1) In this chapter, the author discusses various sociological lenses through which to view the many diverse family structures that can be found in our society. The author lists structural-functional theory, conflict theory, feminist theory, ecological theory, developmental theory, symbolic-interactionist theory, social exchange theory, and family systems theory. Each of these theories can be broken down into smaller basic concepts. Also discussed are various methods for conducting social research on the family. Finally, the author debates the ethics behind social research of the family.
2) Interesting new ideas presented to me in this chapter include the Ecological Perspective and the Development Perspective. I have never come across either perspective in previous sociology or anthropology courses, and I found both to be extremely interesting and applicable when discussing the family.
3) The section that I struggled the most with was the section on social research methods. I found it difficult to differentiate between the various strengths and weaknesses of each group.
Hey Katie, I had never heard of the Ecological Perspective or the Developmental Perspective either. You said that you found that both interesting and applicable. I find them both interesting as well, and I find the Ecological Perspective to be applicable or useful, but not the Developmental Perspective.
ReplyDeleteI like the Ecological Perspective because it does not focus too much on the dynamic within the family, but rather on the dynamic between the family and the family's environment. It takes into full account the context of the family, as it were, which I found some of the other theories doing less successfully.
The Developmental Perspective seems less useful, or at least more susceptible to error, because it is based on an analogy; it is based on the analogy of a life-span. Breaking all of the happenings of a family down into a few stages would make it much easy to understand, and so would be very gratifying to a social scientists; however, this seems to simplify things too much. Perhaps you'll agree.