Questionnaire- I have produced a questionnaire that I will fill out as I interview 15 different people. The sample that I have chosen to interview belongs to large age group, from 12 to 35 years old. I have decided to use a questionnaire because the results are comparable as all respondents answer the same questions. I decided to use interview questionnaires because they generally have a good response rate and also it allows me to explain the purpose of the research and answer any questions that they may have. In my questionnaire I have used both closed questions and open-ended questions. Closed questions are straightforward for me to analyse and present the results in the form of a chart or table of statistics. Open-ended questions allow respondents to answer questions in their own way and are so more likely to reflect truthfully and accurately what respondents want to say. A copy of this questionnaire is attached at the end of this report as “Appendix 1”. To look at it, turn to page
Observation- To help me with the research, I decided to do some participant observation. At school, I started a discussion about roles in nuclear families with some of the other students. This observation was fully covert as the group were totally unaware that the research was taking place. I kept the observation covert because I did not want to alter the behaviour of the group. I used observation in this research as it allowed me to study other people’s points of view and the results were valid. However, my role in the discussion was limited as I could not get too involved and become biased.
Secondary data- I have decided to use secondary such as books and the media because they can be used as a source of information. I will also look at the way the media presents the nuclear family. To do this, I will need to use semiology- this involves looking gat the hidden meanings and depends more on the interpretation of the researcher than content analysis.
CONTENT AND ANALYSIS
In this section, I will first present the results of my interview questionnaires. Some of the results are presented in the form of quantitative data and others in qualitative data. Also, I will analyse the data gathered from my observation and the secondary data sources.
- Are you a part of a nuclear family?
For this question, all 15 answers were yes. This is because this question was just to confirm that all the respondents have actually lived in nuclear families. This is because people that have not lived in nuclear families would not have been able to help with the information that I required.
- How many members are there in your family?
This question was mainly to find out how varied the amount of people living in nuclear families can be. Here are the results shown in the form of bar graph.
The graph above shows that the amount of people in nuclear families is very diverse and there is no particular pattern or relation between any of the groups.
- Have you lived in any other kind of family?
The aim of this question was to find out how the nuclear families would compare to other types of families and what people thought of each type of family.
The pie chart above shows that the amount of people saying yes is only higher by a slight percentage. This means that almost half the people have experienced other types of families and are therefore going to answer the rest of the questions accordingly.
- What is your role in your family?
This was an open-ended question and there were a range of answers. These were:
- Child (6)
- Working mum (3)
- Father (3)
- House husband (1)
- Housewife (1)
- Child with adult responsibilities (1)
The statistics above show that in Britain today there are a few different roles within the nuclear family, which would not have been found a few decades ago. These are: the working mum which is becoming increasing popular not only in Britain but all throughout the world, the house-husband which is on the incline as more women are now choosing to pursue a career, and the child with responsibilities which is quickly rising as in many families both parents are working leaving the eldest child to handle all household responsibilities.
- Do you feel that roles within the family have changed over the last few decades?
This question was put in to see the view of society and I wanted to find out the views were similar due to the stereotypes or were the varied. It was an open-ended question but I have still put the answers in the form of graph.
The bar graph above shows that the majority of people thought that there was some change in the roles of all family members. However, I was unable to come to a conclusion with just this question about how different the roles have actually become. This change is due to the changes in society since the early 1960s. These include:
- More divorce and cohabitation
- The rise of lone parents
- More illegitimate births
- Women going out to work in greater numbers- taking men’s jobs and making it harder for them to be breadwinners of the family.
All these changes are seen as evidence of collapsing morals and a crisis in the family. This is the main reason to why the New Right are calling for the return of traditional family values among the nuclear families. This is where the father is the breadwinner and the mother and wife who cares for the home and family.
- Do you have any responsibilities attached to your role?
I made this question as an open-ended question so that the respondents could fill out what they think are responsibilities rather than have me miss out something as one of the close-ended options. The results were all quite similar and there weren’t many different answers. Here is what people generally said:
- Child- Small household chores like cleaning and perhaps looking after some younger siblings.
- Working mum- cooking, cleaning, looking after kids and home, going to work.
- Father- going to work, other financial responsibilities.
- House husband- looking after the house and the family, includes cooking, cleaning etc.
- Housewife- caring for the family and home. Responsible for all household duties.
- Child with adult responsibilities- all domestic chores in addition to looking after younger siblings.
This shows that household responsibilities such as looking after the home and family are now generally divided amongst all family members, which would have all been the mother and wife’s duties a few years ago. This change is taking place due to the rise in feminism as more and more women are going out to work.
- Do you enjoy following your responsibilities?
This question was added to the questionnaire to see if people living in nuclear families are in fact enjoying the changes in the roles and responsibilities and if these changes are more suited for the modern day lives that these people are now living.
The pie chart showing the results for this question is on the following page.
The pie chart above shows that vast amounts of people do in fact enjoy the responsibilities that come with their roles sometimes. This means that the roles are actually more suited to the modern day lives that these people lead from day to day.
- Do you feel that sometimes roles can change within the family?
This question was once again added to find out about the view of these people.
The pie chart shows that the views are quite similar and there is no correct answer. The results of the overall research however, show that the roles do change within the families especially when some men opt out to be househusbands and children take the role of mothers to their siblings.
- Would you like to live in another type of family?
Considering the fact that out of 15 respondents 8 had previously lived in another type of family, I wanted to find out how many of the total would like to live in another type of family. Here are the results:
The pie chart shows that only a very small percentage of the total would definitely like to live in another type of family. This shows that most people must be generally happy with their current role and family responsibilities.
- Do you enjoy living in a nuclear family?
This was a closed ended question and only required a simple yes or no for the answer. Here are the results from the questionnaire:
The pie chart shows that a massive 80% of the total enjoys living in a nuclear family, which included performing the duties that come with their roles. This shows that the nuclear family is still very popular as it is slowly adapting to today’s modern day life.
In the observation, some of the participants were members of nuclear families and some belonged to other types of families. I started off the discussion by questioning the whether the roles of all their parents were similar. Most people said that the chores in their homes were divided up, mothers did some and fathers did others. The rest of the talk about parents did not bring out any conclusive results. But, when I hinted the roles of the children there was a clear division between the group. Two people who lived in lone parent families said that they had more domestic responsibilities as they had to help out their single parent. They said that the children living with both parents don’t have a lot of chores. The children from the nuclear families opposed this statement and made it clear that they have just as many responsibilities as others if not more. This seemed to shock the other participants. This shows that with the rise of other type of families, there are still stereotypes about the nuclear families and the roles of its members.
The main aim for this investigation was for me to find out whether the nuclear family is changing to suit today’s daily life. To help me with this, I also looked at secondary resources. From television I found evidence that nuclear families are evolving. There is a program on Trouble called “My Wife and Kids”. It is a comedy about a family in which a father gets thrown into the deep when his wife takes a job as a high-flying stockbroker leaving him to play househusband with three kids. This shows that the old stereotype of the conventional nuclear family is in fact changing slowly. After the instant rise in feminism the women were determined to go to work and make a good career for themselves. This left them with two options. They could either put their family lives on hold and wait to have children or their husbands could opt to stay at home and look after the children instead. The idea of the househusbands is becoming increasingly popular day by day as more and more men are looking at the advantages rather than the disadvantages.
CONCLUSION AND EVALUATION
The results I acquired from the whole research turned out to be both valid and reliable. The methods I chose to carry out the research also turned out to be suitable. However due to the constraints of time and money, I wasn’t able to carry out the research with a wider range of respondents. I felt that all of my research was based on the people and the life around me. If I had more time, I would like to have taken the research further by investigating in different areas with a different group of people.
The methods used were suitable t the type of investigation I was carrying out however I did encounter some problems during the participant observation. I found it extremely difficult to keep my opinions aside form the group’s discussion. Also, when I was analysing the questionnaires, I felt that I could have perhaps elaborated on some of the questions more to get a detailed insight of the respondents’ opinions and views.
Throughout this investigation I found that there are increasing changes in the conventional nuclear family in order to make it suitable for today’s life. Many people believe that the nuclear family is decline. What is the correct statement? Well, according to Active Sociology for GCSE by “Jonathan Blundell” the simple reason is that large amounts of people do spend parts of their lives in nuclear families. If we add to the households we count as nuclear families before they have children, and couples after the children have grown up and are independent, then more than half of households are based on nuclear family relationships. This is evidence that the nuclear family is still very popular however the roles and systems of a nuclear family are changing and will carry to do so.
From all the research and evaluating I found out that the conventional nuclear family is the base of more than half of all families. This shows that nuclear families will forever be alive but due to the ever changing views of society. The nuclear family would have to re-invent itself over and over again. Recently, there have been many big changes like men choosing to stay at home and women working. This makes you think what is it going to be next- children taking over the house and all household responsibilities?
No one knows what might happen next. As for the question- “Will the CONVENTIONAL NUCLEAR family eventually die out?” In my opinion, no, I honestly don’t think so. From my investigation, I found that people like nuclear families and they enjoy living as a part of them. Therefore, I believe that since it has been going on for a long time, it will now go on forever.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
This section shows you all the places that I got my information from.
- Active Sociology for GCSE by Jonathan Blundell
- Sociology- Themes and Perspectives by Hara Lambos and Holborn
- Introducing Sociology by T. Bilton
- The biography channel
- Trouble TV
WEBOGRAPHY
This page shows the different websites I used on the Internet to help me out with my investigation.