Sociology Postmodern theories of the family

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Outline and discuss postmodern theories of the family

The principles of postmodern views of the family are that there is much wider range of living opportunities available nowadays, because of social and cultural changes. As other theories believe that nuclear family is dominant family type within society, postmodernists disagree with this opinion and have different view.

The New Right and functionalists see the family as a structure that shapes the behaviour of its members. However, postmodernists argue that this structural approach ignores moral relativism of individuals that they always have a choice of family type and nobody can judge them. Also modernists ignore the increase of family diversity; however there is no ‘best’ family type anymore.

Tamara Hareven (1978) says that we should examine each family member, not whole family, to understand how family live and how they make their choices. This sociologist created life course analysis which shows flexibility of family lives choices. It focuses on the meanings family members give to life events. Holdsworth and Morgan (2005) supported this by examining what means for individuals to be independent and how other people influence their decisions. The positive aspects of life course analysis are that it gives free choice for families and fits modern society because of diversity increase.

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The similar opinion has David Morgan (1996) who uses the concept of ‘family practices’ what describes the actions which family members actually do. Family practices are influenced by the views on rights and obligations we have within the family. Also the concept shows why conflicts exist in family. It is because family members may have different beliefs about each other’s that families are not things or structures; they are what people actually do. What is more, the family was fragmented because the boundaries between friendship and other types of relationships became blurred. However, the structural theories are not totally rejected, ...

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