Introduction to Sociology of the Family


A course on the family is different than, say, a course in Chemistry. In a chemistry course you come, sit down, and say "tell me something about chemistry - I know nothing about solving chemical equations, reactions, etc."  But with the subject being the family, you come here with a good deal of knowledge about the family.  You could all relate many family experiences, you could all give me a definition of the word "family."
 

Familiarity

All of us tend to evaluate behavior by using our own experience as a reference point.  This is natural.  But to do a good job sociologically understanding the family, you have to fight against this tendency.  Familiarity is a problem for us.  We have to fight against ethnocentrism.

How about defining the term "family" for me?

Does your definition include Chief Joseph and his 10 wives?  Does if include those 70% of societies which prefer polygyny?  How about polyandry?
 

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the term use to describe the tendency to evaluate behavior in terms of what is familiar to us, viewing other cultures' institutions in terms of our own culture's values.  Ethnocentrism is a problem.  It has to be resisted.  It will limit our ability to understand other societies, and even what is happening in our own multi-cultural society

Consciously try to keep an open mind.  Only in this way can we understand other societies' family systems.  Only in this way can we understand what is happening to the family in our own society.  In 1999 "single parents" were bringing up about 30% of all our children – this figure was more 6 out of 10  for African Americans, more than 3 out of 10 for Hispanic Americans, and more than 1 out of 5 for white Americans.

What is Sociology?

The family can be studied from many perspectives (disciplines): anthropology, psychology, economics, history, sociology.  All are valid and interesting.  We will study the family from a sociological perspective.  What does this mean?

Sociology is a social science that strives to understand human behavior.

What is peculiar about sociology's way of understanding human behavior?  How can we distinguish it from history, psychology and the other social sciences that also attempt to understand human behavior.

ANSWER:  Sociology's subject matter is patterns of behavior, not individual acts.

For example, if someone, say Frank, pulls out a gun in class, puts it to his own head and pulls the trigger, would I as a sociologist be interested in understanding this behavior?

ANSWER:  Yes.

Would I attempt to understand this behavior by interviewing everyone who had contact with Frank in the last several days -- girlfriends, roommates, parents, sibs?  Would I try to discover what was going on inside Frank's head that motivated him to take his own life?

ANSWER:  No.
This would be the approach of psychology:  attempting to understand a particular individual act.

How would a sociologist attempt to understand Frank's behavior?

ANSWER:  By making it part of a pattern of behavior.  Frank's taking his own life is one more instance of a  general pattern -- say of youth suicide.   Frank's act is added to the statistics on suicide at Fairfield University, and youth suicide nationwide.  I as a sociologist am very curious as to why young people take their own lives at the rate that they do.  I want to understand that pattern of behavior.   I want to understand what causes that rate to increase and decrease.  I want to know which young people are more or less likely to commit suicide:  girls or boys, white/blacks/hispanics, freshmen or seniors?  And I want to know what social facts are behind youth suicide rates being what they are.