Cambridge International AS and A Level Sociology Coursebook
This document focuses on changes in family and household structure and their relationship to industrialization, urbanization and globalization. The notes are detailed and beautifully presented; they helped me achieve an A in my final examination. Some of the sociologists included in this document i...
Structuralist perspective to studying human behaviour.
Topic 1.Perspectives in Sociology notes.Zimsec A level sociology
CIE A-Level Sociology: Religion, Education and Media
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Unit 1 - The Family
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• Changes in family and household structure and their relationship to industrialisation,
urbanisation and globalisation.
Explain and assess the factors shaping the structure of the family in modern industrial societies.
Assess the view that the nuclear family is no longer the main type of family in modern industrial society.
Explain and assess the view that family structures are becoming less diverse. [25]
Industrialization and urbanization can be seen as important factors in the promotion of changes in family and
household structure. Industrialisation forced people to change the way they lived to accommodate new forms
of economic production.
Functionalists such as William Goode and Talcott Parsons argue that family structures
changed from the pre-dominantly extended-family organization of pre-industrial society to
the predominantly nuclear family organization of the industrial society.
In the past, extended family structures were seen as the norm for pre-industrial society
because they were multi-functional, kinship-based and economically productive which made
them ideally suited to the demands of family-based, subsistence form of farming. Arenberg
&Kimball’s study of rural Ireland demonstrated the existence of a close-knit community in
which extended families and neighbours relied on one another for help and support.
However, as industrialization and urbanization developed, there was a radical change in the
nature of work and economic production as Britain gradually moved from an agrarian society
where work was land-based, rural and family-centred to an industrial society where work was
capital-intensive, industrial and factory-centred. To accommodate such changes, the old
extended families of pre-industrial society (ideally suited to the demands of family based,
subsistence form of farming) were broken down into nuclear families that fitted the increasingly
important economic requirements of geographic mobility (the need for families to move to
towns and factories) and labour flexibility (the need to move to where jobs were located) because
they were not tied down by binding obligations to a wide range of kin, and compared to the
pre-industrial families, were a small, streamlined unit.
Pre-industrial societies Industrial societies
Geographic In the past the ability to move The development of industrial society
mobility away from the family group was produced some changes.
several restricted by poor People had to be mobile to find and keep
communications such as no work in the new industrial processes.
railways or cars, basic roads There was a huge - if gradual -
systems and so forth. This meant, movement away from rural areas to the
in effect, family members - even if developing towns and, in such a
they had wanted to - were situation, the extended family of pre-
physically unable to move far industrial society gradually broke down.
from the family home.
Social mobility See paper. See paper.
Another factor that contributed to the breakdown of extended families was the decline of
nepotism (favouring your relations over others). Nepotism was no longer a significant social
asset (as it was in extended families), since the new industries demanded the demonstration
of skills and knowledge rather than family connections.
However, some sociologists have questioned the idea of a ‘fit’ between the nuclear family & the
process of industrialization.
Peter Laslett argues that the large extended family was relatively uncommon in pre-industrial
times. Upon examination of parish records he concluded that only about 10% of households in
England from 1564 to 1821 contained more than 2 generations of kin.
Laslett and Anderson argue that the extended family was actually significant in industrial
society.
Starkey and Michael Anderson (1971) suggested that, rather than creating the nuclear family,
industrialisation actually increased the likelihood of the extended family. This is because as
people moved to newly created towns, they moved in with relatives in order to find comfort
and security.
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