Sociology of Family Life

Study Notes

The social construction of childhood and changes in the role and social position of children in the family are explored.
The role and social position of grandparents in the family are examined, including cross-cultural comparisons and the impact of changing life expectancy.
Social class, gender, and ethnicity are factors that affect the experiences of children in the family.
Changes in the concepts of motherhood and fatherhood are also discussed.

The processes of learning and education are investigated in their social context.
Factors affecting educational achievement and different perspectives on the role of education within wider society are examined.

The contribution of education to social order, ideological control, and economic reproduction is investigated.
The relationship between education and social mobility is examined, and the extent to which educational achievement is determined by wider social forces is discussed.
The key concepts of Inequality and opportunity, and Structure and human agency are also explored.

Functionalist views on how education contributes to value consensus and social solidarity are discussed.
Marxist views on how education contributes to the maintenance of the capitalist economic system are examined.
Education as an instrument of ideological control and cultural reproduction is also explored.
New Right and social democratic views on the relationship between education and the economy are discussed.

Key definitions and issues of globalisation, glocalisation, global culture, and problems with defining globalisation are covered.
Different dimensions of globalisation, including cultural, political, and economic, are explored.
Perspectives on who benefits from globalisation, including Marxist, feminist, postmodernist, globalist, sceptic, and transformationalist perspectives, are examined.

The impact of globalisation on identity, including ethnic revitalisation, cultural defence, and hybrid identity, is explored.
Cultural divergence versus cultural convergence/homogenisation is discussed.
The role of Western ideology in shaping identity and the concept of Westernisation is examined.

The spread of liberal democracy and human rights is discussed.
Global social movements and attempts to oppose globalisation are examined.
Debates about the role of the nation state in tackling global social and environmental problems are covered.

Patterns of global inequality and explanations for them are explored.
The causes and consequences of migration, and the nature of crime in a global context, are examined.
The key concepts of Power, control, and resistance, and Inequality and opportunity are addressed.

Different ways in which the behaviours of some family members are controlled by others are examined.
Equality in the family, including gender equality and experiences of family life, is discussed.
The key concepts of Power, control, and resistance, and Inequality and opportunity are explored.

The causes and consequences of changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation, divorce, and separation are discussed.
Different family and household forms, including nuclear, extended, lone-parent, reconstituted, and single-person households, are examined.
Dimensions of family diversity, including organisational, cultural, and class diversity, are explored.
The debate about the extent of family diversity and the dominance of the nuclear family is discussed.