1. AS Family
What is A family?

2. Contents Starter Homework (1) Course contents What is a family? (1)
Kinship definition
Household definition
Family or household? (1)
Family or household? (2)
Family or household? (3)
Family or household? (4)
Nuclear family
Extended family
Horizontally-extended family
Modified extended family
Reconstituted family
Beanpole families
Anagrams
What is a family? (3)
Murdock’s definition (1)
Murdock (2)
Murdock (3)
Murdock (4)
Relevance of the Nuclear family
Family diversity today
Higher or lower?
Answer (1)
One person households
Answer (2)

3. Contents (2) Lone parent households Answer (3) Reconstituted families
People who are against it…
People who are for diversity…
Extension

4. Starter
Match the key concept with the correct definition

5. Homework
Make sure you have completed your childhood enrolment and introductory day work
Learn the key concepts that are on the yellow hand-out to be prepared for a test
Complete ‘What is Sociology?’ and answer the associated questions

6. Course – 2 units, worth 50% each
Families and Households, with research methods (1 hour 30 mins)
Starts now and finishes December
Mock week
Education, with methods in context (1 hour 30 mins)
Starts in December, exam in May
Learner planners – use these to structure your folder for this unit. Insert hand-outs directly behind these. There is lots of extension work here, and also in the extension tray

7. What is a family? Activity: Write your own definition of a family.
Then show your partner and combine your ideas to form one overall definition.

8. What is a family?
A social institution consisting of a group of people who are related by kinship ties: by relationships of blood, marriage or adoption

9. So, what is kinship?
Kinship refers to blood relatives or people connected because they are marital partners. People can also enter kinship systems through adoption and fostering. Kinship refers to both those in the immediate nuclear family and the wider extended family

10. So, what is household?
A household is comprised of people sharing a house, students for example, but is increasingly made up of people living alone. In the past, household sizes were much larger, often because they contained domestic servants
Source of image:

11. Family or household?

12. Unmarried couple, cohabitating with a child
Family or household
Unmarried couple, cohabitating with a child

13. Family or household?
Two men who are married

14. Man and woman living together
Family or household?
Man and woman living together

15. Nuclear Family
Two generations

16. Extended Family
These usually consist of three generations (grandparents, parents and dependent children), who may or may not live with one another
Grand-parents – vertically extended family

17. Horizontally Extended Family
Two generations
Parents’ brothers and sisters (of the same generation as the parents - aunts, uncles) and their children

18. Modified Extended Family
These families don’t live together, but maintain close ties with members of the extended family via phone calls, sending cards and via the internet

19. Reconstituted Family Step Families

20. Beanpole families A family that is ‘long and thin’
It is vertically extended (with grandparents and parents), but not horizontally (with aunts and uncles)

21. DIDDED EFXITEMAEN FYMOIL
Unscramble the following key terms... Write their definition next to them
NCRAELU IAYFML
RSTITUAIT FEEMOLCNDY
TDEENXTD LFIAYM
NGAPSI RELENT
DIDDED EFXITEMAEN FYMOIL

22. What is the family?
When explaining what the family is, Sociologists have often used a definition based on the idea of a nuclear family… Why do you think this is the case?
Consider George Murdock’s definition on your ‘What is the Family’ hand-out…

23. Defining the family
Murdock (1949) ‘The family is a social group characterised by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes and least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship and one or more children, own or adopted of the sexually cohabiting adults.

24. Therefore, a nuclear family, he argues is universal
George Murdock
Families live together, work together, pool their resources and reproduce
Includes males and females who have a sexual relationship and have children
Based on a sample of 250 societies
Therefore, a nuclear family, he argues is universal

25. Therefore, a nuclear family, he argues is essential
George Murdock
He believes the family performs four essential functions, which only the nuclear family can do:
Sexual
Reproductive
Economic
Socialisation
Therefore, a nuclear family, he argues is essential

26. Is Murdock’s definition relevant?
There have been a number of changes to the family recently…
Read through the ‘What is the family’ hand-out and consider the questions about Murdock’s definition
Then consider, what reasons there might be for the changes in the family? Complete the table on your hand-out

27. Is the nuclear family no longer relevant?
This image is often referred to as the ‘cereal packet family’ (Leach)
It consists of a married couple with dependant children (a nuclear family)
This is often seen by the media and by politicians as the ‘best’ family type

28. Family Diversity Today
There have been a number of changes to the ‘family’…
More lone parent families
One person households
Reconstituted families
Cohabitation
Same-sex relationships
Ethnicity and diversity

29. 10% of couples are in same sex relationships
True, Higher or Lower?
10% of couples are in same sex relationships

30. Lower!
Answer: between 5 and 7 %

31. Are half of all households one person households?

32. Lower!
It is 3 in 10 households

33. Lone parent households
Are10% of families comprised of lone parents?

34. Lone parent households
Higher! It’s 24%

35. Reconstituted Families
Make up 25% of all families

36. Reconstituted Families
Lower, it is 10%

37. People who are against it…
Functionalists believe that the nuclear family ‘fits’ society (Murdock’s definition)
The New Right highlight the importance of the nuclear family – giving stability for children

38. People who are for diversity…
Feminism – Family diversity means women can be free from the traditional nuclear family and create relationships based on equality
Marxism – The nuclear family keeps the working class as working class

39. Extension What do you think?…
Is family diversity is a positive thing for society?