Chapter 3, Exploring the Family

1. Chapter 3, Exploring the Family • Theoretical Perspectives on the Family • Studying Families

2. Theoretical Perspectives on the Family • Family ecology • Family development • Structure-functionalism • Interactionist perspective

3. Theoretical Perspectives on the Family • Exchange theory • Family systems theory • Feminist perspectives • Biosocial perspectives

4. Family Ecology Perspective • Explores how the family influences and is influenced by the environments arround it. • Encourages researchers to investigate how families can create environments that improve their quality of life. • Concerned with how to influence the effects that the broader society has on families.

5. Family Ecology Perspective Weaknesses • So broad and inclusive that nothing is left out and it can be difficult for analysts to focus on specifics. • Sometimes the application is limited to poverty and disadvantaged.

6. Family Development Perspective • Based on the idea that the family changes in predictable ways over time • Emerged and became popular from the 1930’s to 1950’s when the nuclear family was common. • Assumes that family life follows certain conventional patterns.

7. Family Life Cycle: Stages • Newly established couple • Families of preschoolers • Families of primary school children • Families with adolescents • Families in the middle years. • Aging families

8. Structure-Functional Perspective • The family is a social institution that performs essential functions: • Raise children. • Provide economic support. • Give emotional security.

9. Interactionist Perspective • Looks within families at internal family dynamics. • Refuses to identify a “natural” family structure. Weaknesses: • Difficult to test empirically. • Assume interaction is the same in all settings. • Overestimates the power of individuals to create their own realities.

10. Exchange Theory • Based on the premise that people use their resources to bargain and secure advantage in relationships. • Relationships based on equitable exchanges thrive, those in which the exchange feels one-sided are more likely to dissolve.

11. Family Systems Theory • Looks at the family as a whole that is more than the sum of the parts. • There is pressure on a changing family member to revert to original behavior within the family system. • Without therapeutic intervention, families may replicate problem behaviors over generations.

12. Feminist Perspectives • Focus is on gender issues and how male dominance is oppressive to women. • Developed from political and social movements over the past 30 years. • Mission is to use knowledge to actively confront and end the oppression of women and related patterns of subordination.

13. Feminist Theories Contributions to Political Action • Changes in policies that economically weaken households headed by women. • Changes in laws that reinforce the privileges of men and heterosexual nuclear families versus other family types.

14. Feminist Theories Contributions to Political Action • Efforts to stop sexual harassment and violence against women and children. • Advances in securing women’s reproductive freedom. • Recognition and support for women’s unpaid work.

15. Biosocial Perspectives • Human’s evolutionary biology affects human behavior and family-related behaviors. • Behavior is oriented to the survival and reproduction of close kin and direct descendents. • Biological predisposition doesn’t mean that a person’s behavior cannot be influenced or changed by social structure.

16. Scientific Investigation: Techniques • Surveys • Laboratory observation and experiments • Naturalistic observation • Clinician’s case studies • Longitudinal studies • Historical and cross-cultural data