Asses the view that in today's society the family is losing its functions.
Asses the view that in today's society the family is losing its functions.
We usually define the word "family" with a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household but to many sociologists, this definition is narrow and is not a very accurate way of describing a family. According to Murdock (1949) the family is a "social group" which is identified by common "residence", "economic" and "reproduction" whereas Giddens (1993) states that the family is directly linked by "kin connections" where the adult members take on the responsibility of caring for the children. These definitions from various sociologists gives us a clearer understanding of what a family is but also, it could be argued that it does not address different family types and also the functions it has for society.
To a certain extent, the family in todays society is in fact losing its functions. For instance, Murdock (1949) argues that the family performs four universal functions, one of these is "socialisation", he believes that the family is responsible for providing the children with basic skills and habits that will allow them to conform to the norms and values of society and therefore giving them a sense of belonging. However, in the case of a feral child called Genie (November 4, 1970), this was wrong as she was confined in a small room deprived of any human contact, this means the "socialisation" function of the family was never taught to her by her parents. She never knew how to talk which meant that she could not fit into society as a normal human being. Moreover, many children in todays society are not properly socialised by their family's, therefore institutions such as schools teach them secondary or primary socialisation which means that the family is losing its "socialisation" function as it is being replaced by other institutions, this is known as structural differentiation according to Talcott Parsons.
Furthermore, functionalists such as Murdock (1949)
We usually define the word "family" with a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household but to many sociologists, this definition is narrow and is not a very accurate way of describing a family. According to Murdock (1949) the family is a "social group" which is identified by common "residence", "economic" and "reproduction" whereas Giddens (1993) states that the family is directly linked by "kin connections" where the adult members take on the responsibility of caring for the children. These definitions from various sociologists gives us a clearer understanding of what a family is but also, it could be argued that it does not address different family types and also the functions it has for society.
To a certain extent, the family in todays society is in fact losing its functions. For instance, Murdock (1949) argues that the family performs four universal functions, one of these is "socialisation", he believes that the family is responsible for providing the children with basic skills and habits that will allow them to conform to the norms and values of society and therefore giving them a sense of belonging. However, in the case of a feral child called Genie (November 4, 1970), this was wrong as she was confined in a small room deprived of any human contact, this means the "socialisation" function of the family was never taught to her by her parents. She never knew how to talk which meant that she could not fit into society as a normal human being. Moreover, many children in todays society are not properly socialised by their family's, therefore institutions such as schools teach them secondary or primary socialisation which means that the family is losing its "socialisation" function as it is being replaced by other institutions, this is known as structural differentiation according to Talcott Parsons.
Furthermore, functionalists such as Murdock (1949)