Examine the Role and Function of the Extended Family Overtime

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Examine the role and function of the extended family over time (24 marks) Functionalists view society in a positive way and the family has to work in functions to make society function. According to Parsons, in pre-industrial times, the family lived as a unit of economic production – meaning that the family worked and lived together on a farm for example. The extended family also offered help, employment and protection. Parsons also stated that the family had two irreducible functions: primary socialisation – the family teaches the children to accept the norms and values of society. The stabilisation of adult personalities – the family offers adults the emotional support to cope with the everyday stresses of life. Parsons also stated that there were four changes to the family that industrialisation borught, which include; geographical mobility – nuclear family move to different parts of the country as they aren’t as attached to other family relatives than the extended family. Isolated nuclear family- as the nuclear family were geographically mobile they felt isolated. Structural differentiation – this is where the nuclear family became a unit of consumption, instead of a unit of production. Husband & wife roles – the male was the ‘instrumental leader’. The male was this role because he was the one who worked and brought home the money to provide for his wife and children. Then the woman was the ‘expressive leader’ - this role was to look after the children. Although, Young and Willmott’s theory states that in pre-industrial times, most families were nuclear and worked together (interdependent). Then in early industrial times, industrialisation separated the home and work for working class families, as they moved into cities to work in factories and mines. Whereas in modern industrial times, a symmetrical family emerges – which was due to geographical
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