A Level Sociology Family Diversity (Postmodernism and family diversity) fully solved 2023/2024

A Level Sociology Family Diversity (Postmodernism and family diversity)A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): As we have seen, modernist perspectives such as functionalism emphasize the dominance of one family type in modern society, namely the nuclear family. - correct answer Modernist approaches take a structural or "top down" view. That is, they see the family as a structure that shapes the behavior of its members so that they perform the functions society requires. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): Individuals have no real choice about the pattern of family life. - correct answer In terms of family patterns, our behavior is orderly, structured and predictable. Most people marry, go on to have children and so on. At most, there may be some limited variety in family life, such as the five types of diversity identified by the Rapoports. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): Postmodernists such as Cheal (1993) go much further than the rapoports. - correct answer Postmodernists start from the view that we no longer live in "modern" society with its predictable, orderly structures such as the nuclear family. In their view, society has entered a new, chaotic, postmodern stage. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): In postmodern society, there is no longer one single, dominant stable family structure such as the nuclear family. - correct answer Instead, family structures have become fragmented into many different types and individuals now have much more choice in their lifestyles, personal relationships and family arrangements. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): Some writers argue that this greater diversity and choice brings with it both advantages and disadvantages: - correct answer It gives individuals greater freedom to plot their own life course, to choose the kind of family and personal relationships that meet their needs. But greater freedom of choice in relationships means a greater risk of instability, since these relationships are more likely to break up. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): Stacey (1998) argues that greater freedom and choice has benefited women. - correct answer It has enabled them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression and to shape their family arrangements to meet their needs. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): Stacey used life history interviews to construct a series of case studies of postmodern families in Silicon Valley, California. - correct answer She found that women rather than men have been the main agents of changes in the family. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): Many of the women she interviewed had rejected the traditional housewife-mother role. - correct answer They had worked, returned to education as adults, improved their job prospects, divorced and re-married. These women had often created new types of family that better suited their needs. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): One of these new family structures Stacey calls the "divorce-extended family", whose members are contracted by divorce rather than marriage. - correct answer The key members are usually female and may include former in-laws, such as mother and daughter in law, or a man's ex wife and his new partner. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): Stacey describes in one of her case studies how Pam Gamma created a divorce-extended family. - correct answer Pam married young, then divorced and cohabited for several years before re-marrying. Her second husband had also been married before. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): By the time the children of Pam's first marriage were in their twenties, she had formed a divorce extended family with Shirley, the woman cohabiting with her first husband. - correct answer They helped each other financially and domestically, for example by exchanging lodgers in response to the changing needs of their households. A Level Sociology: Family Diversity: (Postmodernism and family diversity): Such cases illustrate the idea that postmodern families are diverse and that their shoe depends on the active choices people make about how to live their lives - correct answer For example whether to get divorced, cohabit, come out as gay etc