Strengths and Weaknesses of Sociological Analyses of the Family

What are the strengths and weaknesses of sociological analyses of the family?
Essay

The family structures are considered to be developing over the time, as a result to the
social changes that have been brought by the industrialization. This is of a particular interest for
those who are studying the sociology of family which includes the functionalism, Marxism and
feminism. The intention of the essay is to discuss about the evaluation of theories through using
the sociological study which can help in improving the school of thought.
Functionalism is about how family is able perform its functions in the society. The
functionalists normally focus on the social institution (Lesnard, Cousteaux, Chanvril, & Le Hay,
2016). The family also allow the children to lean on factors like the language, society with values
and norms. Not only this, there are possibilities of the role to pass on social skills and knowledge
in childhood. The family performances is a basic important function, where the functionalist
theory is supported through Parson “Social Structure of Family”. For example, there are many
small societies which are taking care of the elder people but in the industrial areas, they are taken
care by the care homes. According to the analysis, the primary socialization considers that the
socialization takes place in the family, at the early years of childhood. There are processes which
involves primary socialization and there are other internalization processes of society culture that
needs to structure personality (Díaz-Méndez, & Gómez-Benito, 2017).
Parson is working on idealizing the family image where the examples are about how the
feminists look on the male dominated nature of the traditional family structure. The
functionalities do not consider any alternatives for the family. There are Marxist theory of
interests with powerful groups that aim to determine about how the society is organized. The
family is considered to be important part which is able to maintain the economic system as well.
There are strengths and weakness of the functionalist framework, where the theories generally
look for the positive functions in a family and then giving a look into the negative aspects as

well. The third theory is feminism where the feminists perspectives focus on the different types
of the cultural and the social or political movements (Hart, 2016). They are mainly concerned
about the problems related to the inequality of gender and the prejudice against the women. The
strengths and weakness is depending upon the feminist perspectives. The ideal family structure is
looked upon that an individual is having a nuclear family or where the couple stays with their
children. The aspects like practices of families of different religions are not considered mainly
because the feminists might exaggerate the family effects on women. The symbolic
interactionism focus on the student’s attention on how the human interaction help in creating the
rules that are for working on further interactions. There is an inductive, qualitative approach to
properly understand the individuals and interactions of group to focus on how one is able to
prevent the understanding of larger structural contexts (Holborn, Langley & Haralambos, 2004).
The theories are determined through the structural pattern where they see that the family
is in relation to a wider context and describes it as the institution which is able to maintain the
social values as well. The similarities are to look at the family in terms of ideology and the ideas
of how the things can be. The theories generally focus on the functionalism with major emphasis
on the stability, cohesion and consensus. When compared to Marxism, one shows complete
interest in the powerful groups which have a major influence on the structure of family. The
arguments are about the economical needs of the society with the changes that have a major
influence on the social institution. Marxism theory discusses about the structural conflict
perspectives where the society is structured with the class lines working in the interests of the
small elite classes. There are conflict of interests which boils over the revolution mainly because
the institutions perform the functions for the control of ideological forms (Ruggiero, 2015).
There are discussions on how the modern family functions are able to work on promoting values