Describe Pop Culture, Subculture, and Cultural Change

3. What is the biggest difference between mores and folkways

4. What theoretical perspective views society as having a system of interdependent inherently connected parts?

Lecture 11. Sociology of Family and Gender

1. The family as a social organization

2. The main functions of the family.

3. The concepts of "sex" and "gender”.

4. The main tendencies in the development of family relations in modern Kazakhstan, the goals and objectives of state family policy.

1. Sociology of the family examines the family as an institution and a unit of socialization through various sociological perspectives. There are four main ones: functionalist, conflict, symbolic interactionist, feminist perspectives.

The Functionalist Perspective. Functionalists view the family unit as a construct that fulfills important functions and keep society running smoothly. For functionalists, the family creates well-integrated members of society and teaches culture to the new members of society.

Key Points

· Functionalists identify a number of functions families typically perform: reproduction; socialization; care, protection, and emotional support; assignment of status; and regulation of sexual behavior through social norms.

· For functionalists, the family creates well-integrated members of society by instilling the social culture into children.

· Radcliffe-Brown proposed that most stateless, "primitive" societies, lacking strong centralized institutions, are based on an association of descent groups. These clans emerge from family units.

Structural functionalism is a framework that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. In this way, society is like an organism and each aspect of society (institutions, social constructs, etc.) is like an organ that works together to keep the whole functioning smoothly. This approach looks at society through a macro-level orientation, which is a broad focus on the social structures that shape society as a whole. Functionalism addresses society in terms of the function of its constituent elements: norms, customs, traditions and institutions. Functionalists, in general, identify a number of functions families typically perform: reproduction; socialization; care, protection, and emotional support; assignment of status; and regulation of sexual behavior through the norm of legitimacy.

The Family

Radcliffe-Brown proposed that most stateless, "primitive" societies that lack strong centralized institutions are based on an association of corporate-descent groups. Structural functionalism also took on the argument that the basic building block of society is the nuclear family, and that the clan is an outgrowth, not vice versa. Durkheim was concerned with the question of how certain societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. Based on the metaphor above of an organism in which many parts function together to sustain the whole, Durkheim argued that complicated societies are held together by organic solidarity.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 2666