PSY 3509 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Service Canada, Nuclear Family, Air Canada
31 Mar 2019
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Theoretical Perspectives: What is a Family?
What is a Family?
• Social institution
• Household: a person or group of persons who occupy the same dwelling
• Communal living: a group of people, who may or may not be related by birth of marriage,
sharing financial resources and living arrangements.
Legal Family
• Many definitions
o Statistics Canada
• Census family
o Correctional Service Canada
• Private Family Visiting Program
o Air Canada
• The Bereavement Fare Policy
o Vanier Institute of the Family
• Combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties
of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or placement and who, together,
assume responsibilities for variant combinations.
o Children's Aid Society
• Anyone with a meaningful relationship to a child either through blood ties,
community or culture.
Social Definition of Family
• Nuclear Family: a family consisting of a husband, wife and their children.
o SNAF [Standard North American Family];
• A term used to describe a family form based on a breadwinner (father) and
homemaker (mother) raising the children.
o Family of Orientation - the family that we're born into and raised in.
o Family of Procreation - the family that we form through marriage or cohabitation.
• Extended Family: all nuclear family and all other relatives
o Kinship: a set of social relations based on blood, marriage and other social
connections
Personal Definition of Family
• Spectrum
o Biological and legal vs. social and personal
• Close friends can be considered family members
o Fictive Kin
Intentional Families
• Two or more individuals not related by blood or marriage who call themselves a family and
may share:
o Residence
o Finances
Document Summary
Personal definition of family: spectrum, biological and legal vs. social and personal, close friends can be considered family members, fictive kin. Theories on families: theories are important for shaping policy, therapy, etc, theory is a general framework of ideas used to answer questions. Society influences families: families are part of a vast social network, neighbours, school, work, religion, societal expectations of a family and its behaviour, what a family is "supposed" to do, stigma, labelling. Micro vs. macro approach: micro, focuses on individuals or small groups, relationships within families, macro, focuses on the big picture, how society affects the family. Ignores things like violence, psychopathology and sexual abuse in the family. Conflict theory: macro perspective, focus on negative influences on the family, competition for resources. Ideas of ownership: does not explain, why societal values chance over time, how families contribute to society.
