A Critical Analysis: Strengths and Weaknesses of Family Sociology

This essay evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of sociological analyses of the family, focusing on functionalism, Marxism, and feminism. It discusses how functionalists view the family's role in socializing children and maintaining social norms, while Marxists examine the family's connection to economic systems and power structures. Feminist perspectives highlight gender inequality within family structures. The essay also touches on symbolic interactionism and various research methods used in family sociology, such as surveys and ethnographic studies. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding the interplay between theory and logic in sociological analysis, referencing conjugal roles, media influences, and the exploitation of domestic labor.

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

that ensure about the reproduction and the capitalism maintenance. The family is considered
important for the ideological apparatus which socializes the people to think that there are
justifications for the inequality and encourage people to access the capitalist system as
completely fair. The families need to keep up with proper services which are seen to be acquired
by the other neighbors and peers. The media and companies target the children for the
advertisements who then persuade the parents through pester power for buying expensive items.
One needs to be deterministic with assuming how the people are passively able to accept the
socialization and the family life, where the future is seen to be pre-determined.
The contributions are made by functionalists where Marxists and the feminists
perspectives are defined to sociology that has brought a complete understanding on how the
family works. The highlight is about the different social factors which are included to create
specific conditions in the family. The examples are related to the economy effect on family,
where the study is about the role within society and how it affects the people (Both male and
female). The approach is based on the survey research of the different contemporary families
which holds the benefits for leaving the statistical data about how one can interpolate the society
general traits (McMunn et al., 2015). The other method is ethnography research where survey
allows a broader and shallow analysis, where the observation is to obtain a proper and rich
information that will allow the research based on insider perspectives. The evaluation of the
theories include the distribution on how the structural theories are able to work with wider social
context and describe the family as an institution. This will help in maintaining the established
social values with explaining roles and relationship through the sociology. The sociology focus
on understanding the social interaction and the organization is able to handle the social changes
as well. The major themes include the interplay between individual and society where society is

stable and changing, the causes and the consequences which are related to the inequality. The
social construction need to understand about how one is able to explain the patterns that change
over the time and in a different setting as well. The social science includes the perspectives that
are related to careers and how the people are prepared to undertake the central concepts of social
interaction and relationship (McGarry, Walklate & Mythen, 2015). There is a need to introduce
the students with a proper dynamic interplay between the theory and the logic for the scientific
methods. The theory helps in explaining about the coherent manner where the varieties of
societal organization includes the symbolic interactionism, exchange theory and the feminist
theory. The functionalism is about how the students are aware of the analogy of society.
Conjugal roles are determined through creating views where the people are able to
understand how they behave. There are media and other several agents of socialization to view
on changed roles of men and women. A women might earn a lot of money, but she still has to
end up holding the household work, at a larger level. The males can only contribute their help
but the housework for the women is not distributed equally with work. Hence, it clearly
demonstrate the domestic labor exploitation. There are theories about how the men have more
control over the women so that there is no doubt of paternity of their offspring. This theory is
relevant to the Marxist theory that includes the evolutionary approach to argue on different
modes of production changes, done to the family. The argument is mainly due to the ownership
of the private property where the state need to initiate the laws which helps in solving the
problem of inheritance as well.
References

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