HUS 470 final exam questions &
answers 2024/2025
What is the definition of family? - ANSWERSany sexually expressive, parent-child, or other kin
relationship in which people—usually related by ancestry, marriage, or adoption—1. form an economic
or otherwise practical unit and care for any children or other dependents, 2. consider their identity to be
significantly attached to the group, and 3. commit to maintaining that group over time.
The U.S. Census Bureau defines a family as two or more persons sharing a household related by blood,
marriage, or adoption and residing together in a household.
family functions - ANSWERS1. Raising children responsibly
2. Providing economic and other practical support
3. Offering emotional security
What types of families exist in modern society? - ANSWERSB. America is increasingly postmodern.
Ultimately, there is no typical family.
1. Until the last 60 years, the nuclear family was considered the modern family.
2. As families have become less traditional, the legal definition of a family has become much more
flexible.
family decline perspective - ANSWERSclaim that a cultural change toward excessive individualism and
self-indulgence has hurt relationships, led to high divorce rates, and undermines responsible parenting
family change perspective - ANSWERSCharacterization by some family scholars and policy makers that
the family can continue to play a strong role in society by adapting to such recent changes as increased
age at first marriage, divorce, cohabitation, and nonmarital births and the declines in fertility.
assistive reproductive technology - ANSWERSinvolve the manipulation of sperm or egg or both in the
absence of sexual intercourse including: artificial insemination, donor insemination, in vitro fertilization,
surrogacy, egg sale or donation, embryo transfers.
,Communication Technology - ANSWERSa. Communication by cell phones, internet sites and GPS
facilitate constant and global access to children, parents and extended family.
b. Internet access causes family boundaries to be more permeable.
c. Results in a "digital divide" between those who have access to technology and those who do not have
access
d. Increase in cyberbullying for children and adolescents
demographic characteristics - ANSWERS1. Age Structure: Life expectancy has increased dramatically and
has had vast consequences for family life.
2. Religion: Religious affiliation and practice is a significant influence on family life.
3. Race and Ethnicity: Although race is a social construction, there are very real practices and outcomes
associated with different races.
a. America is increasingly diverse ethnically due to immigration, refugees in America, and higher fertility
rates among racial and ethnic minorities.
b. Transnational and binational families add to America's diversity.
c. Racial and ethnic stratification continues to exist.
family policy - ANSWERS1. the procedures, regulations, attitudes, and goals of programs and agencies,
workplaces, educational institutions, and government that affect families.
a. Encompasses policies that directly address the main functions of families
2. Political decisions regarding families should take a family impact lens approach.
a. Asking the question of "how" this policy would impact family members
Families as a place to belong - ANSWERS1. serving as a repository or archive of family memories and
traditions
2. Families create a place of individual and communal identity, or family identity (ideas and feelings
about the uniqueness and value of one's family unit)
3. Provide a setting for developing self-concept or basic feelings surrounding a person's own abilities,
characteristics and worth.
familialistic (communal) values vs. individualistic (self-fulfillment) values - ANSWERS1. Family members
must negotiate balance between individual separateness and family togetherness.
,2. Opposing values of familism (including togetherness and family loyalty) and individualism create
tensions within individuals, between individuals and within society that must be resolved.
3.American society holds individuality and personal freedom over the tradition of familism
Marriage and Families: Four Themes - ANSWERSA. Personal decisions must be made throughout the life
course.
B. People are influenced by the society around them.
C. We live in a society characterized by considerable change, including increased economic, ethnic, and
family diversity, where increased tension exists between family and individual values.
D. Personal decision making feeds into society and changes it.
scientific norms - ANSWERS1. Scientists are expected to follow certain norms, including honesty.
2. Scientists are expected to publish their research.
3. Science is cumulative and objective.
Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology - ANSWERSways of viewing reality and are equivalent to lenses
through which observers view, organize, and then learn and interpret what they see. They contain
concepts that help identify and explain specific aspects of family behaviors and patterns.
family ecology perspective - ANSWERS1. This perspective explains how a family influences and is
influenced by the environments that surround it.
2. This theory focuses on how economic, educational, religious, and cultural
institutions as well as historical circumstances affect family life.
3. There is a "nested" structure of events, social policies and characteristics that influence families in an
outward pattern from the neighborhood, workplace, community, state, country, world and Earth's
physical environment.
4. Family ecologists often stress the importance of workplace, town or city, state,
and national policies on family living.
6. A strength of this theory is that it challenges the idea that a successful family is an individual effort and
turns our attention to family social policy.
7. A disadvantage of this theory is that it can be too broad and inclusive.
, family life course development perspective - ANSWERSfamilies experience predictable changes over time
with the family itself as the unit of analysis.
2. The family life course is made up of stages with developmental tasks; the
addition or subtraction of family members, changing living conditions of family members, the various
stages that children go through, and changes in the family's connections with social institutions.
4. Emerging adulthood is a stage in individual development that precedes and affects entry into the
family life course
5. Strengths of this theory are its attention to the study of family behavior over time, how life course
transitions affect family interaction, and the interactions among family members who are in different life
course stages
6. It is limited, because it assumes all families are similar and traditional.
7. This theory is not as popular as it was 50 years ago, but it is still used.
structure-functional perspective - ANSWERS1. This theory investigates how a given social structure
functions to fill basic societal needs:
a. to raise children responsibly;
b. to provide economic support; and
c. to give emotional security
2. Theory examines the functionality of these patterns to fulfill basic needs.
a. Functional alternatives are alternate structures that might perform a function traditionally assigned to
the nuclear family (i.e., fictive kin)
b. Dysfunction as a term emerged from this perspective
3. Strengths of this theory are its focus on the family as an important social institution performing
essential social functions; encouraging us to ask how well various family forms fulfill basic family needs;
encouraging us to consider functional alternatives
4. It is limited in that it gives an unrealistic image of smoothly working families characterized only by
shared values, defining the heterosexual nuclear family as "normal" and "functional," and therefore
leaving this theory relatively unused by most family sociologists today.
interaction-constructionist perspective - ANSWERS1. This theory focuses on the interactions, or face-to-
face encounters and relationships of individuals who act in awareness of one another
2. It is interested in how self and family identities, traditions and commitment
