Sociology 2202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Artificial Insemination, Structural Level, Social Forces
Document Summary
Intergenerational relationships: the relationship dynamics between parents and children or grandparents and grandchildren: key unit of analysis in studies of family ties and aging suggesting linked lives. Emphasis on problems and interpersonal conflict: vantage point usually from the adult-child, micro-level not social structural level. Ambivalence: applies at psychological/individual (micro) and sociological/social (macro and meso) levels, contradictions in family relationships and social life. Ambivalence brings together core ideas of main theoretical perspectives in attention to: contradictions of relationships that are negotiated by individuals attempting to exercise agency. In the context of variable opportunities and constraints based on combination of social statues (structured social relations) Ties of older gay and lesbian individuals: coming out = ambivalent situation for the old, younger gay/lesbian couples may use artificial insemination, adoption to become parents together. Majority of middle-aged older gay men and lesbians are out to their family of origin, to siblings more than to their parents.