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What is a Family?
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Family Structure and Social Change
In this course, Dr Rosie Nelson (University of Bristol) explores the family structure and how it relates to social change. In the first lecture, we think about what a family is in the traditional and modern sense. In the second lecture, we think about some of the legal and economic factors which have changed perceptions of family structure. Next, we think about some social and cultural factors which have changed perceptions of family structure. In the fourth and final lecture, we think about some potential future factors which might change perceptions of family structure further. Photo by Hoi An Photographer on Unsplash
What is a Family?
In this lecture, we think about what a family is, focusing in particular on: (i) recognising the typical European and North American view of a family being a monogamously married man and woman with children; (ii) examples of family types which are not represented by the traditional view of a family; (iii) Chambers and Gracia’s 2021 definition of a family as being flexible away from the traditional view; (iv) examples of alternative family types which would be accepted as being a family, under this more flexible understanding of the term; (v) recognising the concept of family as no longer being fixed.
Hello. My name is Dr. Rosie Nelson.
00:00:06And I'm a lecturer in gender at the University of Bristol.
00:00:08This lecture is all about the idea of what is a family.
00:00:12Conventional understandings a family in Europe and the United
00:00:17Kingdom, the US, often understand families to be monogamously
00:00:21partnered man and woman, usually with children, perhaps a pet.
00:00:26And this is a very traditional representation of a family.
00:00:31You may have seen this a lot in movies, television shows, books, etcetera.
00:00:35But if you take a minute to look around and think about all
00:00:40of the different kinds of families that you know of,
00:00:43does this really represent every single family you can think of?
00:00:45The reality is there's a lot of different types of families,
00:00:49Some might include people who do not have children.
00:00:53Some might include people who are same gender married.
00:00:56There may be multiple generational families living in one household.
00:01:00There could be divorced families, blended families,
00:01:05adopted children step far us, etcetera,
00:01:08and also things like single parents.
00:01:11So there are a lot of different forms of diversity in relation
00:01:14to the family that is usually represented
00:01:18in a modern understanding of what a family is as we might
00:01:21see on television movies and book very often.
00:01:26So that raises the question of how can we define a family?
00:01:29Well, Chambers and Gracia define a family in the following way.
00:01:34The concept of family is becoming more fluid and variable.
00:01:39Family is being extended to describe close friendship and
00:01:43alternative kinds of intimacies suggesting a strong social
00:01:46yearning to preserve principles of mutual commitment and
00:01:50reciprocity that bind people together.
00:01:53So here, chambers and Gracia are talking about the way in
00:01:56which families as they're currently developing in the
00:02:00contemporary world are changing a lot from that representation
00:02:03that we usually see. So people might develop build new
00:02:07forms of families that are not typically represented in those
00:02:12kind of television shows, media, books, etcetera, as discussed.
00:02:15And that could look so many different ways.
00:02:20So it could look like a group of single mothers who come
00:02:22together and share childcare and then understand themselves
00:02:26to be a family of sorts or to share a community
00:02:28responsibility over their children.
00:02:32It could look like a multigenerational family
00:02:34spreading out and supporting one another instead of two
00:02:37parents always looking after the children and modelling
00:02:40childcare in this way.
00:02:43It could also look like LGBT people coming together to be a found family
00:02:46of one variety or another and developing a new form of
00:02:52intimacy that's very close where there's a lot of care,
00:02:55consideration, and connection for one another. In this idea,
00:02:58what becomes important is not necessarily what was
00:03:02traditionally understood to be important in relation to the
00:03:05family. So no longer is it about lineage or marriage or
00:03:08sort of the bloodline in this way.
00:03:13But rather it's about a way of forging
00:03:15a connection in an intimacy with a group of people who may
00:03:18be chosen or found amongst one another. So what does that
00:03:22mean for associologists in this context.
00:03:27Well, in essence, it means that the idea of family, the concept of family.
00:03:31It's not necessarily a fixed idea or a fixed concept. It can
00:03:36change from time to time from place to place from group of
00:03:41people to group of people. You know,
00:03:45it's something that can be very much forged depending on the
00:03:46specific context or location that families are finding themselves in.
00:03:49The reason for this is because of many different influencers
00:03:54that are going to be discussed in the following lectures in this course.
00:03:57However,
00:04:01at this point what's important for us to understand is that
00:04:01the notion of family is much more fluid than the word itself might suggest.
00:04:05
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Nelson, R. (2023, June 16). Family Structure and Social Change - What is a Family? [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/family-structure-and-social-change
MLA style
Nelson, R. "Family Structure and Social Change – What is a Family?." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 16 Jun 2023, https://massolit.io/courses/family-structure-and-social-change