This paper examines how three major sociological perspectives — social functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism — conceptualize the family as a social institution. Drawing on Kendall's Sociology in Our Times, the paper defines the family through each theoretical lens and then traces the fundamental changes the family has undergone over the past forty years, including the rise of blended families, the decline of extended households, and the proliferation of nontraditional family forms. The paper concludes by evaluating how each perspective interprets these shifts — as threats to stability, challenges to patriarchy, or evidence of evolving symbolic meaning.
How can sociological perspectives — specifically social functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism — be used to conceptually understand the family? And what fundamental changes to the family have occurred over the last forty years? Examining these questions reveals how profoundly both the definition and the structure of the family have evolved.
Social functionalism views institutions like the family as necessary to preserve society. This perspective holds that the integrative components making up society are greater than the sum of their individual parts, and regards the family as one of the fundamental building blocks that provides stability and coherence to people's lives. Preserving the family as a social institution is therefore seen as vital to reducing crime and improving society as a whole. "Through kinship networks, people cooperate so that they can acquire the basic necessities of life, including food and shelter. Kinship systems can also serve as a means by which property is transferred, goods are produced and distributed, and power is allocated" (Kendall, 2015, p. 448).
The social conflict or Marxist perspective, in contrast, sees the concept of the family as a mechanism for maintaining inequality. For example, poorer women are often vilified for not working and are penalized by government support structures unless they work, even when the cost of daycare and transportation to the workplace is prohibitive. Wealthier and middle-class women, meanwhile, are vilified for working and leaving their families — even when they feel it is necessary to improve their family's economic situation.
The symbolic interactionist perspective views the modern emphasis on the nuclear family as a historically specific phenomenon rather than an unchanging feature of human society. From this viewpoint, the meaning and form of the family are socially constructed and shift over time in response to changing cultural values and economic conditions.
The family has undergone many dynamic shifts as an institution over the past forty years. Blended families have become more common given the rise of divorce. Children may have stepsiblings from their parents' previous marriages or half-brothers and half-sisters. The extended family unit — in which individuals live with several generations under one roof — has become far less common. "With the advent of industrialization and urbanization, maintaining the extended-family pattern becomes more difficult. Increasingly, young people move from rural to urban areas in search of employment in the industrializing sector of the economy" (Kendall, 2015, p. 449). While in previous societies it was common for grandparents to live with or near their adult children and grandchildren, today it is not unusual for grandparents to see their offspring only infrequently in person and to communicate primarily by phone and the Internet.
Nontraditional families have also begun to proliferate, ranging from same-sex couples raising children to single-parent households, a phenomenon that has likewise grown more common. "For many years the standard sociological definition of family has been a group of people who are related to one another by bonds of blood, marriage, or adoption and who live together, form an economic unit, and bear and raise children" (Kendall, 2015, p. 448). Yet some people consider close friends to be family, or may raise children with friends as well as spouses. Couples who choose not to have children, or single individuals living alone — with or without pets — may also define themselves as a family unit. Even the rise of stay-at-home fathers challenges the traditional family dynamic.
While the functionalist perspective would tend to view these changes as negative — or, at minimum, would approve only of changes that encouraged more people to honor traditional family structures (such as encouraging gay people to form committed pairs and raise children rather than existing outside traditional family units) — social conflict theorists would largely embrace these shifts as fundamental challenges to patriarchy. More extreme conflict theorists might actually be less inclined to embrace incremental changes in family structure (such as allowing fathers longer parental leave or permitting same-sex couples to adopt children within the context of marriage), viewing such reforms as a way to preserve an intrinsically unjust social institution without addressing deeper socioeconomic problems like the divide between rich and poor families.
"Each framework applied to recent family transformations"
You’re 85% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 1 section.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.