What do we learn about family life from sociology's major theoretical approaches, including structural-functional analysis, symbolic-interaction analysis, social-conflict analysis, and feminist analysis? What can you draw from these various types of analyses that might help you make family life better in some ways?
What will be an ideal response?
- Structural-functional theory views the family as the foundation of society because it has several important functions, including regulating sexuality and providing a committed parental relationship as the setting for raising children. Families also provide their members with economic and emotional support.
- Symbolic-interaction theory focuses on the patterns of interaction by which people construct family life. Families have much to do with the type of self-image that every child develops. Gender can "script" behavior in married life, with the effect of reducing a couple's spontaneity and intimacy.
- Social-conflict theory focuses on links between family and social inequality. Friedrich Engels explained that the family is a system that transmits wealth (or poverty) from one generation to another thereby reproducing the class structure in each generation.
- Feminist theory links family to gender stratification. Feminism explains how the historical development of families gave men control over women and especially over women's sexuality.
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Indicate whether the statement is true or false
The term glass ceiling especially applies to
a. women who work in female-dominated occupations. b. men who work in female-dominated occupations. c. women who work in male-dominated occupations. d. women who are well-connected in the organization but fail to advance.
Social classes are generally based on:
What will be an ideal response?
A fashion magazine that emphasizes the virtues of a thin body and implies being slender is associated with beauty and success is promoting the ______.
A. mean world syndrome B. media image problem C. body dimorphic phenomenon D. cult of thinness