Chapter 2 Studying Marriage and the Family

After reading the Chapter 2, I learned the following:

There are 8 Important theories describing Family life, relationships, characteristics, and interaction.

Ecological Perspective: this theory revolves around the understanding of relationships b/t individuals and their social environments. Including four different sectors: Microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem.

1. What I thought of this theory: I liked the fact that this theory and its components focused on the upbringing of the child because the main reason to start a family for many is the idea of having children and raising children to have their own families in the future. Children should be at the center of a family's focus and attention. The theory also notes both the interaction of the family within the home & outside of the home (society).
   
2. I do agree that this theory does lack and should include research on non-traditional families which would have an all together separate affect on children within those families.

Structural-Functional Perspective: this theory examines the relationship b/t family and the larger society. It focused on two primary roles w/in the family: Instrumental (taken on by the father, providing food, shelter, etc.) and Expressive (taken on by the mother as a homemaker and providing emotional and nurturing support) making up the "traditional family". This theory also includes two kinds of functions: Manifest (intended, recognized) and Latent (unintended, unrecognized) Lastly, this theory notes that the family is affected by institutions such as law, politics, and the economy.

1. What I thought about this theory: Honestly, I felt as though this was one of the more boring yet still useful theories. What's stated in this theory is important to the dynamics and functioning of a family but I took no real interest to it. I would say that this theory is useful only when looking at the bigger picture of how families function as a whole within society. It doesn't appear to take an interest in the inter-workings of the family itself. This is also mentioned in the textbook as well.

Conflict Perspective: examines the ways in which groups disagree, struggle over power and compete for scarce resources. This theory basically states that most of a family's struggle will be a direct result of problems or conflicts within society.

1. My thoughts: This theory seems to be useful if one is interested in methods of how to better the functioning of a family based on societal problems alone. However, working off of this theory a person would be missing the deeper problems that form because of how our society functions. For example, a father losing his job will cause the family to lose it's income and therefore put stress on the family, but what about the personal repercussions that will develop from the stress of the individuals in the family from the sudden change in the family's structure. Or one the other hand, how will this theory explain the unusual family that deals with the situation in a positive way? I think this theory alone can only scratch the surface of a family's desires or conflicts.
   

Feminist Perspective: examines how gender roles shape relations b/t men and women in different institutions such as politics, the economy, religion, education, and the family.

1. My thoughts: This theory is one of my favorites not because I'm a female, but because it questions the choices of man throughout history and how individuals should be treated. The history of women and their lack of roles in society plays a major part in the dynamics of family in the past and present. I like the fact that this theory promotes diversity of the different roles that a male or female can have within a family. I think it would also do well to promote the reversal of roles which most people I believe look down upon. (i.e. Women going to work and stay at home dads) It also would be interesting to see the break down of single-parent families and how often they're successful. What I think this theory lacks is for instance with single-parent families a mother or father could be parenting effectively, however, the lack of support from a child's environment could interfere with the family's stability which is something I don't think this theory would examine deeply enough.

Symbolic Interaction Perspective: micro-level theory that looks at the everyday behavior of individuals. Examines how our beliefs, ideas, and attitudes shape our daily lives. This theory is focused heavily on the interaction between family members through words, gestures and pictures.

1. My thoughts: This theory, opposite from the structural functionalist theory will not touch upon how society is affecting our beliefs, ideas, etc. Which is important in my opinion because society is where we get a lot of our beliefs, ideas, and attitudes from. For example, the couple who breaks up because of the lack of communication and difference in beliefs. But where did the female get her beliefs from and where did the male gets his beliefs from? Most likely from their parents, who most likely got it from their parents and so on. But these ideas and beliefs that parents instill in their children come from institutions within society such as religion, law, etc. This theory goes deep into the interactions of humans and individuals, but misses out on the how these individuals were shaped which in most cases is by their society and environment.
   

Social Exchange Perspective: sates that any social interaction b/t two or more people is based on the efforts of each person to maximize rewards and minimize costs.

1. My thoughts: This theory in particular is interesting to me. Although it lacks certain components such as outside forces that can in my opinion, make a relationship worth the effort with little maximization or reward or harm a relationship even though rewards and costs are balanced. One of the critiques of this theory is that no everyone thinks rationally all the time. I agree with this statement because I believe that a large component of relationships include irrational thoughts or behaviors that aren't necessarily harmful or bad, and sometimes good and aren't 100% rational or equal all the time.

Family Life Course Development Perspective: examines the changes that families experience over the lifespan.

1. My thoughts: I thought the developmental tasks (learning to fulfill role expectations and responsibilities) and the family life cycle (transitions that a family makes as it moves through a series of stages and events..) provided good points and perspectives in which to view a family. However, I agreed with the critique that life is very unpredictable when comparing one family with the next. Not every family, goes through or hits the same stages in life as others. I think this theory would do very little to explain the non-traditional family or a family that's faced extreme difficulties throughout life.
   

Family Systems Perspective: views the family as a functioning unit that solves problems, makes decisions and achieves collective goals. Researchers focus on how the family members communicate, how family patterns evolve, and how individual personalities affect family members. Different from the last perspective, this theory explains in detail the dysfunctional family but does little to explain healthy, stable relationships within a family. I think in compliance with the Family Life Course development Perspective a person could really get a look at how a healthy family evolves and remains stable and why and what happens when a family becomes unstable or dysfunctional.

Looking at the different methods of research I found that the methods I believe to be most successful presently are Field Research, Evaluation Research because they view the structure and interaction of families in their natural state. Although both have their weaknesses, I like the fact that nothing is manipulated. I don't think a person can truly have an understanding of a family unless they're seeing the real thing as it is. Although field research is highly structured, I think participant observation is the best route when doing field research because the people you observe won't change their behaviors. I like Evaluation Research because it makes a strong effort to change what is being observed. Studying and relaying information to others about the problems we face is commendable and necessary, but in my opinion, actually acting on the research found takes a person's research a step ahead.

So to wrap things up I want to ask a few questions: Which of thee theories do you find most affective and if you were a researcher which theory would you base your studies on? Also, which research method do you find most effective and which would you be willing to do with your family? And lastly, do you think that the research that's been done over time and the theories that have been comprised have had a reasonable effect (positive or negative) on families in the past and in today's society? (In other words has the research done on marriage and family helped families in our society or have they mostly been theories that are rarely applicable to real life?) If so, where have you seen these theories and/or methods make a change in the families of today's society?