A Sociology of Family Life

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Deborah Chambers. A Sociology of Family Life

Table of Contents

Guide

Pages

A Sociology of Family Life. Change and Diversity in Intimate Relations

Copyright Page

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction

Themes and issues

Organization of the book

Notes

1 Traditional Approaches to the Family

Late nineteenth-century sociological perspectives

Engels: family, private property and the state

The twentieth-century functional family

Companionate marriage

Community and kinship studies

Race and ethnicity in family studies

Feminism and families

Conclusions

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

2 Individualization, Intimacy and Family Life

Individualization and changing families

Critiques of the concept of individualization

Doing and displaying families

Non-traditional family relationships

Same-sex intimacies and families of choice

Black and minority ethnic kinship ties

Conclusions

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

3 Parenting Practices and Values

Changing parenthood and parenting

Morality and motherhood

Fatherhood: traditional and new models

Fatherhood after divorce

Domestic violence in families with children

Parenting among minority ethnic groups

Parenting in LGBTQ+ families

Conclusions

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

4 The Changing Nature of Childhood

Changing ideas about childhood

Children’s socialization and agency

Children and divorced families

Childhood, social inequalities and consumption

Children, digital media and the home

The privatization of childhood

Conclusions

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

Notes

5 Families and Ageing Societies

Changing dynamics in ageing and family life

Older people and family support

Gender differences among older people

Same-sex relationships among older people

Globalization, old age and kinship in Southeast and East Asian communities

Conclusions

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

6 Globalization, Migration and Intimate Relations

Gendered migration patterns

Globalization, migration and family care

Marriage strategies and mobility

Commercially negotiated marriage

Maintaining cultural traditions in diasporic settings

Transnational mail-order brides

Undocumented migrant families

Conclusions

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

7 Families, Fertility and Populations

Fertility policies from a global perspective

The case of Japan: a low-fertility industrialized country

Romania’s pro-natalist policy under Ceauşescu

India’s preference for sons

China’s one-child policy

Conclusions

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

8 Families and New Reproductive Technologies

Assisted conception and relatedness

Approaches to new reproductive technologies

Donor insemination and the regulation of families

Infertility treatment from a global perspective: the South Asian diaspora

Donor technologies in the Muslim Middle East

Commercial surrogacy in India

Conclusions

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

Notes

9 New Directions: The Politics of Family, Intimacy and Personal Life

The politics of family values

The politics of family, race and nation

Black Lives Matter and extended family bonds

Global and economic dimensions of intimacy, family and caregiving

New intimacies

Friends and family

Personal life

Notes

References

Index

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2nd Edition

DEBORAH CHAMBERS & PABLO GRACIA

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Debates about changes in parenting values and practices are assessed in chapter 3. Changing notions and practices of motherhood, pinpointed by feminist debates, correspond with women’s improved education and entrance into the labour market. The identification of a ‘new’ parenthood that emerges out of separation and divorce has shaped definitions and practice of both mothering and fathering. The theme of parenting is followed by a focus on current ideas about fatherhood and masculinity. New models of fatherhood have been prompted by the erosion of the male breadwinner role, the rise in post-divorce families and families without fathers. Public discourses about a new kind of Dad, based on the model of ‘active fatherhood’, are displacing the notion of the father as ‘male breadwinner’ and unemotional disciplinarian. As a result, fatherhood is being reconstructed in law and social policy. The chapter addresses the idea of ‘involved fatherhood’ promoted by the state in the UK and USA, followed by a critical analysis of the harmful consequences of domestic violence, especially among women and children. The chapter also addresses the issue of parenting among ethnic minority families. Furthermore, the challenges and opportunities faced by LGBTQ+ parents in contemporary societies are examined in the chapter.

Chapter 4 traces changes in childhood. It highlights the tensions between opposing accounts of childhood: a traditional romantic ideal which affirms that the right of a child is ‘to be a child’, and the idea of the child as an active agent with rights. The practicalities of contemporary childrearing practices are set against this romantic ideal and often lead to confusion among both parents and children. Childrearing is now depicted as a negotiation between parent and child, within a process monitored by the state and other agencies such as schools. The impact on childhood of post-divorce families, lone parenting and poverty are examined. Contemporary approaches to childhood draw attention to children’s accelerating contact with the media, commercialism and new digital technologies. Children’s sustained engagement with media devices complicates the idealized and sentimental notion of childhood. For example, the introduction of a wide range of media gadgets into the home, together with children’s access to mobile devices, prompts a renegotiation of household relationships between children and parents. The chapter also shows that in certain non-western societies, childhood is now shaped by elements of privatized and individualized family life familiar to western societies, suggesting that a western trend of home-based privatized childhoods may be a globalizing tendency. Changes occurring in contemporary urban China are outlined to offer an insight into the way these changes are impacting transnationally.

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