Slide 1
Sociology 640
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Class 1:
• Overview of trends and explanations
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• What is Family Sociology?
• How do Sociologists View Family Behavior?
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• How do Sociologists Study Family Behavior?
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Slide 2
General Trends
• Later marriage (less marriage?)
• More divorce
• More cohabitation
• More non-marital childbearing
• More remarriage/stepfamilies
• More maternal employment
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Slide 3
Explanations
• Social – increasing educational
attainment
• Economic – declining economic
opportunities
• Normative – changing attitudes
toward marriage and family
“second demographic transition”
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Slide 4
Questions for thought
• What does it mean to say the family is “in decline”?
• What do you think? Is the American family in decline?
Is it “evolving”?
• What about other countries you may know? What
about subgroups of the U.S. population?
• Is family change a bad thing? A good thing?
• What do you feel are the most important reasons for
family change between 1960 and 2000?
• Is “family decline” inevitable or can it be
slowed/stopped via policy measures?
• Can it be slowed/stopped via other mechanisms?
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Slide 5
A couple of comments on Popenoe
• Definition of family is both unconventional and
conventional.
• Unconventional in criteria for meeting definition of
“family” – but this is clearly acknowledged
• Conventional in definition of what a family does
– Functions or role in social organization
– Reproduction, socialization, provision of
care/love/companionship, pooling of economic resources,
sexual regulation.
• Stacey’s approach to family is intuitively appealing but,
if seriously adopted, would make family sociology
research exceedingly difficult.
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Slide 6
What is Family Sociology?
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Study of complex set of relationships
between society, individuals, and
families.
Interested in both causes and
consequences of family behaviors.
Interested in causes and consequences at
both macro and micro levels.
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Slide 7
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What is Family Sociology?
Societal
Forces
Other
Individual
Characteristics
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Other
Individual
Characteristics
Individual &
Family
Other Char.
Characteristics
Family
Behavior
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Slide 8
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Trend Toward Later Marriage
Economic,
cultural change
Other
Individual
Characteristics
Education,
earnings,
attitudes, sex,
cohab., etc.
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Other
Individual
Characteristics
Other Char.
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Later age at
marriage
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Slide 9
Sociological Approach to
Analysis of the Family
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1. Derive testable hypotheses from theoretical
framework(s)
2. Locate/collect data most appropriate for
testing of hypotheses
3. Analyze data to confirm or reject
hypotheses
4. Recognize inherent limitations
(importance of using various theories, methods,
and data)
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Slide 10
An important point
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• Family sociology, as with all social sciences, is
ultimately interested in averages and variations.
• Individual cases are important,but only to the
extent that they allow us to generalize.
– Developing an appreciation of this insight is perhaps
one of the most important practical goals of this class
• Relative advantages and disadvantages of survey
data and ethnographic data.
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Slide 11
Theoretical Frameworks for
Studying the Family
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• Functionalism
• Exchange Theory
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• Conflict Perspective
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• Symbolic Interaction
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• Feminist Theory
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Slide 12
Study of the Family
Analysis of variation and change
• Historical approach
• Comparative approach
• Group differences
• Life Course approach
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Slide 13
Data used to Study the Family
• Survey data
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Random sample
Large scale
Allows for generalization
Allows for comparison of many groups
• Ethnographic data
– Usually non-random sample
– Small scale
– Allows for much more nuanced analysis
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Slide 14
Methodological notes
• Pay attention to the variety of measures cited in
these early articles.
• For example:
– divorce rates vs. probability that marriage ends in
divorce
– proportion of children living in single-parent
families vs. likelihood of ever living in a singleparent family vs. proportion of childhood spent in
single-parent family
– Mean age at marriage vs. median age at marriage vs.
proportion never marrying
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Slide 15
What does Family
Sociology contribute?
• Attempts to accurately describe trends/changes in
family behavior (e.g., emergence of nuclear family,
emergence of cohabitation).
• Recognizes complexity of factors influencing family
change/variation. Attempts to theoretically untangle
causal relationships (e.g., attitudes and divorce).
* Recognizes that correlation does not imply causation
(e.g., women’s education and marriage).
• Attempts to objectively assess implications of family
behavior and changes therein (e.g., impact of
divorce/stepfamilies on children). (But see Cowan note
for alternative view)
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Slide 16
More questions for thought
• Are you optimistic about family change over
the next 30 years? Pessimistic?
• What do you think will be important family
changes/issues for your generation?
• What do you think will be important family
changes/issues for you?
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