For anyone studying Families and Households in Sociology at A or AS Level, this document provides a thorough companion to your classes and textbook. Lesson 8/8 focuses on Postmodernism and Social Policy: views, reasons, case studies and evaluations, as well as all key terms and sociologists specifi...
Key Terms:
Key features of postmodern society:
Postmodernism- there are more cultures
and lifestyles, new technology has - Diversity.
dissolved old boundaries of time and - Fragmentation.
space. - Rapid social change.
Negotiated families- families that vary
according to the wishes and Beck- Negotiated family:
expectations of their members. Beck argues that we now live in a ‘risk society’, where tradition is
Pure relationship- intimate relationships less important and people have more choice.
based on trust, choice and equality.
Chosen families- friendship networks Zombie family- the idea that the family is not as functional and
functioning as kinship networks for stable as it seems.
LGBT+ people. It appears to be alive, but in reality, it is dead.
Sociologists:
Beck Stacey- feminists perspective:
Stacey Stacey believes that greater freedom has benefitted women.
Budgen
Giddens Study in Silicon Valley:
Smart & May Many women had rejected their traditional role.
They created families to better suit their needs.
The Individualisation Thesis:
- Increasing individual choice about families and relationships.
Traditional structures such as class, gender and family have lost much of their influence over us.
We have become freer or ‘dis-embedded’ from traditional roles and structures.
Criticisms of the Individualisation Thesis:
- Budgen- It exaggerates how much choice people have about family relationships.
- Wrongly sees people as dis-embedded, independent individuals.
- Ignores the importance of structural factors.
Giddens- Choice and Equality:
Reasons for the transformation of families:
- Contraception
- Women’s liberation
- Laws, religion and social norms no longer hold people together.
- Pure relationships are common in late modernity beliefs.
Smart & May- The Connectedness Thesis:
- Personal life perspective, criticism of the individualisation thesis.
- Argues that we are fundamentally social beings whose choices are made within a web of
connectedness.
- It is impossible for relationships to simply end, they will always provide context.
- People are not simply isolated individuals and wider structures still limit choice and diversity.
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