SOCIOL 2PP3- Midterm Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam ( 16 pages long!)
5 Oct 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
McMaster
SOCIOL 2PP3
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Lecture #1
Defining Families
- Definitions of family and marriage have been contested, expanding!
- Most of 20th century, heterosexual marriage was benchmark by which many were
judged!
- Social pressure to pursue conventional family life up until 1990’s!
- Diversity, choice, fluidity in different aspects of private life and close relations:!
- Relationship status (LAT couples, polyamorous couples)!
- Living arrangements !
- Family structure (traditional intact families vs. blended families)!
- Childbearing and parenting (medical advances in how people are having babies)!
- Parenthood increasingly detached from biology (adoption, surrogate, donor
sperm/egg/embryo) !
- Connection between marriage and childbearing transforming (unwed mothers,
single people, single gay men, cohabiting parents, voluntarily childless etc.)!
- Sexual orientation, sexuality, and sexual relationships!
- Tied to social media!
- Emotional intimacy!
- Increasingly looking for emotional support outside of intimate relationship!
- Normative for people (all ages) to experience more numerous intimate relationships, living
arrangements, and family reconfiguration/structures due to:!
- Social changes!
- Increasing secularism, declining stigma around making a choice that is non-
traditional, growing acceptance of LGBTQ rights/parenting, diversity in intimate
relationships !
- Economic changes!
- Challenges faced by Canadian workers (ex. precarious employment) !
- Political changes!
- Shift away from state/government support (neoliberalism)!
- Legal changes!
- To family law = repercussions for people who end relationships!
- Technological changes!
- Social media transforming relationships !
!
Policies!
- State policy relies on specific definitions of family that have historically excluded many families!
- Often have financial consequences (being denied government benefits) !
- While the Canadian government has adopted more inclusive definitions of family — vestiges
remain of non-inclusive definitions of family!
- ex. 2016 All Families Are Equal Act (gave same-sex parents parental rights) !
- ex. 2017 Child support legislation (provide financial support to unmarried, custodial
parents raising adult children with special needs who cannot live independently)!
- Government formulates economic policy (ex. tax policy)!
- Sometimes privileges certain types of families over others !
- ex. Income splitting (2015) - tax advantage directed to 2-parent family structure where
"1
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Thursday, September 7, 2017
one is working and one is at home taking care of children!
- Split income on income tax = tax savings !
- Critics: “expensive tax gift for the rich”; make income inequality worse!
- Assumptions of economic support!
- ex. OSAP: Eligibility criteria too high = don’t qualify but parents do not give them money!
- ex. Filial responsibility laws: Permits elderly parents to ask adult children to provide
financial support in need (have to take them to court) !
- ex. Social assistance (welfare, disability, etc.) and cohabiting couples: Benefit levels
reduced if have partner; if together assume going to support each other!
- Social assistance rules may deter relationship formation!
- Growth in single parent households (among blacks) from welfare rules !
- Definitions of families !
- ex. Married vs. cohabiting couples division!
- In past, cohabiting spouses were denied government benefits!
- Now just face probationary period to access benefits !
- ex. Division of assets following breakups!
- Current laws say equal division of assets if formally married and get divorced!
- Does not apply to cohabiting couples (exception of BC) !
- Without legal protection, women & children from cohabiting couples are
vulnerable !
- Polygamy!
- Marriage of one man to more than one wife being convicted !
- Definitions shape our personal decisions!
!
Sociological Perspective on Families!
- Families are socially constructed and have varied/changed over time and place!
- Edholm (ch. 2): Idea that “heterosexual nuclear family is natural” is challenged using
anthropological evidence !
- Shows that ideas about families (ex. conception, incest, parent-child relationships,
marriage) is socially constructed!
- Changed over time and place!
- Recent sociological scholarship argue for inclusive definitions of families and activities
accomplished in families !
- Fox and Luxton, ch. 1: Develop working/more inclusive definition of family!
- Do they have to live together?!
- Argues not all families are under same roof (divorced, transnational families,
etc.)!
- Carol Stack’s classic study (Strategies for Survival in Black Community)!
- White, pregnant, unmarried student !
- Discovered poor black women relied on extensive networks (friends, relatives,
neighbours, etc.) to survive economically; shared/swapped basics (milk, formula,
diapers, clothing, etc.); support extending across multiple households!
- Defined family by the people who helped them/willing to share basics!
- For Fox and Luxton, we need to consider:!
- Social reproduction: “basics” of getting by and surviving (food, clothing, shelter,
caregiving, organization of sexuality) The labour is physical, emotional, mental. !
1. Definitions used by sociologists today will focus on social reproduction (work of families/
basics)!
2. Advocate for more inclusive definitions
"2
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
De nitions of family and marriage have been contested, expanding. Most of 20th century, heterosexual marriage was benchmark by which many were judged. Social pressure to pursue conventional family life up until 1990"s. Diversity, choice, uidity in different aspects of private life and close relations: Family structure (traditional intact families vs. blended families) Childbearing and parenting (medical advances in how people are having babies) Parenthood increasingly detached from biology (adoption, surrogate, donor sperm/egg/embryo) Connection between marriage and childbearing transforming (unwed mothers, single people, single gay men, cohabiting parents, voluntarily childless etc. ) Increasingly looking for emotional support outside of intimate relationship. Normative for people (all ages) to experience more numerous intimate relationships, living arrangements, and family recon guration/structures due to: Increasing secularism, declining stigma around making a choice that is non- traditional, growing acceptance of lgbtq rights/parenting, diversity in intimate relationships. Challenges faced by canadian workers (ex. precarious employment) To family law = repercussions for people who end relationships.
