Examine the Effects of Maternal Employment on Infant Development.

Effects of Maternal Emploment on Infant Development The topic of this paper is the debate of whether or not maternal employment has any effect on infant development. Research on this described topic has recently become popular due to the rise of working mothers over the past several decades. Their increasing numbers in the workplace and decreasing numbers as stay at home moms are creating a number of different issues to be studied. The effects of maternal employment are determined by a number of factors that include, the mother's job satisfaction and drive, amount of work, and the mother's opinion of quality versus quantity time with children. The main concept at hand here is the importance of an attachment in the first few years as being vital to a child's later development. One side of the argument backs up this fact saying that it is important for a child to have their mother home with them during this period of development. The other side argues that they are finding that it may be more beneficial for the child to be placed in some form of nontraditional care environment. This paper will examine these different effects on infant development whether they are positive or negative. There are two sides to this argument as expected for any issue in debate. I will discuss these two sides by using the arguments of researchers that have studied this topic and written articles

  • Word count: 1646
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Assess the contribution of Marxist theories to an understanding of the family

Assess the contribution of Marxist theories to an understanding of the family. (24) Marxists believe that the family does not function for its members and all society, but really helps capitalism. The things that the family does benefit the ruling class, not the ordinary people. This is because it gives workers lots of family responsibilities, so that they are less likely to strike. The warm bath at home helps them to cope with long hours of boring hard work outside. Also the family trains up for free the new generation of the workforce for capitalism and teaches them to work hard and be obedient. Finally, the members of the family buy lots of consumer goods from shops and this helps to keep the capitalist system going. The Marxist sociologist Engels believes that society was originally communal so it did not need 'family' or marriage but as private property was introduced an organised system of inheritance was necessary, because fathers needed to be sure of two things: one, that their property passed down to their children and two, that their wives were monogamous. Marriage controlled women's sexuality and ensured men's dominance by bringing them into the private sphere of the home and keeping them submissive by ensuring men controlled wealth and power. However, other sociologists have criticised this view because they believe that Marxists are too focused on conflict and

  • Word count: 699
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Assess the view that the nuclear family functions benefit all its members and society as a whole.

Assess the view that the nuclear family functions benefit all its members and society as a whole. The family was once described as a social group that shared common residence, consisted of at least two adults of each sex that maintained a socially approved sexual relationship and had one or more children, their own or adopted. This is a nuclear family, described by George Murdoch to be a universal family type. Although it is correct to say that nuclear families are located universally, family types now vary from single-parents families to gay headed families. Despite the variety, they contribute to society, in ways that can be positive and negative too. Many sociologists diff in their views as to whether the family is positive to the society or not- functionalists believe that the family has positive functions that contribute positively to the society but functionalists tend to ignore negative aspects of the family such as the 'dark side', which consists of all that makes the family a negative experience for its members. Nevertheless there are sociologists that focus on only the negative aspects, such as, Marxists, Feminists and Radial psychiatrists. The new right theory has faith that the family is a positive function of the society, however new rights only refer to nuclear families, as they believe that any other family type in inferior. Functionalism is a consensus theory

  • Word count: 1143
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Assess the view that Industrialisation led to the decline of the extended family and the rise of the nuclear family.

Assess the view that Industrialisation led to the decline of the extended family and the rise of the nuclear family. Industrialisation is where the country begins to expand in producing secondary goods and services using factories and transport. This allowed extended families to become wage earner that meant they were able to work for someone else other than their selves and their families. This was important as extended families consisted of the children and their parents but also grandparents or aunts and uncles. So having a large family meant everyone had to contribute financially, also with educating the younger generation and be able to look after each other and be seen as doctors for one another. Extended families were very common in Pre- Industrial England because all family members were able to support each other through difficult time and their work would be more physically demanding than Industrial England, but this work would be to support the family as it would be farming on their own land. When Industrialisation took over England the extended family were no longer needed as all the functions that they would perform for the family were lost as they were now the States responsibility so this no longer gave a purpose for extended families to stick together. Also as family had to work for others this meant that the economy demanded a more geographically mobile

  • Word count: 867
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Outline and Evaluate two theories on the formation of relationships.

Outline and Evaluate two theories on the formation of relationships. The stages of relationships goes from Attraction then leading to formation then leading to maintenance and breakdown/dissolution. One theory being the Reinforcement affect theory states it is a behavioural method of learning. It states operant conditioning where people weigh up rewards directly like psychological needs and hence explained BY operating conditioning. People who are rewarding are liked usually more than the ones who do not reward regularly and normally chosen as potential partners for relationships because they are associated with feeling good rather than the not so rewarding person who could be associated with an unhappy event, they would not be very desirable at all. If the person in question was met 'in a good mood' at the time then this is highly more appealing then when met in a bad mood and then is associated with our own good mood and hence more likely to be willing for a formation of a relationship, this is known as 'the affect'. An indirect reward associated with pleasant circumstances could be explained by classical conditioning as well. Finally reinforcement such as a person could be associated with reinforcement for example providing it; these particular people are liked more and again more likely to enter into a relationship. There are certain human needs which affect social

  • Word count: 870
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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How functionalism contributes towards our understanding of families and society.

Functionalism works to support society as a whole, It has been said that society is like a human body. Each organ is linked up with a part of society the idea explains about how independent each part is, it shows that if one part of the human body fails then it effects the rest of the body. This then links to society as if one part fails then it effects the rest of society as it has a knock on effect. All parts of society are inter related which explains why they all have to be maintained in order to have a successful society. A biological function is seen as the role that a part of the body has to play in order to keep the body alive, however a function in society is fairly similar but it is the part it plays in the social life as a whole and that contribution maintaines the structure. George Murdock defines the family as “A social group characterised by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more childeren, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults”. Murdock has quite a traditional view of the family, the family type he is explaining here is the nuclear family. Murdock analysed 250 societies and came to the conclusion that the family has four basic functions, these are sexual, reproductive, socialising and economic. He explained

  • Word count: 801
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Families and Households. Notes on Diversity Childhood and Industrialisation.

Families and Households – Family Diversity Functionalists – argue that if any member of the nuclear family is either taken away or changed, there is no means through which socialisation cannot be enforced and established New rights – argue that family diversity breaks down the traditional norms and values of society Post modernists – argue that individuals can choose from several options depending on what suits their personal needs and lifestyles. Marxists – Argue that family diversity is good for society as the nuclear family are the only family that helps maintain the position of the ruling class, therefore other family types ensure this does not happen. Stacey – argues that there is such diversity of family types, there will never be one dominant type O’Brien and Jones – Criticised Stacey as they found there to be less variety of family types in society and most people have only ever experienced one or two types. Giddens – Argues that society is so diverse and unstable that we can no longer predict the future. Beck – ‘risk society’ & ‘negotiated family’ Chester – Changes in diversity are minor and family are less conventional. Driver & Ballard – showed the culture Asian families and their traditional values. Eversley & Bonnerjea – Looked at regional family diversity they found that different family types lived in different areas

  • Word count: 1918
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Outline and evaluate the view that state policies have a positive effect on family life

Patrick Tucker Outline and evaluate the view that state policies have a positive effect on family life [33 marks] State policy that influences family life refers to the policies and initiatives introduced by governments that have an effect on how family life functions. This policy can affect families either directly or indirectly; direct referring to policy regarding marriage and divorce, for example, and indirect policy referring to that regarding things such as housing and education. Over the past 30 years, the UK has seen a diverse stance on family policy—reflected by the changes in government over this period. The new right governments of Thatcher and Major saw the breakdown of families as being instrumental of a culture in decline. Thatcher saw the increase of family types that differed from the usual nuclear family as being concerning; an interesting stance, considering being the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom doesn’t fit into the traditional view of an expressive mother. However, the new right governments can be seen to have had a positive effect on family life, with examples coming from things such as the Child Support Agency—a body designed to ensure child maintenance was paid by absent parents. In theory, this would have had a massively positive effect on family life for all those who suffered the blight of an absentee parent; but, in practice, it was

  • Word count: 1160
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Assess the Marxist View of the Role of the Family.

ASSESS THE MARXIST VIEW OF THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY (24 MARKS) Marxism is a conflict theory that sees society as being based on class divisions and exploitation. Marxists see all institutions in capitalist society as contributing to the maintenance of exploitation. The family is seen as an oppressive institution that performs several important functions for capitalism. According to Engels (1884), a Marxist, a man wants to know that the children in his family are his own children, so this has led to monogamous marriages. If a man knows that the children are his, his money and property (wealth) are then kept in his family, meaning that when he dies his children would get the money and the property. This essentially means that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor (circle of deprivation) as a family’s wealth would stay in the family and will not be shared with anyone who is outside that family. For example, if a family is from a middle- class background, the children within that family will remain rich as they will inherit their family’s wealth. If a family, however, is from a working-class background, the children would remain poor as their family’s status would be what determines their status later on in life. So, it seems as though the role of the family is to benefit capitalism because as the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. However, having said that,

  • Word count: 1031
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Examine the reasons for changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation and divorce in the last forty years.

Emmanuel Mends Sociology Marie Gettings Examine the reasons for changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation and divorce in the last forty years. 24 marks There are many reasons for the changing patterns in marriage, divorce and cohabitation in our modern era of the 21st century. Here are some reasons to somewhat explain the reasons for the following. Item A states that “Only half as many people are getting married, lone- parent families have increased threefold, children born outside marriage has quadrupled in number and the number of divorces have trebled. In addition to this, item B goes on to further support the evidence given in item A. It states “marriage is a normal and expected part of women’s lives in Western society. However, although the vast majority of women will expect to marry at some time and at least once, in recent years there has been some decline in the popularity of marriage”. The following evidences’ given above greatly illustrate how the idea of marriage has been idealised and also somewhat diminished from society in the last forty years. In recent years there has been a significant fall in the number of first time marriages, with the figures substantially declining from 480000 in 1972 to 306000 in 2000. Further evidence suggests “the average age of first marriage rose by seven years between 1971 and 2005 when it was 32 years for men

  • Word count: 1384
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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