I come from a specific tradition of sociology, which is urban ethnography.
The Family
by
Charles Lamson
The Family as an Institution
There is a big difference between a particular family and the family as a social institution. Your family, for example, has a particular structure of statuses (mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother, etc.), depending on who and where its members are. Your immediate family is also part of an extended kinship system (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc.) that also varies according to how many branches you and your immediate family actually keep track of. The family as a social institution, however, comprises a set of statuses, roles, norms, and values devoted to achieving important social goals. Those goals include the social control of reproduction, the socialization of new generations, and the "social placement" of children in the institutions of the larger society (colleges, business firms, and so forth).
 |
"Social placement" refers to the ways in which parents and relatives work to ensure that their children will achieve the same or higher social class positions as their parents. When teacher's comment about young children "coming from good families" or when others comment on how "well brought up" a child appears to be, they are referring to the ways in which the parents have developed the child's cultural capital, all the knowledge and norms of behavior valued by higher class people. Reading books to children, listening to classical music with them, teaching them how to be polite, being concerned with how they dress, spending time visiting their schools, pushing them to succeed in school---these are all ways in which parents help place their children socially by developing their cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1993, Sociology in Question; Coleman, 1994, Social Capital, Human Capital, and Investment in Youth. In A. C. Peterson & T. J. Mortimer, Youth Unemployment and Society). Extensive research on families and social mobility documents how family background and behavior influence the way children and adolescents are perceived and treated in school. For example, a study of primary school teachers in England found that teachers expect higher achievements from children whose parents have good spoken language skills and seem to read a lot to their children. These expectations, even at a very early age, can help determine how much children enjoy school and how well they learn (Feiler & Webster, 1999, Teacher Predictions of Young Children's Literary Success or Failure. Assessment in Education, 6, 341-355).
These are not the only goals that the family is expected to fulfill. In many societies, especially tribal or peasant societies, the family performs almost all the functions necessary to meet the basic needs of its members. Most of the functions that were traditionally performed by the family are now performed either partly or wholly by other social institutions that are specially adapted to performing those functions.
There are many more separate institutions in modern societies, but basic social functions are often divided among several institutions. Thus the institutions that meet protective and social control needs include governments at all levels, the military, the judiciary, and the police. Replacement needs are met by the family through mating and reproduction. In addition to the family, religious institutions, education, and other cultural institutions meet the need to socialize new generations.
Family's ability to meet the goals society expects it to meet is often complicated by rapid social change. For example, many families in industrial communities throughout the United States were quite good at preparing their children for blue collar manufacturing jobs, but those jobs have been eliminated as a result of automation and the globalization of the economy. For many families, therefore, it is no longer clear how they can equip their offspring to compete in the new job market.
When there are major changes in other institutions in a society, such as economic institutions, families must adapt to those changes. Similarly, when the family changes, other institutions will be affected. As an example, consider the impact of the "sexual revolution" that began in the 1920. During that decade, often called the Roaring Twenties, young adults began to upset the moral order that had regulated the behavior of couples for generations, at least among people who considered themselves "respectable." According to this traditional set of norms, women were the guardians of morality. Men were more likely to give in to sexual desire, "but girls of respectable families were supposed to have no such temptations" (Allen, 1931, Only Yesterday, p. 74). After World War I, however, respectable young women began to reject the double standard, by which they had to adhere to a different and more restrictive moral code from that applied to men. They began smoking cigarettes, wearing short skirts, and drinking bootleg gin in automobiles or at "petting parties." These changes in the behavior of couples produced far-reaching changes in other institutions. Women demanded more education and more opportunities to earn income. This in turn led to demands for new institutions such as co-educational colleges and integrated workplaces, as well as greater access by women to existing institutions such as medicine, law, and science. These changes in women's expectations and behavior, along with the increasing educational and occupational mobility of men after the world wars, contributed immensely to changes in traditional family roles---especially the weakening of the role of the father as the central and most powerful authority figure in the family. The consequences of these fundamental changes in family roles are still felt today.
Changes in the institutions in one area of social life can place tremendous pressure on those in other sectors. This is especially true in the case of the family, as will be evident throughout the next several posts. But before we examine the ways in which families have changed the 20th century, it is necessary to define some terms that are often used in discussing the family, which we turn to in the next post.
*SOURCE: WILLIAM KORNBLUM, (2003), SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., PP. 482-484*
end
|
No comments:
Post a Comment