Using Material from Item a and Elsewhere Assess Sociological Explanations of the Nature and Extent of Family Diversity Today.
Using material from Item A and elsewhere assess sociological explanations of the nature and extent of family diversity today.
Family diversity is the idea that there are a range of different family types, rather than a single dominant one like the nuclear family. It is associated with the post-modernists idea that in today’s society increasing choice about relationships is creating greater family diversity. Item A makes clear that different sociologists ‘are divided over both the extent of family diversity and its importance’. The Functionalists and the New Rights view increased family diversity as ‘a serious threat’; whilst Robert Chester argues in recent years there has been a ‘shift from the conventional to the neo-conventional family’. In today’s society there are many different family types the nuclear family which makes up the largest percentage of family types in the UK, single parent families, co-habiting families, gay families, inter-racial families, reconstituted families, joint families and transsexual families. This is interesting because in previous societies, this variety of family types would not have been accepted however in today’s society family diversity is much more easily accepted. However functionalists and the New Rights tend to have very traditional opinions on family diversity, they believe that anything that deviates from the nuclear family is negative and unnatural and individuals raised in different family types will not have the stability necessary to make them valuable members of society. Charles Murray of the New Right perspective, associated children born out of wedlock or ‘illegitimates’ with the ‘underclass’. He suggested the fathers of theses ‘illegitimates’ were ‘unskilled young men, who were unwilling to take up uninspiring work’. He believed the mothers of these ‘illegitimates’ ‘would be better off on benefits’ than marrying these ‘unskilled young men’. These illegitimate children with unemployed, uninvolved fathers
Family diversity is the idea that there are a range of different family types, rather than a single dominant one like the nuclear family. It is associated with the post-modernists idea that in today’s society increasing choice about relationships is creating greater family diversity. Item A makes clear that different sociologists ‘are divided over both the extent of family diversity and its importance’. The Functionalists and the New Rights view increased family diversity as ‘a serious threat’; whilst Robert Chester argues in recent years there has been a ‘shift from the conventional to the neo-conventional family’. In today’s society there are many different family types the nuclear family which makes up the largest percentage of family types in the UK, single parent families, co-habiting families, gay families, inter-racial families, reconstituted families, joint families and transsexual families. This is interesting because in previous societies, this variety of family types would not have been accepted however in today’s society family diversity is much more easily accepted. However functionalists and the New Rights tend to have very traditional opinions on family diversity, they believe that anything that deviates from the nuclear family is negative and unnatural and individuals raised in different family types will not have the stability necessary to make them valuable members of society. Charles Murray of the New Right perspective, associated children born out of wedlock or ‘illegitimates’ with the ‘underclass’. He suggested the fathers of theses ‘illegitimates’ were ‘unskilled young men, who were unwilling to take up uninspiring work’. He believed the mothers of these ‘illegitimates’ ‘would be better off on benefits’ than marrying these ‘unskilled young men’. These illegitimate children with unemployed, uninvolved fathers