The Rapoports & Family Diversity (WJEC Eduqas GCSE Sociology): Revision Note

Family diversity (Rapoport and Rapoport, 1982)

• Rapoport and Rapoport (1982) argue that families in the UK are changing

  • There is no longer a dominant norm regarding what a family should be like

  • Today, people value their freedom to choose the kind of family life that suits them; therefore, the diversity of families we see today reflects the needs and desires of individuals in society

  • Diverse family types are just as functional and effective as nuclear families in performing essential functions for society

• The Rapoports reviewed previously published works by other sociologists and therefore used secondary sources in their research to develop the five types of family diversity

Types of family diversity

Organisational diversity

• Families differ in their structures, the way their domestic division of labour is organised and their social networks

• Examples of family structures include conventional nuclear families, reconstituted families and dual-worker families

Cultural diversity

• Families differ in their cultural values and beliefs

• Different minority ethnic groups (such as South Asian, Cypriot or African-Caribbean heritage) illustrate this diversity in beliefs and values

• These differences can affect people's lifestyles, ideas about gender roles, child-rearing and attitudes towards education

• For example:

  • African-Caribbean communities have a higher than average proportion of lone-parent families, and Asian communities have a lower than average proportion

  • A relatively high percentage of extended families are found in the British Asian community

Social class diversity

• Working-class families tend to favour conventional role relationships between husbands and wives

• Middle-class family roles may be unequal due to the husband's demanding career

• Social class also affects child-rearing, as discipline is more physical among working-class parents

Life-course diversity

• The structure of a family changes depending on where in the life cycle the family is

  • Newlyweds without children, families with young children and retired couples in empty-nest families all have different lifestyles

Cohort diversity

• The particular time period in which a family passes through different stages of the family life cycle

• For example:

  • Homosexuality has lost its social stigma, so younger people may find it easier to live in same-sex families today compared to 40 years ago

Recent findings

• Since this study, family diversity has further increased due to

  • Changes in social attitudes towards divorce

  • Changes in the law, such as the introduction of civil partnerships and same-sex marriages

  • Developments in reproductive technology, like IVF or surrogacy

Evaluation of family diversity

Strengths

• Postmodernist perspective

  • Postmodernists view family diversity as a positive development that reflects freedom and choice in modern society

  • In particular, women have gained more independence, with greater freedom to decide whether to marry, have children, or live alone

• The negotiated family

  • Beck agrees that the family is changing as families negotiate roles based on personal choice rather than tradition

  • However, the result is more fragility as people leave relationships if their needs aren’t met, creating more lone-parent families and one-person households

Criticisms

• The neo-conventional family

  • Functionalist Chester (1985) argues that family diversity is overstated

  • The nuclear family has evolved into the neo-conventional family – a dual-earner household where both partners play an instrumental (breadwinner) role

  • Most people still aspire to the nuclear family, suggesting that this family type remains the dominant ideal in society

• Family change is not permanent

  • Changes in family structure are often temporary and part of the life course

  • People may move through different family types (e.g., marriage, divorce, lone parenthood, and remarriage), but the nuclear family pattern often reappears