Assess the view that the nuclear family is no longer the norm The nuclear family is seen as a family unit consisting of a married couple; a mother, a father and their biological children. Where the father would be seen as the bread winner and the mother seen as the one who would be more designed to stay at home and do the domestic chores. It has been argued that nuclear family could no longer be seen as the norm, I will be assessing this by looking at the views the sociologists theorists hold over this as well as their evidence. There are many different forms of families such as; nuclear family, extended families, reconstituted, same sex and single parent families. The diversity of families has increased over these following years, due to the changes in society and values.
For decades, scholars have insisted that what most of us know instinctively to be true -- is false. Mocking the belief that individuals such as Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler or Winston Churchill make history, experts focus on social forces. They explain the past with statistical studies and abstract theories, dismissing stories about individual initiative or heroism. While powerful economic, social and ideological movements dwarfing any individual do shape history, be it the high-tech boom, feminism or the rise of conservatism, we cannot underestimate the way a leader's action and inaction can change the world. Especially when assessing the American presidency and modern America, individual character -- and contingency -- count.
Giddens argues that fundamentalism is a reaction to globalisation. He sees society as having moved to a “late modern” phase, in which globalisation has undermined traditional norms regarding the nuclear family, gender and sexuality. People are now faced with choice, uncertainty and risk and in this environment, fundamentalism flourishes as it promises certainty with its rigid, dogmatic beliefs. Giddens argues that globalisation increases fundamentalism by providing an alternative to the risk society of late modernity. Fundamentalists may reject some aspects of modernity, they embrace others in order to spread their beliefs, for example, through the Internet, email and electronic church, suggesting that fundamentalism does not represent a total rejection of globalisation and modernity.
Grace Nguyen Professor Smithson English 250 13 February 2010 The Nuclear Family: What America Needs A traditional American family, consisting of a stable and loving environment with a married mother and father, is something that should be desired by all Americans; at least that is what former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum expresses in his book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good. Santorum served as a US Senator representing Pennsylvania from 1995- 2007 and is a known throughout America as a conservative spokesman regarding family issues. In the excerpt from his book he addresses many topics, such as: the correct environment for child rearing, same-sex marriages, divorce, and American tolerance to cohabitation before marriage. The family is the first point that Santorum covers.
They believe, like conservatives and new rightist, that the nuclear family is the best form of socialisation and avoiding crime. Another right realist, Charles Murray, believes that the rising crime rates may be due to a rising ‘underclass’, those who are defined by deviant behaviour and fail to socialise their children properly. Right realists also think that the state plays a big part in the rates of crime. As people can rely on the state to provide them with money people are less encouraged to go out and work to earn their money, fathers no longer need to support their children as lone parents can live off benefits, therefore decreasing the rates of marriage and the amount of nuclear families which the right realists believe lacks
What is meant by the "breakdown of the family" is, in fact, the changing definition of what the typical nuclear family is. In the 1950s, the traditional definition of the nuclear family consisted of a working husband and a wife whose responsibility was almost exclusively devoted to the maintenance of the home and children. This "ideal" family would have spoken English and owned, not rented, its own car and house; I say “ideal,” as this picture may be somewhat fictionalized or nostalgic, in the words of Bill Countryman. Today, however, the nuclear family is in a state of change and under external pressures the likes of which it has never seen before. By today's standards, the nuclear family of the 1950s would be considered the exception not
Wealth and Poverty, written by George Gilder, is a depiction on how to increase wealth and curtail poverty. Gilder argues thoroughly throughout the book that society has been misled by popular economic theory and by general culture attitudes into only having a small percentage of wealthy people and having the majority of people in society living in poverty. He documents the ways in which the blighting of incentive has crippled productivity in society and shows how the essence of capitalism is not greed but giving by investing money and energy. Gilder states that the “golden rule” of economics is the idea that the good fortune of others is also finally ones own. The scientific basis of the golden rule is in the mutuality of gains from trade, in the demand, generated by the engines of supply, in the expanded opportunity created by growth, in the usual and still growing economic futility of war (Gilder, 9).
Functionalist Parsons believes that instability is created with diversity and the nuclear family is a lot more predictable and therefore practical family structure. New Right sociologist Murray believes that benefits given to diverse families such as lone parent families are harmful to the nuclear family and he believes that it encourages irresponsibility and laziness. This view is criticised by the Labour view as they believe that benefits help those in poverty and encourage family diversity as people should be able to live how they choose. The New Labour has nothing against the nuclear family but does believe that people should be able to live in different family structures and they should be supported in doing so. Also post modernists believe that the nuclear family is no longer dominant and people now live in a society where they make their own decisions and every family is different in structure as peopled live with freedom and they don’t have to follow convention.
Parsons (1955) argues that nuclear families in post-industrialised societies, are more ‘specialised’ and isolated, particularly as independent units of consumption, due to factors such as increased geographical mobility and the breakdown of the extended family. This has reduced the essential functions to two; primary socialisation and stabilisation of adult personality (ibid). This stabilisation is seen as the ‘warm bath theory’, whereby the family provides a loving and supportive haven from the stresses of modern life, primarily for the patriarchal figure fulfilling the
The highlight is that the ideal family type in a modern society, as the nuclear family, which comprises of a breadwinner husband and dependent wife and child(ren). Cognitive dissonance theory was first posited by Leon Festinger, (1956) in his book “When Prophecy Fails”. This theory proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions due to the psychological discomfort that is caused by inconsistency among a person’s beliefs, attitudes and/or actions. Michener,M.