Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Conflict theorists have argued the family contributes to societal injustice,

denies women opportunities, and limits certain freedoms.
Functionalists focus on the ways in which the family gratifies the needs of
its members and contributes to social stability.
Interactionists focus on the face-to-face relationships in the family.
Feminists examine the role of the mother and wife, especially in the
absence of an adult male.
- Functionalist Perspective
+The family serves six functions for society:
• Reproduction. For a society to maintain itself, it must replace
dying members
• Protection. In all cultures, the family assumes the ultimate
responsibility for the protection and upbringing of children
• Socialization. Parents and other kin monitor a child’s behavior and
transmit the norms, values, and language of their culture to the child
• Regulation of sexual behavior. Sexual norms are subject to
change both over time and across cultures. However, standards of
sexual behavior are most clearly defined within the family circle
• Affection and companionship. The family provides members with
warm and intimate relationships, helping them to feel satisfied and
secure
• Provision of social status. We inherit a social position because of
the family background and reputation of our parents and siblings
+ Families have traditionally filled other functions that are today
fulfilled by social institutions.
• Providing religious training.
• Education.
• Recreational outlets.
- Conflict Perspective
+Many husbands (and some wives) reinforce their power over
spouses and children through domestic violence.
+Family is an economic unit that contributes to social injustice.
• Family is the basis for transferring power, property, and privilege
from one generation to the next.
• Children inherit the social and economic status of their parents and
therefore the family helps to maintain societal inequality.
- Interactionist Perspective
 +Interactionists focus on the micro level of family and other intimate
relationships.
+They are interested in how individuals interact with each other,
whether they are cohabiting partners or longtime married couples.
+One increasing area of study is the nature of relationships between
stepparents and stepchildren.
• Stepparents play a wide variety of social roles
- Feminist Perspective
+Feminist sociologists have taken a strong interest in the family as a
social institution.
• Close look at how women’s work outside home impacts child care
and housework duties.
• Urge social scientists and agencies to rethink the notion that
families in which no adult male is present are automatically a cause
for concern.
• Researchers have focused on the resiliency of single-mother
households.
+Feminists who take the interactionist perspective stress the need to
study neglected topics, such as dual-income households where the
wife earns more.

Labor Force
+Participation Women’s participation in the paid labor force has
increased steadily over the past 50 years.
+Women are still underrepresented in occupations historically
defined as “men’s jobs.”
• Those jobs often carry greater financial rewards and prestige.
Glass ceiling: an invisible barrier that blocks promotion of a
qualified individual in a work environment because of gender, race,
or ethnicity. • When women do gain entry to corporate boards of
directors, the response is not entirely positive.
Compensation
+Across the board, there is a substantial gender gap in the median
earnings of full-time workers.
• Even in the same workplace. • For example, a male surgeon may
make $246,000 while a female surgeon makes $172,000.
• Forecasting analyses show no convincing evidence that the wage
gap is narrowing.
• Women earn 83 cents for every dollar earned by men.
Glass escalator: the advantage men experience in occupations
dominated by women.
Social Consequences of Women’s Employment
Many women face the challenge of juggling work and family.
Second shift: the double burden of work outside home followed by
child care and housework.
• Women are twice as likely to run the household, three times more
likely to oversee children’s schedules, and eight times more likely to
take time off to care for a sick child.
• The greater amounts of time women put into caring for children
and into housework take a toll on women pursuing careers.
BOX 11-4 WHO DOES THE HOUSEWORK?
The majority of women with children are in the labor force today,
including women with children under age 3. Note: Data from
American Time Use Survey based on primary or main activities in
households where both spouses work full-time and a child under age
18 lives in the home.
Law and Society
Control theory: suggests that our connection to members of society
leads us to systematically conform to society’s norms.
• Our bonds to others make us follow mores and folkways.
• Socialization develops self-control so well that we don’t need
further pressure to obey social norms.
+ Attachment: Attachment represents the individual's sharing of
interests with others in society. The stronger the bond between the
individual and the community, the more effective the individual's
acquisition of social norms.

+ Commitment: An individual who has a voluntary commitment to

educational goals, long-term professional activities rarely deviates
from that goal and thus, they are less likely to deviate from the
norms of society. society, of the law.

+ Binding-. When individuals have ties to a regional institution or a

social organization, deviance and crime are unlikely.
+ Belief-. The sharing of values and a system of ethical concepts.
Beliefs are attributed to self-worth. If beliefs are healthy, deviant
behavior as well as crime are less likely.
if the individual is controlled by the community (through a close
relationship with the community), the individual controls
himself/herself as required by society, the individual is bound
(managed) in a A regional institution or a social and interpersonal
organization that shares values and ethical beliefs will limit crime.
Interactionist Perspective
With its emphasis on everyday behavior, the interactionist
perspective attempts to explain why crimes are committed.
People learn how to behave, whether properly or improperly, in
social situations.
Cultural transmission school: emphasizes that one learns criminal
behavior by interacting with others. • Learn the techniques, motives,
drives, and rationalizations for the behavior.
. Offense is relearning. Crime is not born or inherited. Anyone can
relearn the criminal behavior from the society that led to the crime.

2. Offenses are learned from contact, in the process of

communicating with others.

3. Basic content of the re-learning of criminal acts and violations

occurring in groups of people with close relationships.

4. When criminal behavior is re-learned from another person, re-

learning includes: Crime execution skills (in some cases these skills
are very complex or simple), instruction on action mechanism,
arrangement, rationalization, attitude.

5. Learning skills to commit crimes, instructions on motives,

arrangements... are learned from the concepts prescribed by the law
to consider beneficial or not beneficial to the offender.
Interactionist Perspective
Social disorganization theory: increases in crime and deviance can
be attributed to the absence or breakdown of communal relationships
or social institutions.
• Developed in the early 1900s at the University of Chicago.
• Attempted to explain the disorganization that occurred as cities
rapidly expanded.
• Critics say there is a victim-blaming element to the theory.
• The theory can’t explain why some troubled neighborhoods have
viable organizations.

He argues that rapid social change will lead to an increase in the

division of labor and thus will create chaos, lack of care between
people, leading to a shortage of standards. life norms and values
as well as breaking the social norms that govern human behavior