factors into account.

By evaluating and comparing these theories it is clear that they have similarities and differences. All three theories are structural (macro) theories as they see family in relation to the wider social context and describe the family as an institution which helps to maintain established social values. All three theories also show similarities in how the family has been developed over time from pre-industrial societies to modern industrial societies. They explain the roles and relationships the family is involved with throughout the sociology. Another similarity is that all three theories look at the family in terms of it being an ideology or in other words a set of ideas in how things should be. (ASCHNCSociologyBSK/Family 11.8.07:20) The theories are different as functionalism emphasises stability, cohesion and consensus. The family is seen as functional and necessary. In comparison Marxism has shown that the interests of powerful groups have come to influence the way in which the family is structured today and argues that the economical needs of society have brought changes which have influenced how the family as a social institution now works. For example the early capitalist textile production of cloth took place in the home and involved all family members. (Harolambos and Holborn 2004:471). Also the Marxist perspective has shown us how the monogamous nuclear family has come to be through the advent of private property. The feminist perspective of the family is different from the functionalist and Marxist views as it specifically highlights the effects of the family upon women and looks at different parts of family, for example housework to examine issues women have within the family as a social institution. It also tells us that feminism is not gender specific and highlights the issues of both sexes. The feminist perspective shows the effects of male dominance within the home in relation to domestic labour. In conclusion the contributions made by the functionalist, Marxist and feminist perspectives to sociology have brought us to an understanding in how the family works as a social institution today. They highlight the importance of several social factors which have come to create specific conditions within the family. For example the effect of the economy on the family. The studies of the family also shows us the family’s role within society and how it has come to effect both sexes. Important figures in sociology such as Talcott Parsons , Friedrich Engels and Anne Oakley have been important in how we understand the family in contemporary society and in pre-industrial society and the contributions to sociology they have

Reference List Haralambos and Holborn (2004) ASCHNCSociologyBSK/Family 11.8.07 ASCHNCSociology/Oakley HW/SK 13.8.07

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14.1 What Is Marriage? What Is a Family?

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Describe society’s current understanding of family
• Recognize changes in marriage and family patterns
• Differentiate between lines of descent and residence

Marriage and family are key structures in many societies. Many of us learn from a young age that finding and joining the right person is a key to happiness and security. We’re told that children need two parents. Many of the tax laws, medical laws, retirement benefit laws, and banking and loan processes seem to favor or assume marriage. Should those assumptions be changed? Is marriage still the foundation of the family and our society?

In 1960, 66 percent of households in America were headed by a married couple. That meant that most children grew up in such households, as did their friends and extended families. Marriage could certainly be seen as the foundation of the culture. By 2010, that number of households headed by married couples had dropped to 45 percent (Luscombe 2014). The approximately 20 percent drop is more than just a statistic; it has significant practical effects. It means that nearly every child in most parts of America is either in or is close to a family that is not headed by a married couple. It means that teachers and counselors and even people who meet children in a restaurant can’t assume they live with two married parents. Some view this decline as a problem with outcomes related to values, crime, financial strength, and mental health. Sociologists may study that viewpoint to determine if it is actually true.

What is marriage? Not even sociologists are able to agree on a single meaning. For our purposes, we’ll define marriage as a legally recognized social contract between two people, traditionally based on a sexual relationship and implying a permanence of the union. In practicing cultural relativism, we should also consider variations, such as whether a legal union is required, whether more than two people can be involved, or whether the marriage is a religious one or a civil one.

Sociologists are interested in the relationship between the institution of marriage and the institution of family because, historically, marriages are what create a family, and families are the most basic social unit upon which society is built. Both marriage and family create status roles that are sanctioned by society.

The question of what constitutes a family may be an even more difficult one to answer; it’s a prime area of debate in family sociology, as well as in politics and religion. Social conservatives tend to define the family in terms of structure with each family member filling a certain role (like father, mother, or child). Sociologists, on the other hand, tend to define family more in terms of the manner in which members relate to one another than on a strict configuration of status roles. Here, we’ll define family as a socially recognized group (usually joined by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption) that forms an emotional connection and serves as an economic unit of society. Sociologists identify different types of families based on how one enters into them. A family of orientation refers to the family into which a person is born. A family of procreation describes one that is formed through marriage. These distinctions have cultural significance related to issues of lineage.

Drawing on two sociological paradigms, the sociological understanding of what constitutes a family can be explained by symbolic interactionism as well as functionalism. These two theories indicate that families are groups in which participants view themselves as family members and act accordingly. In other words, families are groups in which people come together to form a strong primary group connection and maintain emotional ties to one another over a long period of time. Such families may include groups of close friends or teammates. In addition, the functionalist perspective views families as groups that perform vital roles for society—both internally (for the family itself) and externally (for society as a whole). Families provide for one another’s physical, emotional, and social well-being. Parents care for and socialize children. Later in life, adult children often care for elderly parents. While interactionism helps us understand the subjective experience of belonging to a “family,” functionalism illuminates the many purposes of families and their roles in the maintenance of a balanced society (Parsons and Bales 1956). We will go into more detail about how these theories apply to family in the following pages.

Challenges Families Face

People in the United States as a whole are somewhat divided when it comes to determining what does and what does not constitute a family. In a 2010 survey conducted by professors at the University of Indiana, nearly all participants (99.8 percent) agreed that a husband, wife, and children constitute a family. Ninety-two percent stated that a husband and a wife without children still constitute a family. The numbers drop for less traditional structures: unmarried couples with children (83 percent), unmarried couples without children (39.6 percent), gay male couples with children (64 percent), and gay male couples without children (33 percent) (Powell et al. 2010). This survey revealed that children tend to be the key indicator in establishing “family” status: the percentage of individuals who agreed that unmarried couples and gay couples constitute a family nearly doubled when children were added.

The study also revealed that 60 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that if you consider yourself a family, you are a family (a concept that reinforces an interactionist perspective) (Powell 2010). The government, however, is not so flexible in its definition of “family.” The U.S. Census Bureau defines a family as “a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together” (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). While this structured definition can be used as a means to consistently track family-related patterns over several years, it excludes individuals such as cohabitating unmarried couples. Legality aside, sociologists would argue that the general concept of family is more diverse and less structured than in years past. Society has given more leeway to the design of a family making room for what works for its members (Jayson 2010).

Family is, indeed, a subjective concept, but it is a fairly objective fact that family (whatever one’s concept of it may be) is very important to people in the United States. In a 2010 survey by Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, 76 percent of adults surveyed stated that family is “the most important” element of their life—just one percent said it was “not important” (Pew Research Center 2010). It is also very important to society. President Ronald Reagan notably stated, “The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms” (Lee 2009). While the design of the family may have changed in recent years, the fundamentals of emotional closeness and support are still present. Most responders to the Pew survey stated that their family today is at least as close (45 percent) or closer (40 percent) than the family with which they grew up (Pew Research Center 2010).

As you may have seen in the chapter on Aging and the Elderly, different generations have varying living situations and views on aging. The same goes for living situations with family. The Pew Research Center analyzed living situation of 40-year-olds from different generations. At that age, Millennials indicated that 45 percent of them were not living in a family of their own. In contrast, when Gen Xers and Baby Boomers were about 40 years old (around 2003 and 1987, respectively), an average of 33 percent of them lived outside of a family (Barroso 2020). The dynamic of nearly a 50-50 split between family/non-family for Millennials is very different from a two-third/one third split of Boomers and Gen X.

The data also show that women are having children later in life and that men are much less likely to live in a household with their own children. In 2019, 32 percent of Millennial men were living in a household with their children, compared to 41 percent of Gen X men in 2003 and 44 percent of Boomer men in 1987 (Barroso 2020). Again, the significant drop off in parenting roles likely has an impact on attitudes toward family.

Alongside the debate surrounding what constitutes a family is the question of what people in the United States believe constitutes a marriage. Many religious and social conservatives believe that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, citing religious scripture and the basics of human reproduction as support. Social liberals and progressives, on the other hand, believe that marriage can exist between two consenting adults—be they a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman—and that it would be discriminatory to deny such a couple the civil, social, and economic benefits of marriage.

Marriage Patterns

With single parenting and cohabitation (when a couple shares a residence but not a marriage) becoming more acceptable in recent years, people may be less motivated to get married. In a recent survey, 39 percent of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether marriage is becoming obsolete (Pew Research Center 2010). The institution of marriage is likely to continue, but some previous patterns of marriage will become outdated as new patterns emerge. In this context, cohabitation contributes to the phenomenon of people getting married for the first time at a later age than was typical in earlier generations (Glezer 1991). Furthermore, marriage will continue to be delayed as more people place education and career ahead of “settling down.”

One Partner or Many?

People in the United States typically equate marriage with monogamy , when someone is married to only one person at a time. In many countries and cultures around the world, however, having one spouse is not the only form of accepted marriage, even if it is the most common. Polygamy , or being married to more than one person at a time, is accepted to varying degrees around the world, with most polygamous societies existing in northern Africa and east Asia (OECD 2019). Instances of polygamy are almost exclusively in the form of a man being married to more than one woman at the same time, rather than a woman being married to more than one man (Altman and Ginat 1996).

While the majority of societies accept polygamy, the majority of people do not practice it. Even in the regions where it is most common, only an average of 11 percent of the population lives in arrangements that include more than one spouse (Kramer 2020). In these relationships, the husbands are often older, wealthy, high-status men (Altman and Ginat 1996). The average plural marriage involves no more than three wives. Negev Bedouin men in Israel, for example, typically have two wives, although it is acceptable to have up to four (Griver 2008). As urbanization increases in these cultures, polygamy is likely to decrease as a result of greater access to mass media, technology, and education (Altman and Ginat 1996).

In the United States, polygamy is illegal. A recent Gallup poll showed that 21 percent of people believe polygamy is morally acceptable, which is a major increase since earlier versions of the same poll. But the poll also found that polygamy was among the least acceptable behaviors considered in the study; for example, polygamy was far less acceptable than consensual sex between teenagers, though it was more acceptable than a married person having an affair (Brenan 2020). The act of entering into marriage while still married to another person is referred to as bigamy and is considered a felony in most states.

Residency and Lines of Descent

When considering one’s lineage, most people in the United States look to both their father’s and mother’s sides. Both paternal and maternal ancestors are considered part of one’s family. This pattern of tracing kinship is called bilateral descent . Note that kinship , or one’s traceable ancestry, can be based on blood or marriage or adoption. Sixty percent of societies, mostly modernized nations, follow a bilateral descent pattern. Unilateral descent (the tracing of kinship through one parent only) is practiced in the other 40 percent of the world’s societies, with high concentration in pastoral cultures (O’Neal 2006).

There are three types of unilateral descent: patrilineal , which follows the father’s line only; matrilineal , which follows the mother’s side only; and ambilineal , which follows either the father’s only or the mother’s side only, depending on the situation. In patrilineal societies, such as those in rural China and India, only males carry on the family surname. This gives males the prestige of permanent family membership while females are seen as only temporary members (Harrell 2001). U.S. society assumes some aspects of patrilineal decent. For instance, most children assume their father’s last name even if the mother retains her birth name.

In matrilineal societies, inheritance and family ties are traced to women. Matrilineal descent is common in Native American societies, notably the Crow and Cherokee tribes. In these societies, children are seen as belonging to the women and, therefore, one’s kinship is traced to one’s mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and so on (Mails 1996). In ambilineal societies, which are most common in Southeast Asian countries, parents may choose to associate their children with the kinship of either the mother or the father. This choice may be based on the desire to follow stronger or more prestigious kinship lines or on cultural customs such as men following their father’s side and women following their mother’s side (Lambert 2009).

Tracing one’s line of descent to one parent rather than the other can be relevant to the issue of residence. In many cultures, newly married couples move in with, or near to, family members. In a patrilocal residence system it is customary for the wife to live with (or near) her husband’s blood relatives (or family of orientation). Patrilocal systems can be traced back thousands of years. In a DNA analysis of 4,600-year-old bones found in Germany, scientists found indicators of patrilocal living arrangements (Haak et al 2008). Patrilocal residence is thought to be disadvantageous to women because it makes them outsiders in the home and community; it also keeps them disconnected from their own blood relatives. In China, where patrilocal and patrilineal customs are common, the written symbols for maternal grandmother ( wáipá ) are separately translated to mean “outsider” and “women” (Cohen 2011).

Similarly, in matrilocal residence systems, where it is customary for the husband to live with his wife’s blood relatives (or her family of orientation), the husband can feel disconnected and can be labeled as an outsider. The Minangkabau people, a matrilocal society that is indigenous to the highlands of West Sumatra in Indonesia, believe that home is the place of women and they give men little power in issues relating to the home or family (Joseph and Najmabadi 2003). Most societies that use patrilocal and patrilineal systems are patriarchal, but very few societies that use matrilocal and matrilineal systems are matriarchal, as family life is often considered an important part of the culture for women, regardless of their power relative to men.

Stages of Family Life

As we’ve established, the concept of family has changed greatly in recent decades. Historically, it was often thought that many families evolved through a series of predictable stages. Developmental or “stage” theories used to play a prominent role in family sociology (Strong and DeVault 1992). Today, however, these models have been criticized for their linear and conventional assumptions as well as for their failure to capture the diversity of family forms. While reviewing some of these once-popular theories, it is important to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

The set of predictable steps and patterns families experience over time is referred to as the family life cycle . One of the first designs of the family life cycle was developed by Paul Glick in 1955. In Glick’s original design, he asserted that most people will grow up, establish families, rear and launch their children, experience an “empty nest” period, and come to the end of their lives. This cycle will then continue with each subsequent generation (Glick 1989). Glick’s colleague, Evelyn Duvall, elaborated on the family life cycle by developing these classic stages of family (Strong and DeVault 1992):

The family life cycle was used to explain the different processes that occur in families over time. Sociologists view each stage as having its own structure with different challenges, achievements, and accomplishments that transition the family from one stage to the next. For example, the problems and challenges that a family experiences in Stage 1 as a married couple with no children are likely much different than those experienced in Stage 5 as a married couple with teenagers. The success of a family can be measured by how well they adapt to these challenges and transition into each stage. While sociologists use the family life cycle to study the dynamics of family over time, consumer and marketing researchers have used it to determine what goods and services families need as they progress through each stage (Murphy and Staples 1979).

As early “stage” theories have been criticized for generalizing family life and not accounting for differences in gender, ethnicity, culture, and lifestyle, less rigid models of the family life cycle have been developed. One example is the family life course , which recognizes the events that occur in the lives of families but views them as parting terms of a fluid course rather than in consecutive stages (Strong and DeVault 1992). This type of model accounts for changes in family development, such as the fact that in today’s society, childbearing does not always occur with marriage. It also sheds light on other shifts in the way family life is practiced. Society’s modern understanding of family rejects rigid “stage” theories and is more accepting of new, fluid models.

Sociology in the Real World

The evolution of television families.

Whether you grew up watching the Huxtables, the Simpsons, the Kardashians, or the Johnsons, most of the drama or comedy you saw involved the relationships, tensions, challenges, and sometimes ridiculousness of family life. You may have also seen a great deal of change. The 1960s was the height of the suburban U.S. nuclear family on television with shows such as The Donna Reed Show and Father Knows Best . While some shows of this era portrayed single parents ( My Three Sons and Bonanza , for instance), the single status almost always resulted from being widowed—not divorced or unwed.

Although family dynamics in real U.S. homes were changing, the expectations for families portrayed on television were not. The United States’ first reality show, An American Family aired on PBS in 1973. The show chronicled Bill and Pat Loud and their children. During the series, the oldest son, Lance, announced to the family that he was gay, and at the series’ conclusion, Bill and Pat decided to divorce. Although the Loud’s union was among the 30 percent of marriages that ended in divorce in 1973, the family was featured on the cover of the March 12 issue of Newsweek with the title “The Broken Family” (Ruoff 2002).

Less traditional family structures in sitcoms gained popularity in the 1980s with shows such as Diff’rent Strokes (a widowed man with two adopted African American sons) and One Day at a Time (a divorced woman with two teenage daughters). Still, traditional families such as those in Family Ties and The Cosby Show dominated the ratings. The late 1980s and the 1990s saw the introduction of the dysfunctional family. Shows such as Roseanne , Married with Children , and The Simpsons portrayed traditional nuclear families, but in a much less flattering light than those from the 1960s did (Museum of Broadcast Communications 2011).

In the early 2000s, the nontraditional family has become somewhat of a tradition in television. While many situation comedies focus on single men and women without children, those that do portray families often stray from the classic structure: they include unmarried and divorced parents, adopted children, gay or lesbian couples, and multigenerational households.

In 2009, ABC emphasized the changes in family dynamics with their choice of title for Modern Family . The show follows an extended family—which is a household that includes at least one parent and child as well as other relatives like grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins—that consists of a divorced and remarried father with one stepchild and his biological adult children, one of whom is in a traditional two-parent household and the other who is a gay man in a committed relationship raising an adopted daughter. Black-ish , which portrays an extended family of African Americans, has at many times dealt with the issue implied by its name: That sometimes what it means to be Black can bring issues of interpretation conflict, especially across generations. For example, the children of the central family have shown interest in “blending in” with their White friends, which brings negative reactions from their grandparents.

Other shows, such as Shameless , interweave family diversity with complex and painful issues such as addiction. The series has a large cast of characters representing different groups, and central to the series are the roles of children, rather than parents, as family leaders. “The families on shows like this one aren’t as idealistic, but they remain relatable,” states television critic Maureen Ryan. “The most successful shows, comedies especially, have families that you can look at and see parts of your family in them” (Respers France 2010).

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Sociology of Family Research Paper Topics

Sociology of family is the area devoted to the study of family as an institution central to social life. The basic assumptions of the area include the universality of family, the inevitable variation of family forms, and the necessity of family for integrating individuals into social worlds. Family sociology is generally concerned with the formation, maintenance, growth, and dissolution of kinship ties and is commonly expressed in research on courtship and marriage, childrearing, marital adjustment, and divorce. These areas of research expanded in the twentieth century to encompass an endless diversity of topics related to  gender , sexuality, intimacy, affection, and anything that can be considered to be family related.

70 Sociology of Family Research Paper Topics

• American families
• Child custody and child support
• Cohabitation
• Conjugal roles and social networks
• Couples living apart together
• Divisions of household labor
• Dual earner couples
• Earner-carer model
• Families and childhood disabilities
• Family and community
• Family and household structure
• Family and population
• Family and religion
• Family conflict
• Family demography
• Family diversity
• Family migration
• Family planning
• Family planning, abortion, and reproductive health
• Family policy in Western societies
• Family size
• Family structure
• Family structure and child outcomes
• Family theory
• Family therapy
• Family violence
• History of family
• Men’s involvement in family
• Filial responsibility
• Grandparenthood
• Immigrant families
• Inequalities in marriage
• Infidelity and marital affairs
• Intermarriage
• Intimate union formation and dissolution
• Kinship systems and family types
• Later life marriage
• Lesbian and gay families
• Life course and family
• Lone parent families
• Love and commitment
• Marital adjustment
• Marital power/resource theory
• Marital quality
• Marriage and divorce rates
• Marriage, sex, and childbirth
• Maternalism
• Money management in families
• Non-resident parents
• Parental roles
• Same sex marriage/civil unions
• Sibling relationships during old age
• Sibling ties
• Stepfamilies
• Stepfathering
• Stepmothering
• Youth/adolescence

A recognizable, modern sociology of family emerged from several different family studies efforts of the nineteenth century. Early anthropologists speculated that family was a necessary step from savagery to civilization in human evolution. Concentrating on marital regulation of sexual encounters, and debating matriarchy versus patriarchy as the first enduring family forms, these explanations framed family studies in terms of kinship and defined comprehensive categories of family relations. In consideration of endogamy, exogamy, polygamy, polyandry, and monogamy, these efforts also fostered discussion of the best or most evolved family forms, with most commentators settling on patriarchy and monogamy as the high points of family evolution.

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Nineteenth century sociologists such as Herbert Spencer and William Sumner adopted evolutionary views of family and made use of anthropological terms, but discussions of best family types gave way to considering the customs, conventions, and traditions of family life. The evolutionary view of family pushed sociology toward the pragmatic vision of the family as adaptable to surrounding social conditions. And sociology’s emphases on populations, societies, and the institutions embedded within them allowed the observation that American and European families were rapidly changing in response to the challenges of modern society.

Family and Household Structure

The family system of the United States is often characterized as consisting of nuclear-family households—that is, households consisting of no more than the parent(s) and dependent children, if any (Lee 1999). This is certainly true of the great majority of family households. In fact, there has never been a point in American history in which extended-family households predominated statistically (Ruggles 1994a; Seward 1978). In 1997 only about 4.1 percent of all families in the United States were ”related subfamilies”—a married couple or single parent with children living with a related householder (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998, Table 69). However, an analysis of census data from 1970 through 1990 by Glick and colleagues (1997) showed that the percentage of all households containing nonnuclear kin increased from 9.9 percent in 1980 to 12.2 percent in 1990, reversing a nearly century-long pattern of decline. In 1910 about 20 percent of the households of white families and 24 percent of those of black families contained nonnuclear kin (Ruggles 1994b). Apparently we have seen a long-term decline in the prevalence of extended-family households, very slightly counterbalanced by an increase in the 1980s; what happened in the 1990s is not yet known.

Not all of the of the households that do not contain extended families consist of the stereotypical nuclear family of two parents and their dependent children, however. There is great diversity among American families and households, and this diversity is increasing. Even over the relatively brief period from 1960 to 1998, substantial changes are apparent. The average size of both households and families decreased dramatically from 1960 to 1990, although they have both been stable in the 1990s. Many fewer households contain families and married couples in the late 1990s than in 1960, while the proportion of nonfamily households has more than doubled and the proportion of single-person households has nearly doubled. Female householders have increased substantially as a proportion of both all households and all families.

There are many factors responsible for these changes. To understand them, changes in marriage rates and age at marriage, divorce and remarriage rates, rates of nonmarital cohabitation, the departure of children from their parents’ homes, and the predilection of unmarried persons to live alone will be briefly examined. Each of these factors has affected family and household structure.

Marriage rates have declined considerably since 1960. This is not readily apparent from the ”crude” marriage rate (the number of marriages per 1,000 population) because this rate does not take the marital status or age distributions of the population into account. The crude marriage rate was artificially low in 1960 because, as a result of the postwar baby boom, a large proportion of the population consisted of children too young to marry. The rates per 1,000 unmarried women (for both ages 15 and over and ages 15 to 44) show the frequency of occurrence of marriage for persons exposed to the risk of marriage, and here there is clear evidence of decline. Some of this, however, is attributable to increases in the median age at first marriage, which declined throughout the twentieth century until about 1960, but has been increasing rapidly since 1970. As age at marriage increases, more and more people temporarily remain unmarried each year, thus driving the marriage rate down. The best evidence (Oppenheimer et al. 1997) indicates that a major cause of delayed marriage is the deteriorating economic circumstances of young men since the 1970s. Perhaps the improving economy of the later 1990s will eventually produce some change in this trend.

The rising divorce rate has also contributed greatly to the declining proportion of married-couple households and the increases in female householders and single-person households. The crude divorce rate rose from 2.2 per 1,000 in 1960 to 5.2 in 1980 (reaching peaks of 5.3 in both 1979 and 1981) but has declined modestly since then to 4.3 in 1996. The rate of divorce per 1,000 married women 15 and older followed a similar pattern, reaching a high of 22.6 in 1980 and declining to 19.5 in 1996. Some of this decline is illusory, because the large baby boom cohorts are aging out of the most divorce-prone years (Martin and Bumpass 1989). However, although the divorce rate remains high, it has not been increasing since 1980.

Sweeney (1997) notes that, for recent cohorts, about half of all marriages have involved at least one previously married partner. However, rates of remarriage after divorce have been declining steadily. Annual remarriage rates were 204.5 per 1,000 divorced men and 123.3 per 1,000 divorced women in 1970; by 1990 they had decreased to 105.9 for men and 76.2 for women (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998).

Decreasing marriage and remarriage rates and increasing divorce rates have combined to produce increases in single-person and single-parent households. This trend is mitigated, however, by the increasing prevalence of nonmarital heterosexual cohabitation. Evidence from the National Survey of Families and Households (Bumpass 1994; Waite 1995) shows that, in the early 1990s, nearly one-quarter of all unmarried adults aged 25 to 29 were cohabiting. This percentage declines with age, but still exceeded 20 percent for those in their late thirties. The National Survey of Family Growth found that, in 1995, more than 41 percent of all women aged 15 to 44 had cohabited or were currently cohabiting (National Center for Health Statistics 1997). Of course many of the women who had not cohabited at the time of the survey will do so in the future. The best estimates suggest that more than half of all couples who marry now cohabit prior to marriage; further, about 60 percent of all cohabiting unions eventuate in marriage (Bumpass 1994; Bumpass et al. 1991).

To a considerable extent the increase in cohabitation has offset the decline in marriage. This is particularly the case among blacks, for whom the decrease in marriage rates over the past several decades has been much more precipitous than it has been for whites (Raley 1996; Waite 1995). Although cohabiting unions are less stable than marriages, ignoring cohabitation results in substantial underestimates of the prevalence of heterosexual unions in the United States.

In spite of the increase in cohabitation, changes in marriage and divorce behavior have had substantial effects on household and family structure in the United States over the past four decades. Fewer people are marrying, those who marry are doing so at later ages, more married people are divorcing, and fewer divorced people are remarrying. This means that Americans are living in smaller households than they did in 1960, but there are more of them. The rate of growth in the number of households has substantially exceeded the rate of growth in the number of families. From 1960 to 1998 the number of households increased by more than 94 percent, while the increase in the number of families was only about 57 percent. Over the same time period, the total population of the United States increased by just under 50 percent (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998). Our population, therefore, is distributed in a larger number of smaller households than was the case in 1960.

One cause of the decline in household size is decreased fertility. The fertility rate (number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44) was 118.0 in 1960; by 1997 it had decreased to 65.0, although most of the decrease occurred prior to 1980 (National Center for Health Statistics 1999). The trend toward smaller households and families is reflective to some extent of decreases in the number of children per family.

A larger cause of the decrease in household size, however, is the proliferation of single-person households. Single-person households consist of three types of persons: the never-married, who are primarily young adults; the divorced and separated without coresident children, who are primarily young and middle-aged; and the widowed who live alone, who are primarily elderly. Each of these types has increased, but for somewhat different reasons. Each must therefore be examined separately.

Average ages at marriage have risen markedly since 1960, and the percentage of young adults who have never married has increased proportionately (Waite 1995). This has been accompanied by a long-term decline (since prior to World War II) in the average age of leaving the parental home (Goldscheider 1997). Prior to 1970 most of this decline was driven by decreasing ages at marriage, but since then it has reflected an increasing gap between leaving the family of orientation and beginning the family of procreation. More young adults are living independently of both parents and spouses. Some of them are cohabiting, of course, but increasing numbers are residing in either single-person or other nonfamily households (Goldscheider 1997; White 1994).

Since about 1970 there has been some increase in the proportion of young adults who live with their parents. This marks the reversal of a long-term decline in age at leaving home (White 1994). This is, in part, a by-product of increasing age at marriage. However, decreases in exits from parental homes to marriage have been largely offset by increases in exits to independent living, so this recent increase in young adults living with parents is actually very small (Goldscheider 1997). On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that the process of launching children has become much more complex than in previous years. Goldscheider (1997) also shows that the proportion of young adults who return to their parents’ homes after an initial exit has more than doubled from the 1930s to the 1990s; increases have been particularly striking since the early 1960s. This is a response, in part, to the rising divorce rate, but also an indication that it has gotten increasingly difficult for young adults, particularly young men, to make a living (Oppenheimer et al. 1997). Nonetheless, the proportion of young adults living independently of both parents and spouses continues to increase, contributing to the prevalence of nonfamily households.

The increase in divorce and decrease in remarriage have contributed to the rise in single-person households, as formerly married persons establish their own residences and, increasingly, maintain them for longer periods of time. They have also contributed to the rise in family households that do not contain married couples. Families headed by females (without husband present) increased from 10 percent of all families in 1960 to nearly 18 percent in 1998. Families headed by males (without wife present) also increased, from 2.8 percent of all families in 1960 to 5.5 percent in 1998. Among families with children under 18 in 1998, 20 percent were headed by women without spouses and 5 percent by men without spouses (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998, Table 70).

As a consequence of these changes plus the rise in nonmarital childbearing, the proportion of children under 18 living with both parents decreased from 88 percent in 1960 to 68 percent in 1997 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998, Table 84). In addition, there is a large race difference in the living arrangements of children. Only 35 percent of black children lived with both parents in 1997, compared to 75 percent of white children. More than half (52 percent) of all black children lived with their mothers only, as did 18 percent of white children. Further, 8 percent of black children and 3 percent of white children lived with neither parent. Some of these children are living with, and being cared for by, their grandparents (Pebley and Rudkin 1999). This raises the issue of the living arrangements of older persons.

A somewhat longer perspective is necessary to observe changes in the living arrangements of older persons. Ruggles (1994a) has shown that, in 1880, nearly 65 percent of all elderly whites and more than 57 percent of all elderly nonwhites lived with a child. Since about 18 percent of all older persons had no living children, Ruggles estimates that about 78 percent of whites and 70 percent of nonwhites who had children lived with a child. By 1980 the percentages living with children had decreased to 16 for whites and 29 for nonwhites. There is little evidence of major changes in the proportion living with children since 1980. Further, Ruggles (1996) found that only 6 percent of all elderly women and 3 percent of elderly men lived alone in 1880. By 1997 the percentages living alone had increased to 41 for women and 17 for men (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998, Table 50). The growth of single-person households among older people has been particularly rapid since about 1940.

Two sets of factors appear to be primarily responsible for the ”migration” of older people from typically sharing households with their children in the late nineteenth century to living alone (or with their spouses only) in the late twentieth century. First, the family life cycle was quite different in 1900 than today. People married a bit later (and markedly later than in the 1960s and early 1970s), had more children, and had children later in life. Consequently, a significant proportion of people in their sixties had unmarried children who simply had not yet left the parental home. Ruggles (1994a) shows that, in 1880, about 32 percent of all unmarried elders and 57 percent of the married resided with a never-married child. Of course many of these children may have remained home precisely in order to care for their aging parents. Unmarried elders were more likely to live with married children.

Second, economic factors played a major role. Social Security did not exist until 1940. In 1900, 85 percent of all men between the ages of 65 and 69 were in the labor force, as were 49 percent of all men 85 and over (Smith 1979). However, this option was much less available to women; the comparable proportions in the labor force were 12 and 6 percent. Many older persons, particularly women, had no means of support other than their children. Rates of coresidence of aging parents with their adult children have decreased as the prosperity of the elderly has increased; more can now afford to live independently.

However, Ruggles (1994a) found that wealthier older people were more likely to share a household with children than were poorer elders in the nineteenth century, and the majority of multigenerational families lived in households headed by the elderly parent(s). These facts suggest that adult children benefited economically from coresidence and that the possibility of inheriting a farm or business from aging parents may have motivated many adults to coreside with parents. Today coresidence is more common among poorer than wealthier people (Ruggles 1994a, 1996).

As of March 1998, 41 percent of all women aged 65 and older lived alone, as did 17 percent of all older men. These percentages increase to 53 percent and 22 percent for women and men, respectively, for those age 75 and over (U.S. Bureau of the Census Web site). The reason for this large gender difference, of course, is the difference in marital status between men and women. Among men 75 and over, nearly two-thirds are married and less than one-quarter are widowed; among women these figures are almost exactly reversed. According to 1980 census data, the proportion of all elderly persons living alone increases from 22 percent among those 65 to 69 to more than 41 percent in the 85-89 age category, then drops to 33 percent for those 90 and over (Coward et al. 1989), after which the modal category becomes living with children. Older persons who have lost their spouses through death are clearly exhibiting a tendency to live alone as long as possible, which for many of them extends into the latest years of life.

Older persons now constitute nearly 13 percent of the total population of the United States, compared to about 4 percent in 1900. With so many of them maintaining their own residences, either with their spouses or alone following widowhood, their contribution to the proliferation of small and single-person households is substantial.

If so many older persons lived with their children in the late nineteenth century, why were there so few extended-family households? Ruggles (1994a) shows that just under 20 percent of the households of whites contained extended families in both 1880 and 1900; this compares to less than 7 percent in 1980, but it was still very much a minority statistical pattern. There were three primary reasons. First, because of more limited life expectancies and relatively high fertility rates, there were proportionally few older people in the population, so where they lived made less difference to the nation’s household structure. Second, as noted above, many older persons lived with an unmarried child; unless other relatives are present, this arrangement constitutes a nuclear-family household regardless of the age of the parent. Third, while these cohorts of older persons typically had many children (an average of 5.4 per woman in 1880), these children did not live together as adults, so older persons could live with only one; their remaining children lived in nuclear families. Ruggles (1994a) estimates that more than 70 percent of all elders who could have lived with a child actually did so in 1880; the comparable percentage in 1980 was 16. In comparison to the last century, older persons today are much less likely to live with children and much more likely to live alone, contributing to the proliferation of small and single-person households.

To this point, factors that have contributed to long-term decreases in household and family size, and consequent increases in the numbers of households and families, have been elucidated. There is evidence of changes in these directions in all age segments of the population. These trends do not mean, however, that more complex family households are not part of the contemporary American experience.

As noted at the beginning of this entry, the United States has never been characterized by a statistical predominance of extended-family households, although it appears that the preference was for intergenerational coresidence in the form of stem families (families containing an older parent or parents and one of their married children) until the early years of the twentieth century. But extended family households do occur today. At any single point in time, they constitute less than 10 percent of all households (Glick et al. 1997; Ruggles 1994a). However, a dynamic perspective presents a somewhat different picture.

Beck and Beck (1989) analyzed the household compositions of a large sample of middle-aged women who were followed from 1969 to 1984. The presence of nonnuclear kin in their households was noted for specific years and was also calculated for the entire fifteen-year period. In 1984, when these women were between the ages of 47 and 61, only 8 percent of white married women and 20 percent of white unmarried women lived in households containing their parents, grandchildren, or other nonnuclear kin. The proportions were higher for comparable black women: 27 percent of the married and 34 percent of the unmarried. However, over the fifteen years covered by the survey, about one-third of all white women and fully two-thirds of the black women lived in a household containing extended kin at some point.

These and other data (Ruggles 1994a, 1994b) show that today blacks are more likely than whites to live in extended-family households. This was not the case until about 1940. What has happened is that the decrease in intergenerational coresidence since the late nineteenth century has been much steeper for whites than for blacks. This is probably connected to much lower rates of marriage among blacks; living in multigenerational households is much more common for unmarried than for married persons. It may also reflect the shift in the distribution of extended families from the wealthier to the poorer segments of the economic structure. Rather than serving as a means of ensuring inheritance and keeping wealth in the family, extended family living today is more likely to be motivated by a need to share and conserve resources.

The family and household structure of the United States has changed dramatically over the past century, in spite of the fact that our family system has remained nuclear in at least the statistical sense. More and more Americans are living in single-person households before, between, and after marriages. More are living in single-parent households. Collectively Americans are spending smaller proportions of their lives in families of any description than they did in the past (Watkins et al. 1987). However, they are more likely than ever before to live in nonmarital heterosexual unions, and many of them live in households that contain nonnuclear kin at some point in their lives. In fact, there is evidence (Glick et al. 1997) that the proportion of extended-family households increased between 1980 and 1990.

The growth of small and single-person households is in many ways indicative of the fact that more Americans can now afford to remain unmarried, leave unhappy marriages, and maintain their own residences in later life. The proliferation of households represents the proliferation of choices. The consequences of these choices remain to be seen.

References:

• Beck, Rubye W., and Scott H. Beck 1989 ‘‘The Incidence of Extended Households Among Middle-Aged Black and White Women: Estimates from a 15-Year Panel Study.’’ Journal of Family Issues 10:147–168.
• Bumpass, Larry L. 1994. ‘‘The Declining Significance of Marriage: Changing Family Life in the United States.’’ Paper presented at the Potsdam International Conference, ‘‘Changing Families and Childhood.’’
• Bumpass, Larry L., James A. Sweet, and Andrew J. Cherlin 1991 ‘‘The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage.’’ Journal of Marriage and the Family 53:913–927.
• Coward, Raymond T., Stephen Cutler, and Frederick Schmidt 1989 ‘‘Differences in the Household Composition of Elders by Age, Gender, and Area of Residence.’’ The Gerontologist 29:814–821.
• Glick, Jennifer E., Frank D. Bean, and Jennifer V. W. Van Hook 1997 ‘‘Immigration and Changing Patterns of Extended Family Household Structure in the United States: 1970–1990.’’ Journal of Marriage and the Family 59:177–191.
• Goldscheider, Frances 1997 ‘‘Recent Changes in U.S. Young Adult Living Arrangements in Comparative Perspective.’’ Journal of Family Issues 18:708–724.
• Lee, Gary R. 1999 ‘‘Comparative Perspectives.’’ In Marvin B. Sussman, Suzanne K. Steinmetz, and Gary W. Peterson, eds., Handbook of Marriage and the Family, 2nd ed. New York: Plenum.
• Martin, Teresa Castro, and Larry L. Bumpass 1989 ‘‘Recent Trends in Marital Disruption.’’ Demography 26:37–51.
• National Center for Health Statistics 1997 ‘‘Fertility, Family Planning, and Women’s Health: New Data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth.’’ Vital and Health Statistics, Series 23, No. 19. Hyattsville, Md.: Public Health Service.
• National Center for Health Statistics 1999 ‘‘Births: Final Data for 1997.’’ National Vital Statistics Reports, series 47, no. 18. Hyattsville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics.
• Oppenheimer, Valerie K., Matthijs Kalmijn, and Nelson Lim 1997 ‘‘Men’s Career Development and Marriage Timing During a Period of Rising Inequality.’’ Demography 34:311–330.
• Pebley, Anne R., and Laura L. Rudkin 1999 ‘‘Grandparents Caring for Grandchildren: What Do We Know?’’ Journal of Family Issues 20:218–242.
• Raley, R. Kelly 1996 ‘‘A Shortage of Marriageable Men? A Note on the Role of Cohabitation in Black–White Differences in Marriage Rates.’’ American Sociological Review 61:973–983.
• Ruggles, Steven 1994a ‘‘The Transformation of American Family Structure.’’ American Historical Review 99:103–128.
• Ruggles, Steven 1994b ‘‘The Origins of African American Family Structure.’’ American Sociological Review 59:136–151.
• Ruggles, Steven 1996 ‘‘Living Arrangements of the Elderly in the United States.’’ In Tamara K. Hareven, ed., Aging and Intergenerational Relations: Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Berlin, Germany: de Gruyter.
• Seward, Rudy R. 1978 The American Family: A Demographic History. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
• Smith, Daniel Scott 1979 ‘‘Life Course, Norms, and the Family System of Older Americans in 1900.’’ Journal of Family History 4:285–298.
• Sweeney, Megan M. 1997 ‘‘Remarriage of Women and Men After Divorce.’’ Journal of Family Issues 18:479–502.
• S. Bureau of the Census 1998 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 118th ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
• S. Bureau of the Census 1998 ‘‘Marital Status and Living Arrangements: March 1998.’’ https://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/p20-514.pdf
• Waite, Linda J. 1995 ‘‘Does Marriage Matter?’’ Demography 32:483–507.
• Watkins, Susan Cotts, Jane A. Menken, and Jon Bongaarts 1987 ‘‘Demographic Foundations of Family Change.’’ American Sociological Review 52:346–358.
• White, Lynn 1994 ‘‘Coresidence and Leaving Home: Young Adults and Their Parents.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 20:81–102.

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The Sociology of Family: An Introduction to the Perspectives

The sociology of family can be conceived as the application of various sociological perspectives to the institution of family as an agent of socialization. Each family is a basic unit of the society it exists within, and each, fundamentally begins the socialization process. Families innocently teach both the ways life and modes of human society to a children, and they carry those lessons with them through life.

Family members are the earliest individuals a child has contact with, making them hugely influential in the socialization process. Later on, however, children go on to learn other perspectives on life and society through other social institutions, such as education.

Theoretical Perspectives on the Sociology of Family

Several sociological perspectives are used to empirically discuss family as a subject matter within the discipline of sociology. Of the many perspectives, this article will cover the following:

A Functionalist Perspective on Family

The functionalist perspective clearly insists that family, through its diverse functions, is a principal contributor to social stability. Family, it posits, functions to maintain stability, while also fulfilling the needs of its members. As a part of reproduction, the act of begetting offspring has created the continuity of human existence. Reproduction is one example of the social function of the family. Another example is protection.

A Conflict Theory Perspective on Family 

The conflict theory perspective in sociology lays emphasis on political inequality, social inequality or material inequality both between and within families as a social groups. This perspective is another macro-level analysis of society which draws attention to class conflict. German philosopher Karl Marx is regarded as the founder of this sociological perspective.

An Symbolic Interactionist Perspective on Family

The symbolic interactionist perspective is a micro-level theory interested in the interaction of individuals. Applied to the family, those interactions of interest can occur between cohabiting partners or married couples, both with or without children.

Symbolic interactionists study the relationships that exists between family members and how they socially communicate, both verbally and nonverbally. This perspective helps explains how children interact with parents, or how two parental figures relate with each other, and the end results of such interactions.

Feminist perspectives on the Sociology of Family

Feminists view the family as a social unit that creates constraints and limitations for women. As a perspective often traced back to conflict theory, its main concern is with inequality based on gender and a disapproval of male domination.

Marxist Feminists on Family

Marxist Feminists believe capitalism is the main cause of women’s oppression. A marxist feminist solution to patriarchy is to tackle capitalism and embrace communism. Also, this category advocates that females should be adequately paid for work done outside of the formal economic, such as care work and household labor. 

Radical Feminists on Family

Radical Feminists argue that men are essentially the cause of women’s oppression and exploitation. These idealists note that despite unpaid and paid labors, men benefit from women’s earnings. It argues that women do paid work, domestic work and emotional work, while taking responsibility of the children too. Radical feminists advocate for abolishing the nuclear family as the source of women’s oppression. In lieu, they support more non-traditional family structures such as separatism, lesbianism and celibacy. 

Liberal Feminists on Family

Final thoughts on the sociology of family.

Family is, indeed not a formal institution but a social institution. Regardless of its forms—polygamy, monogamy or other, a family of orientation or family of procreation—as a social institution it can be better understood within several spheres of social theories, as discussed above.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy Teaching the Sociology of Family: Is it Radical?

Aduwo ayodele, you might also like, what is urban sociology history, concepts, and examples, crossing lines and code switching: a sociological take, exploring the meaning, scope, and importance of applied sociology, 10 popular concepts in sociology: understanding the foundations of human society, analysis of sociology jobs in the tech industry, analysis of sociology jobs in the healthcare industry.

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Families & Households: AQA A Level Sociology Topic Essays

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This set of 10 essays demonstrates how to write a top mark band response to a range of questions for the Families & Households topic, covering the entire specification.

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Sociology Research Topics Making Projects Professional

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Are you enthusiastic about investigating sociological issues and phenomena but every time you are assigned to such an assignment you cannot decide on appropriate sociology topics to research? The list of diverse sociology research topics can address the problem of a constant lack of creative ideas. Boost your inspiration!

Sociological Research Strategies

The choice of sociology research topics proves puzzling since it has a few intricacies you should prioritize. Primarily, it is your passion for a selected subject. Another aspect is your competence. It implies that the chosen sociology research paper topics should meet your academic goals. 

The last nuance, which is critical, but learners routinely omit, is a sociological strategy required for investigating selected sociology research topics. Competent top-rated coursework writing service authors distinguish a few major sociological methods that can be employed for revealing sociology research topics thoroughly.

• Information analysis. 

While most inexperienced authors use this method as only one in their studies, it is one of the numerous strategies you can take to deep dive into sociology research paper topics.

• Case studies.

Investigating particular cases independently or gleaning ideas from earlier prepared studies is always a viable option.

Concluding on an in-depth representative sample is more sensible than gathering merely theoretical data without practical evidence.

• Interviews.

Savvy specialists are familiar with insights into research topics for sociology and share their expertise in such conversations.

When you have structured details about sociological research methods and are aware of how to employ them in practice, your chances of conveying the main message and revealing sociology topics decently are doubled. Authors familiar with basic methodological techniques no longer face a lack of creative ideas and data while completing research projects. 

Interesting Sociology Research Topics

Sociology topics to research comprise questions related to the interaction between diverse cultures, social institutions and their place in people’s socialization, personal identity determination, educational systems and their effect on the economic development of the states, political systems, place of technology in social classes stratification, behavior patterns, and many other sociology research topics you can investigate in your sociology research paper . 

Sociology research topics are routinely categorized by aspects they cover within sociology as a science. However, ten interesting sociology research topics on various sociological niches are gathered below to highlight the most pressing issues in the field. Look through the sociology research topics list and glean ideas for custom titles.

• Problems of social mobility and migration processes in the world.
• Sociological interpretation of social self-organization.
• Social stratification measurement criteria.
• Social status: Psychological pressure and biases.
• National mentality influences a country’s brand.
• Traditions and laws are regulators of human behavior.
• Interaction of social and personal values.
• Specificity of social conflicts between individuals of different social statuses.
• Social innovation: Breakthrough in self-acceptance and personal awareness.
• Social process management: Major stakeholders.

Easy sociology research topics

If it is your primary experience of investigating sociology research topics, what about clear-cut but interesting sociology research topics? The straightforward titles do not imply worse results but guarantee sufficient theoretical and empirical information on such subjects. Check a few simple sociology research topics below.

• The social knowledge structure. 
• The role of sociology in modern society formation.
• Empirical sociology in the structure of social knowledge.
• Staging of the formation and development of sociology as an independent science.
• Positive and negative aspects of marginalization.
• Social structure transformation trends.
• Socialization’s role in the person’s awareness of their identity.
• Decision management specifics in interpersonal relationships.
• Models of economic behavior in countries with a high development level.
• Effective methods for fostering employee motivation.

Sociology research topics for high school students

Finding good sociology research topics is not as challenging as opting for ideas that meet the project instructions. If your task description gives you freedom of choice, you can look through the following sociology research topics list and opt for a perfect match to your interests. 

• Peer pressure influences decision-making.
• Teens’ sociological data processing methodology. 
• Factors of young people’s opinion formation. 
• Teen’s social adaptation after emigration. 
• Symbols of national culture.
• Social space interpretation’s effect on youth’s worldviews.
• Social efficiency of law in less developed countries.
• Manifestations of social maturity in practice.
• Ageism is an obstacle to adaptation in the workplace.
• Social capital in economic relations.

Sociology research topics on mental health

Anxiety, mental disorders, lack of sleep, and energy are critical social issues of the current technological generation. If you opt for such sociology research topics and dive deeper into their investigation, chances of completing a project at a decent score are high. Become familiar with good topics for sociology research paper relevant to a huge audience.

• Impact of social inequalities on mental health. 
• Background anxiety is a consequence of excess dopamine. 
• Practices of spreading awareness of the healthy sleep cruciality.
• Can health have a valuable dimension in modern society?
• Mainstreaming the mental disorders issue among young people at the state level.
• Impact of mental health care institutes’ policies on citizens’ decision-making patterns. 
• Dependence of the population’s psychological development level on the state’s social development.
• Stress resistance is the basis of professional health.
• Mental health is an economic and social good.
• The practice of including mental health services in work insurance plans.

Sociology research topics on family

The gap between young people’s and adults’ perceptions of family is growing so the research focus shifts to innovative sociology marriage and family research topics. As sociology is a multifaceted field, the variety of family sociology topics is immense.

• Family roles: Individual’s self-determination. 
• Intergenerational ties and gaps in worldview. 
• Key causes of marriage breakdown: Psychological incompatibilities of partners. 
• Proven practices of building mutual understanding on issues of raising children as a couple. 
• Globalizing systems of marital relations. 
• Psychological trauma at an early age affects the future success of an individual.
• The family’s function of emotional satisfaction.
• Living conditions and psycho-emotional state and their relationship with the mental health of family members.
• Legal protection of low-income families creates development opportunities.
• Leadership in the family: Cultural features.

Sociology research topics on gender

Gender identity, equality, rights, inclusion, and related sociology research topics are currently on the agenda. What research topics for sociology on gender do seem more eye-catching?

• Feminine and masculine traits: Foundations of gender profiling.
• Gender socialization in the family.
• The impact of feminism on worldview. 
• The place of parental instincts in gender determination. 
• Gender social norms: Information pressure.
• Reducing the social distance between people of different genders.
• Women in geopolitics in retrospect.
• Gender identification and stereotypes.
• Staging of the gender formation: Biological and sociological categories.
• Gender polarization issue.

Medical sociology research topics

Healthcare involves many stakeholders and takes a critical place in social life. Interactions between individuals, social phenomena in the medical field, and other sociology topics for research paper are appropriate for in-depth analysis. The issues of society’s perception of chronic and infectious diseases are pressing and may be effective options for sociology topics to research. It is up to you what aspect of healthcare sociology research topics to focus on.

• Pandemics have social phenomena peculiarities.
• Medical assistance and medical care differences in practice.
• Methods of sociological analysis of health care problems.
• The medical care availability’s influence on the mood of the population.
• Social causes and consequences of diseases.
• Spreading the ideas of preventive medicine in society.
• Accelerated trend of infections and viruses spread due to globalization.
• The impact of the aging of the nation on losses in the country’s health care sector.
• Ethics in medical practice.
• The specifics of medical statistics analytics.

Political sociology research paper topics

The scope of political science covers great sociology research topics worthy of discussion in your research project. A vast bulk of surveys, interviews, polls, and statistics are available on the internet and may be potential information material for in-depth study of topics for sociology research paper. Figure out intriguing sociology research topics about politics from the below examples.

• Forecasting the political situation in conditions of instability. 
• Political manipulation: Techniques of taking an advantageous position in the international arena. 
• Social pressure on political elites in retrospect. 
• Political sociology through the prism of philosophy. 
• Distribution of power in society. 
• The political consciousness phenomenon.
• A striking difference between democratic and totalitarian political institutions. 
• Political opposition: Strong advantages and pitfalls.
• Political privileges boost social stratification.
• Political parties’ evolution determines a country’s involved potential.

The diversity of sociology research topics rarely leads to a lack of creativity in opting for appropriate sociology topics for investigation. The above list of sociology research paper topics proves the facts. Nevertheless, learners face the wide selection of sociology research topics as a puzzling challenge having no idea how to finally decide what are genuinely good sociology research topics. Look through expert research topics in sociology and craft authentic social studies topics focusing on your needs and practical experience. Properly formulated sociology research topics are half of success!

Compare and Contrast Essay Outline Example

How to write movie titles in essays, 100 good research topics.

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In “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” Feeding Your Family Comes First

It begins with not one, not two, but three prologues, each spiked with a different kind of horror. First, a scrolling text suggesting that this all really happened to the “five youths” we are about to meet, even though it didn’t. Second, glimpses of cadavers in oily Caravaggio light, culminating in a long, sociopathically calm shot of the ruined graveyard where they’ve been dug up. Third, footage of solar flares, combined with reports of nationwide disaster. What the sun has to do with anything on Earth will never be explained, though it seems significant that when we meet our five fatted calves they’re talking about astrology. (Seventies horror movies, from “Jaws” to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” were full of chirpy, vaguely countercultural types.) We also learn that they are driving to the little town of Newt, Texas, out of concern for ancestors who were buried in that graveyard, because what could be more virtuous than caring for your family, in death as in life?

Being such a decent bunch, the group stops to pick up a hitchhiker, who turns out to be twangy-voiced, obsessed with meat, and deranged. His family once worked at the local slaughterhouse, but their jobs have been automated into oblivion, leaving them with nothing but nostalgia for their old day-to-day. To turn a cow into food, he says, “they take the head and they boil it, except for the tongue, and scrape all the flesh away from the bone. They use everything—they don’t throw nothing away!” Explaining all this to a van full of permed, bell-bottomed city kids seems to excite him almost as much as it disgusts them, and it may disgust you, too. But in the world of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”—which may, even fifty years on , just be the world—killing and looking out for your family are so closely tied as to be almost the same.

Famous horror directors tend to get pestered for origin stories. Being polite people, for the most part, they usually oblige, which is how I know that an elementary-school bully named Fred Kruger beat up Wes Craven, the six-year-old Alfred Hitchcock was sent to an actual jail cell, and little Brian De Palma used to visit the hospital where his father worked to giggle at the gore. When Tobe Hooper died, in 2017, having directed several worthy films but only one “Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” various juicy-sounding bits made the rounds. Growing up in Austin, he met a doctor who mentioned a Halloween mask made from human flesh. An aunt in Wisconsin told him about Ed Gein, the killer who converted corpses into lampshades. Years later, he was on the U.T. Austin campus the day an ex-marine named Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the clock tower and murdered passersby with a hunting rifle. He was rattled by the image of his mother having a lung removed.

The implication of these kinds of stories, or, at least, of the media’s demand for them, is that horror requires some deep psychological wound, that you’d choose to spend your life scaring people only because something scary happened to you first. There may be a dribble of truth in this, though nobody seems to demand similar explanations from, say, action directors. It’s especially ironic in Hooper’s case; few modern horror films are less interested in psychological backstory than “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” We’re told next to nothing about the victims’ relationships with one another, or their lives back home. No childhood trauma lurks behind the killers the way it does for Norman Bates or Michael Myers. If any -ology helps us understand these people, it’s sociology: assembly-line slaughter makes the underclasses deranged; technology makes them irrelevant; unemployment makes them hungry. Scarcity underlies almost everything the characters do, whether they’re killers or not—like that other stagflation classic, “Mad Max,” this is a story about precious fuel and the lengths some people will go to get it. The youths discover a household of cannibals because their van is low on gas and they hear a generator somewhere. Later, one of the cannibals takes care to switch off all the lights in his store—power bills being enough to “drive a man outta business”—before going off to feast on the alternative energy source he and his family have discovered.

Scarcity was an apt theme for Hooper’s film, which cost something like a hundred and forty thousand dollars to make, and features a community theatre’s worth of small-timers and first-timers. The shoot was probably illegal a dozen times over: the narrator who reads the scrolling prologue text had to be paid in weed, and the art director, unable to afford prop animal carcasses, drove around picking up actual skulls and roadkill. A graduate student named Gunnar Hansen was cast as the masked, lumbering Leatherface, the cannibal family’s designated executioner. Since there was no money for a backup costume, he wore the same clothes seven days a week, for up to sixteen hours a day, while the weather hovered around a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. I get the sense, listening to interviews with some of the actors, that they consider the rest of their lives a vacation.

The film’s first half hour strides curtly forward, doling out the who and the where and the what, with occasional twitches of lyricism in between—a dead armadillo by the side of the highway, say, or a long, mournful shot of the van as it drives off to certain doom. You can’t learn about how this film was made without gagging, but you can’t watch the results without marvelling: not one frame or line or sound effect goes to waste, since Hooper couldn’t afford any, and this gives everything a tautness that you sense somewhere in the gut before the mind catches up. Throwaway lines about barbecue and cuddly animals and planets in retrograde are, naturally, not throwaway at all, a point the script makes comically obvious when Franklin, who uses a wheelchair, asks his sister Sally, the only youth who’ll survive, if she believes in astrology. She replies, “Everything means something, I guess.”

Decades of bickering about the violence in the film—some viewers insisting that it’s too bloody, others that most of the blood is in our imaginations—has distracted from its visual beauty. This seems important to stress, since beauty, along with sociology, is what Hooper gives us in lieu of direct answers. When one of the youths walks through the cannibals’ house, she finds a room full of remains, some animal and some human. It’s an astonishing sequence, only two minutes long but seemingly an hour, scored to the clucks of a caged chicken, and stuffed with closeups of skulls intercut with the woman’s face so as to suggest one about to become the other. What’s astonishing isn’t only the lushness that Hooper finds in this deathly place. (I’ve thought too much about a certain shot of sunlight shining through a translucent bone.) It’s the fact that we seem to be looking at decorations —that, somewhere between killing and eating, these people have spared the time to make their house look prettier, for no other reason than to make their lives a little less miserable.

So far, I haven’t really talked about why “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is frightening, but in scenes like this it becomes not only frightening but haunting. The usual things we’re invited to take comfort in during a horror movie—the stability of the household, the loved ones who live there—are here just another piece of the horror. Who, we might ask, is this film’s true villain? Does it even have one? Leatherface does most of the killing but takes no obvious pleasure in it, and in any case Hooper instructed Hansen to play the character as mentally disabled. The hitchhiker does seem to relish the cannibal life style, but notice, too, how well his attentiveness to his grandfather, who seems unable to walk, contrasts with the way the city kids tease Franklin for a similar condition. Toward the end of the film, it is the hitchhiker who drags Sally to his elder and invites him to kill her with a hammer, apparently because the frail old man enjoys this kind of thing and could use some excitement. In how many other films is the most frightening act one of the few compassionate ones?

Extinction seems likely for these cannibals, but, a half century later, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” has sired a vast brood of art-house and grind-house films. Stanley Kubrick, a superfan, must have been thinking of Hooper when he conceived of those moments in “The Shining” when the ghosts drink and dance. I sense more Hooper, by way of Kubrick, in Jordan Peele’s three films so far, with their knack for scattering little clues about racism and surveillance and consumerist apathy as though the monsters onscreen are representatives of much looser, deadlier forces. I also can’t help but wonder if Cormac McCarthy, decades away from “No Country for Old Men,” was paying attention when the hitchhiker explains that the slaughterhouse has switched to killing cattle with an air gun. (De Palma, at some pre-“Body Double” date, certainly was.)

On the grind-house end of things, Hooper is still celebrated, when he’s not being reviled, for inspiring an avalanche of hardware-store butchery and final girls. The second trope is a curious one, because in nearly every later film to make use of it the female lead is rewarded for being clever or kind or virginal or brave or, if she’s Jamie Lee Curtis in “Halloween,” all of the above. There is no obvious reason that Hooper chooses Sally to survive the carnage—her brother is the far more likable, fleshed-out character. She gets lucky, and that is all. When the cannibals are preparing to kill her, there is an unforgettable closeup of her wide, bloodshot eye, which is both the window to the soul and just another potential source of energy, like gasoline, itself just the remainder of million-year-old plants, which get their energy from the big, yellow fireball in the sky. Everything, in this grim astrology, means something, and that something is fuel. And, at that point, there is nothing to do but run, very fast, to the highway and hope that the pickup truck on the horizon brakes for hitchhikers. ♦

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