Elaborate on four problems with many of the studies on inequality in family life.
What will be an ideal response?
One problem with many studies is that they are narrowly focused. Researchers look at the influence of parents’ education on parent involvement in schooling or at children’s time spent watching television or at time spent visiting relatives. Only a few studies examine more than one dynamic inside the home. Second, much of the empirical work is descriptive. For example, extensive research has been done on time use, including patterns of women’s labor force participation, hours parents spend at work, and mothers’ and fathers’ contributions to child care. Third, researchers have not satisfactorily explained how these observed patterns are produced. Put differently, conceptualizations of the social processes through which families differ are underdeveloped and little is known about how family life transmits advantages to children. Few researchers have attempted to integrate what is known about behaviors and attitudes taught inside the home with the ways in which these practices may provide unequal resources for family members outside the home. Fourth, little is known about the degree to which children adopt and enact their parents’ beliefs. Sociologists of the family have long stressed the importance of a more dynamic model of parent-child interaction, but empirical research has been slow to emerge.
You might also like to view...
To satisfy the requirement of independent random sampling, the researcher
a. must use only cluster sampling. b. may randomly select cases from one list of the population, then subdivide that sample according to the trait of interest. c. may randomly select an entire neighborhood, then select any member of each family in that neighborhood. d. must select only very small populations.
The history of CPR illustrates
A. the scientific nature of medical practice. B. Americans’ discomfort with the inevitability of sudden death. C. why doctors adopt cost-effective treatments. D. Americans’ preference for a quick and painless death. E. the social construction of mediocrity.
When "whiteness" is used as the taken-for-granted standard against which everything else is viewed, the success of black athletes is
A. explained in terms of cultural factors by whites. B. defined by whites as a result of luck. C. seen by whites as a "problem" in need of explanation. D. seldom covered in the mainstream media.
Teachers and guidance counselors may encourage male students to pursue careers in the sciences, but then steer equally talented female students into careers as early childhood teachers. Such socialization into traditional gender roles is considered a form of
A. social control. B. political integration. C. social integration. D. political control.