The Family: Sociological Analysis and Impact on Academic Achievement

Characteristics of the Family

Concept of Family Education

Activity to educate children, carried out by adults in a family environment (parents, grandparents, uncles ... ) to provide basic value.

What is a Family?

The family is a social institution found in all societies that unites people in cooperative groups to care for one another, including any children. (Macionis, 2007).

The U.S. Census Bureau counts as families only: people living together who are linked by blood, marriage or adoption.

The family is changing faster than any other social institution (Bianchi and Spain, 1996)

How Have Families Changed

• The maternal and paternal role
• Divorces and blended families
• Same sex marriages
• Dependent elderly family members
• Less or no children
• Intercultural families
• Children leave home later

Basic Concepts - Types of Families

• Kinship: a social bond based on common ancestry, marriage, or adoption
• Marriage: a legal relationship, usually involving economic cooperation, sexual activity and childbearing
• Extended family: a family consisting of parents and children as well as other kin
• Nuclear family: a family composed of one or two parents and their children
• Monoparental family: a person who has a dependent child or dependent children and who is widowed, divorced, or unmarried.
• Reconstructed family: two adults marrying, where at least one has children from an outside relationship.
• Blended family: a family consisting of a couple, the children they have had together, and their children from previous relationships.
• Homoparental family: one in which the affective bond occurs between people of the same sex.
• Domestic partnership: a couple with or without children, living together with no legal contract.

Marriage Patterns

• Monogamy: marriage that unites two partners-
• Polygamy: marriage that unites a person with two or more spouses

Styles of the Family

• Exclusive: those with the most restrictive definitions of family. Exclusionists include only a specific count of family. They highlight the centrality of marriage, as well as an emphasis on what type of people constitute a family. (many kinds of families)
• Moderates.
• Inclusive: those with the most expansive definitions. Inclusionists include many counts of family. They focus on the ideas of what makes a family. (few kinds of families)

Theoretical Analysis of Families

1. STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL: Functions of the family:
   • Socialization: The family is considered the most important agent of socialization. We depend completely on others to survive.
   • Regulation of sexual activity
   • Social placement: is the idea that children learn what social identity have their parents (role of family), consider the religion, the race, the social class ...
   • Material and emotional security
2. SOCIAL CONFLICT: It is the conflict and inequality that causes social change in families. Is the way in which members of the family struggle for different aspects of life (wealth, stereotypes, beliefs, status ... ). Within it, we can highlight feminism. It seeks equality between women and men and struggles to end the differences between them.

   Inequality:

   • Property and inheritance
   • Patriarchy
   • Racial and ethnic inequality
3. FEMINIST: The feminist perspective:
   • Paid work
   • Domestic work
   • Caretaking of children, elderly people and sick relatives
4. MICRO LEVEL ANALYSIS: It focuses on symbolic interactionism that studies the meanings of social interactions and asserts that individuals find meaning through interaction with their social and physical environment.

The Spanish Family at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Divorce

• Legally easier to accomplish
• Demographic changes
• Individualism
• Romantic love
• Women are less dependent on men
• Stress
• Socially acceptable
• Step-parenting and blended families
• Same sex couples

Socialization and the Family: Historical Perspective and Educational Styles

Becoming Social

• Socialization: a lifelong social experience by which individuals construct their personal biography, assemble daily interactional rules and come to terms with the wider patterns of their culture (Macionis, 2007)
  • Family is the most important agent of socialization.
  • As infants, we are completely dependent on others to survive. The family is responsible for teaching us to function and care for ourselves.
  • The family teaches us about close relationships, group life, and how to share resources.
  • Additionally, it provides us with our first system of values, norms, and beliefs.

Family Education - A Historical Perspective

Periodization

• Antiquity 5th BC to 5th AD:

  ATHENS:

  Children were important for the parents, the home, and city.

  • Not having children led to an inability to pass on the property and wealth of the father.
  • Women, especially from high-status families, were used for diplomacy between their natal family and the family they entered when they got married

  . Men were the representatives of the family in the outside world and were the "kings" of the household.

  · Boys and girls grew up together until the age of 7, playing the same time of games and residing in the women quarters (gynaeceum) of the household together with their mother.

  . Once they became age seven, separation between the genders: Boys were encouraged to play different games that prepared them for their future training to become warriors.

  . Additionally, they went to school where they received education that would help them develop the needed qualities to become citizens and part of the state government.

  SPARTA:

  Childhood is conceived as useless

  • The family is not an important institution
  • The education model is communitarian and focused on the state starting from the age of seven

  ROMAN PERIOD:

  " The family is the natural environment for educating children (The mum until the age of 7)

  • A gender division from the age of seven
  • Professional orientation (boys accompanied their fathers who taught them to be farmers, craftsmen or soldiers).

  A clear influence of parents

  Service for the state

  Special importance of the father (power of life and death)

  • Only rich children went to school
• Middle Ages (5th to the 15th centuries):
  • From the fall of the Roman empire (5th century) to the discovery of America (15th century)

  · Rural and religious

  · The death rate was high:

  • 25% in their first year
  • 12.5% 1-4
  • 6% 5-9

  There is no evidence that these deaths lessened parental affection and care for children.

  · The boundary between childhood and adulthood at puberty, conventionally 12 for girls and 14 for boys.

  The Church led the way in making distinctions between childhood and adulthood.

  " Boys were usually sent to school, while girls were taught at home.

  The education was religious: training of boys as monks, girls as nuns, and other boys as "secular clergy"-those clergy who lived in the everyday world

  · The children grew up in big households with their extended family, service and work.

• Modernity (Early modern):
  • Emergence of cities and the middle class
  • Nuclear family
  • Humanism

  RENAISSANCE (15th century):

  The child as a separated individual, different from adults.

  The first interest in educational processes in the family

  " The parents are responsible of the child's education

  ENLIGHTENMENT (16th -18th century, based on previous centuries) *Modern Period

  " Society becomes more complex

  " The nobility needs training to assume political and military positions.

  · The middle class appreciates education for its social mobility.

  · Pestalozzi talks about the need to train parents (mothers) in order to educate their children

  · The origins of the concept of the child as the centre of the family based on affective bonds

  · The idea of childhood is reinforced by the nuclear family and the separation of children from the world of adults and work.

• Contemporary period:

  " The emergence of the modern state

  " The industrial revolution

  · The French revolution

  Schooling is compulsory

  " The family co-exists a long side other educational agent

  " The right for childhood is recognized: receive attention and care from parents and society

The Future of the Family

• More divorce
• More variety of families
• More equality
• More artificial reproduction methods

Parenting Styles

The educational style of parents is key to socialization in the family.In order to analyse parenting styles we look at two variables:

• Demandingness - permissiveness
• Responsiveness - indifference

*CONCLUSIONES (Torio López, 2008): La gran mayoría no tienen un estilo de crianza definido, se trata de pautas contradictorias, lo que realizan es un proceso de compensación empleando una carga afectiva muy grande.

Intentaban compensar su falta de autoridad con un estilo más democrático, pero sin llegar a ser permisivos.

Punishment Rigid High standards enabling supportive flexible autocratic Status guidelines Authoritarian Authoritative I'm the Boss Rules Structure Self-regulation Low responsiveness, High distance You're the Boss appeasement no guidelines Permissive Non-directive neglectful Over-involved lenient absent blurred roles indulgent Low

Las valoraciones democráticas son aceptadas en porcentajes elevados.

Authoritarian Parenting

High demands Low responsiveness

Children from authoritarian parents tend to be:

• Withdrawn
• Apathetic
• Shy (girls)
• Hostile (boys)
• Unmotivated
• Incompetent

Authoritative Parenting

High demands High responsiveness

Children from authoritarian parents tend to be:

• Self assertive
• Independent
• Friendly)
• Cooperative)
• Motivated
• Competent

Low Responsiveness High Responsiveness

Uninvolved Parenting

Low demands Low responsiveness

Children from authoritarian parents tend to be:

• Unmotivated
• Self-effacing
• Indifferent
• Destructive
• Detached
• Socially incompetent

Permissive Parenting

Low demands High responsiveness

Children from authoritarian parents tend to be:

• Impulsive
• Dependent
• Undisciplined
• Immature - risk taker
• Manipulative
• Self-centred

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We can distinguish four types of parents considering their styles of control and attention in their children:

1. AUTHORITATIVE PARENTS: They have great control over their children and little affection for them. Besides, they set many norms and punish, so that children must be obedient. This type of parent has not many communication with their children.
2. PERMISSIVE PARENTS: They have very little control and much affection in their children. They try to avoid punishments because they are tolerant and warm parents.
3. NEGLECTED PARENTS: They have low levels of control and affection. These parents are not involved in the issues of their children, and they solve it in the easiest and fastest way. Also, they do not set norms because they do not have a lot of communication.

Behavioural control, demandingness Directive assertive Democratic warmth, supportiveness uninterested Uninvolved passive High Demands Low Demands Obedience Because I said so