2.) Two points that I found to be very interesting in the text were the self-help book section and the online polls/surveys section. I have never thought that self-help books were reliable yet alone minutely useful, so it did not surprise me much that the majority of them are a scam. What really interested me was that most of the authors have the same types of problems that they are writing to their patients trying to tell them how to fix. In the internet survey section, they explained that when a company offers a coupon in exchange for taking an online survey, the company does not get a very accurate feel as to how their customer service skills were. Only a certain type of person is drawn to complete the survey so all of the information that they gain from it cannot be generalized to the whole population. It then explained that what the company does gain is some of your personal information that they can then sell to third party companies.
3.) A question/discussion point that came to mind was what theory do you think best suits the "average" American family? Which one best suits all types of families--heterosexual, homosexual, single-parents, no kids, etc.?
--Bonnie Noel
Thanks for posting our first blog post!
ReplyDeleteGood question, let's take a look at it in class - or perhaps others will comment here?
Bonnie,
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe there is such thing as an “average” American family any more. It used to fit into Structural Function Theory but as culture has changed, that type of thinking is looked down upon. I believe that the best theory to cover all types of families would be the Family Systems Perspective. From what I understood, this theory looks more at individual interactions and how that affects the family than labeling people “breadwinners” or “homemakers.” This theory fits in with what is as close to “average” as you can get these days and also nonconventional families. Homosexual or single parents home do not need the labels of “mother,” or “father,” it is more about how they interact with each other and or their children that make a difference.
Gina Zidek
Bonnie,
ReplyDeleteI like your discussion question as it provokes a lot of interesting thought. In addition to the comment above, considering the "average" American family is difficult to do as I see multiple theories that are able to suit the average family.
In the chapter reading the Structural-functional perspective characterizes the "traditional" family where the roles are defined for the man as the bread-winner and the woman is the homemaker. The problem with this perspective is that even though it defines what most Americans consider to be the "traditional" family, it doesn't consider the social changes that we've experienced in the last couple of decades which is where the feminist perspective comes in and characterizes the family according to the change of views that society has towards the roles that men and women obtain within a family.
Another theory that could suit the "average" family is the family development theory which characterizes the family through the "family life cycle" which describes different traditional stages a family goes through starting with marriage which is the beginning of building a family. With all of these theories they have some type of guideline that the family must meet in order to be considered suitable for the "average" American family (family life cycle, different defined roles of man/woman,etc...) that we should consider first what in fact defines the "average" American family. I feel like this view of the family has certainly changed since the days of the TV show Leave It To Beaver that the "average" family has different characteristics as society has developed and changed itself as well.
-Megan Callahan