baca zinn ch01-lecture

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Diversity in Families, Ninth EditionMaxine Baca Zinn • D. Stanley Eitzen • Barbara Wells

Diversity In Families

Chapter OneImages, Ideals, and Myths

NINTH EDITION




Chapter One Overview

• Images and ideals of the American family

• The mythical American family

• A new framework for understanding families




Myths

• The Family as Haven

• The Family as Fulfillment

• The Family as Encumbrance




Images And Ideals

• The Family as Haven:- The family provides a safe-haven from the

threats and dangers of the modern world. Love and protection are themes of this kind of myth.

• The Family as Fulfillment:- The family provides satisfactions unattainable

through other social arrangements. Family is still a haven, but one of fulfillment and meaningful experiences.




Images And Ideals

• The Family as Encumbrance:- A negative image of the family in which

components of family life are viewed as inhibiting self-expression and personal freedom. This view calls for freedom from domestic relationships.




Images and Reality:

• Relations amongst family members are highly idealized and can lead to disappointment, guilt, or anger when reality falls short of expectations.

• Family remains in symbolic opposition to work and business.




Images and Reality:

• Popular cultural images no longer describe family life, if they ever did. - Nevertheless, the general public clings

to romanticized images of the family.

• The image of an insular group consisting of two parents and children is a class and race specific ideal which ignores the reality of family life in parts of society.




Images and Reality:

• Today’s television families are more realistic than in the past, but we are still held to an unrealistic image of family coming to us from every part of society.- When our real families don’t measure up

we can feel ashamed and guilty and even angry that our families are not “ideal”.




The Mythical American Family

• Myth of a Stable and Harmonious Family of the Past:- Families of the past are idealized as being more

stable and happier than today’s families. However, the family has faced adverse problems throughout history.

- The divorce rate may be higher now than in the past, but for a variety of reasons. There has always been child abuse, elder abuse, illegitimate children born and step parents, we are more aware of it now than in the past and it happens because of divorce now whereas in the past it happened for reasons such as death of the mother during childbearing, empty marriages etc…





• Myth of Separate Worlds:- The image of the family as haven emerged out

of the belief that work and family roles were mutually exclusive. However the family is deeply imbedded in social and economic structures.

- The myth that families exist in opposition to the rest of the world is a false dichotomy with contradictory expectations. We want family to protect us from society while at the same time, we expect them to prepare us for society.





• Myth of Separate Worlds Continued:- Families are expected to be free standing, but

in reality they are entangled with other social institutions in trying to meet the needs of the family and society.

- Social changes have weakened the family in some ways, but in some ways the family is stronger.

- Globalization and the changes it produces in the economy, the workplace and the nation-state are among the most important influences in family life today.





• Myth of the Monolithic Family Form:- Alleged ‘typical’ family: 1) a nuclear unit, 2) consisting of a

mother, father and children, 3) has a sexual division of labor with a breadwinner father and full-time wife and mother. In reality this describes only 10% of American Families.

- Dual income earning families and couples living without children both outnumber the “typical” family in today’s society.

- Diversity is the key to families in today’s society. There is no consensus among social agencies, professionals and ordinary people on what currently constitutes a family (Aerts, 1993:7; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2004:449)




Figure 1.1U.S. Household Types, 1970 and 2005

Source: Mc Falls, Joseph A. Jr., Population: A Lively Introduction, 5th ed. Population Bulletin. 62 (1).Washington, DC, Population Reference Bureau, March 2007, p. 18.





• Myth of a Unified Family Experience: - Assumes that all family members have common needs,

interests, and experiences. In reality each member experiences the family differently.

- The gender system and the age system produce different realities for men and women as well as for children and adults. Age and gender often produce different, conflicting interests among family members.

- Gender affects everything we do in life and in our families. Men and women experience marriage and divorce differently.

- If we are to have a full understanding of family, we have to understand it from every perspective.





• Myth of Family Consensus:- Idealized image of the family that assumes families

operate on the principles of harmony and love.- Family life can be contentious due to the following:

Power relationships within the family; competitive aspects of family relations; new patterns of work and leisure; the intense emotional quality of family life

- The emotional quality of life can produce ambivalence because emotional relationships inevitably contain negative as well as positive feelings.

- Families may provide emotional support and nurturance but it may also inspire violence and brutality.





• Family Decline as the Cause of Social Problems:- The suggestion that recent changes in family

patterns is a primary cause of contemporary social problems.

- Violence in the streets, gang violence, teen pregnancy are all blamed on our eroding family values, when in actuality they are about the importance our society places on a two parent household. Anything short of that is morally wrong to some in society.

- Divorce and single parenthood are the consequences of social and economic dislocations rather than the cause.





• Family Decline as the Cause of Social Problems Continued:- Not all social scientists agree that family

structure is what is most important. Many proponents of strong family values overstate the evidence that divorce produces lasting damage to children.

- Much of the national discussion about the harmful social and cultural effects of family breakdown is a thinly veiled attack on single mothers. This is a way of scapegoating individuals who are trying to adapt to a changing society.




A New Framework for Understanding Families

• The Sociological Perspective:- Focuses on the structural sources of

family life.

- There is a close relationship between families and the larger society that shapes them.

- Social inequality is a key determinant of family diversity.




A New Framework for Understanding Families Continued

• In studying the family, we use a macro approach which examines the family in relation to the rest of society, and we use a micro approach to examine the interior dynamics of family life.- Using two levels of analysis gives us a

clearer picture of what families do in society and how society shapes families.




Structural Functionalism

• Views all social institutions (including the family) as supporting the operation of society as a whole. Modernization was thought to produce a certain family formation. This was the standard in the 1950s and 1960s when social scientists were studying the family.

• We have seen a Paradigm shift in the last few decades from a structural functional approach to a structural diversity approach.- This perspective views all families in society as shaped

through their interaction with social structures.




The Structural Diversity Approach

• Includes the following themes:- 1.) Families are socially constructed and

historically changing – Social history shows that families vary by economic, political and cultural conditions, there is no “normal” when it comes to families. Changes have been shaped by historical changes. Stages such as childhood and adolescence have changed in many ways over the last 100 years.





• Themes continued:- 2.) Family diversity is produced by the same

structures that organize society as a whole. The institution of the family is intertwined with other social institutions including the economy, politics, education and religion. Families are also tied to systems of stratification such as gender, class and race. Both social institutions and social stratification systems divide families along structural lines





• Themes continued:- 3.) Families are embedded in and

shaped by interconnected systems of class, race and gender – These structures of inequality work together to place families in particular social locations. Location differences in opportunity structures are crucial for the sociological study of families. Race, class and gender shape families in different ways.





• Themes continued:- 4.) Family diversity is constructed

through social structure as well as the actions of family members – A structural analysis must not lose sight of the human beings who shape their families through their own actions and behaviors. What happens on a daily basis within the family also constructs the family.





• Themes continued:- 5.) Understanding families means

challenging the monolithic ideas that conceive of the family in idealistic ways – Today the field of family studies takes into account diverse standpoints. Several bodies of new scholarship by and about marginalized groups are documenting multiple family realities.

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