conflict perspective on family essay

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Family Conflict (Essay Sample)

Family conflict.

It is normal to disagree with one another from time to time. Intermittent conflict is part of family life . Family members can disagree when they have different beliefs or views that clash with the interests of others. However, family conflict can be stressful and damage the relationships among family members especially when the members are prone to misunderstanding one another and jumping to wrongly skewed conclusions. The result may be unresolved conflicts that manifest in continuous arguments and end in resentment. Intense family conflict can lead to break-ups and dissolution of marriages or separation of siblings and everlasting disunity even in important matters that affect the family members.

Family conflicts arise for various reasons. Finance and jobs are the main causes of family conflicts. Failure to secure a good job that earns the breadwinner significant income to pay for bills, service mortgages or pay rent, buy food, and fund recreation activities for the family members is the main cause of conflict between the spouses and by extension the siblings. Most often, one of the spouses will tend to believe that the other spouse is spending the money elsewhere and is not caring for them and begin to quarrel. Also, where one of the spouses is engaged with a job that keeps him or her away from the other spouse and the children will feel neglected and incite conflict. Similarly, if the breadwinner loses the job, the family members are likely to be stressed and quarrel as their future financial situation becomes uncertain.

Apart from finances and jobs, family conflicts could arise from sibling rivalry. Siblings will naturally compete with one another for parental approval or attention. Such competition may involve causing harm to others, teasing one another, or tattling. Either of such practices will eventually result in conflict among the siblings, especially where the parent does not intervene and uphold equality among the siblings through showing equal love and acceptance for all.

In addition to finance, jobs, and sibling rivalry, lack of patience and understanding among the family members is another cause of conflict. The sustainability of families requires patience from both members since there are events that occur along the way which could be unfavorable. For instance, at some point, a breadwinner may lose his or her job. Family members ought to be patient and understand the situation as they await a resolution to the situation. Most often, the other spouse would be impatient and rush to conclude that the family has lost direction leading to quarrels and conflict in the family.

Since family conflicts are inevitable, there should be ways of resolving or avoiding the conflicts to avoid the adverse effects of these conflicts. One of the ways to resolve family conflicts is to be patient and slow to quarrel. Holding the tongue for a few seconds can be a great step towards resolving a conflict. Spouses can calm down and think of better ways to respond to a situation or a developing conflict. With patience, a better thought solution can be offered to resolve a conflict than quickly rushing to fight with one another. Also, family members can avoid conflicts by getting hard on their problems and not just blaming one another. Avoiding the blame games opens room for concessions and allows the family members to work together in finding solutions to their problems.

Overall, family conflicts can easily be predicted as they develop from obvious issues such as finance, jobs or sibling rivalry. As a family head, one ought to keep track of these issues and be in the leading line to offer solutions to such problems before the conflict arises. Patience and understanding are crucial for all family members if conflicts are to be avoided.

Conflict Communication in Family Relationships Essay

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Types of Relationships

Nature of conflict, conflict goals, interdependence in family relationships, power perception.

Conflict is a part of normal human communication. Though many attempts and strategies are developed to avoid or resolve conflicts, it is hard for people to understand the nature of their conflicts and find an effective resolution in a required period. In this paper, a reflection on conflict communication in personal relationships will be developed to clarify which concepts have to be used by people who perform different goals to learn from ordinary conflict situations and avoid similar problems in their future.

A variety of relations that people are free to develop is impressive indeed. People may be involved in numerous business relations and follow definite rules and standards. There are also many unexpected outcomes of love relationships. Family relationships also play an important role in human lives. Despite the type of relations, there is always a threat of having a conflict situation. Not many people are ready to take the right steps and choose appropriate methods of conflict resolution.

The development of trustful and strong personal relationships is a goal millions of people strive for. Personal relationships make human lives fulfilled. Family relations turn out to be a frequent subject of psychological research. Conflicts or friction in families is a normal part of everyday life because parents may use irritable behavior or wrong communication style with their children, spouses may fail to deliver their messages in a proper way, and children cannot control their unwanted actions (Sears, Repetti, Reynolds, Robles, & Krull, 2016). People want to resolve all conflict situations as soon as possible or, vice versa, develop them to a certain extent. In such relations, a family of origin is a crucial concept for consideration because it defines the way of handling conflict.

In family relations, different conflicts may be developed. As a rule, a possibility of people to understand their goals, roles, and obligations determine a level of family relations’ development. One of the most dangerous and unpredictable types is unresolved conflict. It is characterized by a certain negative impact on all parties and the possibility to develop drifting in family relations (Wilmot & Hocker, 2014). Unresolved conflict is a situation resulted from a quarrel, a talk, or an action that offenses or disturbs one party and remains to be unsolved at the moment. This concept has to be discussed in terms of family relationships and used for improving conflict communication.

When people are involved in one or even more unresolved conflicts, it is hard for them to communicate, share their intentions and interests, and achieve required positive results. For example, there is a situation when a child demonstrates his intentions to be involved in a particular activity but does not get permission from his parents. Without an ability to prove his interests and goals, he fails to prove his position. Parents underline the importance of respect and their power in these relationships. As a result, a child suffers from uncertainty, frustration, and poorly developed communication skills. The conflict remains to be unresolved. Certain problems are not solved. The development of personal contradictions and uncertainty is promoted. The child loses his desire to do something and to demonstrate his passion for something because of the existing power of his parents. In such type of personal relationships, parties face a number of challenges, including the necessity to understand conflict goals regarding its type, explain the essence of power in communication, and investigate the worth of interdependence in conflict.

Conflict communication is an important part of human relations because it is impossible to ignore the fact that people may have incompatible goals the accomplishment of which by one party interferes with the interests and actions of another party (Wilmot & Hocker, 2014). People in conflict have to be ready to analyze their situations and problems to achieve the goals and come to a certain conclusion. As a rule, any conflict is characterized by TRIP goals which including the clarification of a topic, relationships, an identity, and a process. Such concept as TRIP goals helps people understand their conflict and investigate it from different perspectives.

For example, there is a situation in a family with a wife who wants all her family visiting her parents, a father who wants to go fishing, and two children who want to stay at home on weekends. A topic is the same for all family members – what to do on weekends. All family members perform their roles and have certain responsibilities. The relations in the family are characterized by equality, and identity conflict can hardly take place. It is necessary to pay attention to process goals of a conflict and provide each family member with an opportunity to speak and prove the chosen position. This conflict may be solved as soon as one of the parties succeeds in presenting enough facts to support the chosen position and disprove the importance of other positions.

The identification and analysis of TRIP goals are effective for working in teams where a number of opinions occur at the same time, and one specific solution should be made to avoid complications.

In the same situation, such concept as interdependence cannot be ignored. Wilmot and Hocker (2014) begin their discussion stating that a person should be fair and generous even in conflicts. Such attitudes can be explained by the existing interdependence. It is usually present in all conflicts because it is an integral part of human relations. Conflict parties are interdependent because if they are not, they do not have common interests to argue about.

It is necessary to respect and understand interdependence. As soon as it is used in conflict resolution, people demonstrate their high level of knowledge, professionalism, and readiness to cooperate. This concept improves conflict communication in a family because it reminds all members that they are connected, and this connection has its own prices. Interdependence may have positive and negative outcomes in a conflict. On the other hand, all parties have to stay together to find out a solution and make sure that all interests and goals are considered. On the other hand, such interdependence is a weakness that may deprive some family members of an opportunity to protect the chosen position. For example, children understand that they are dependent on their parents regarding their financial situations and have to follow what their parents want. A mother can underline the role of grandparents in a family and use interdependence as a type of responsibility. A father may explain entertainment on weekends as an argument to support his option.

Regarding such doubtful nature of interdependence in family conflicts and many factors that determine the quality of child-parent relations (Sears et al., 2016), it is necessary to admit that healthy approaches to solve conflicts while working in a team are rare, and much work has to be done to understand the nature of this conflict.

The last crucial concept in conflict communication in a family where each member pursues their own purposes is power. Wilmot and Hocker (2014) define power as a fundamental aspect of conflict theory because its perception influences the development of all types of relations between people. If one of the parties has power, it is usually impossible to agree on something. Power is a serious weapon in conflict resolution. If a person decides to use power, there is a threat that a conflict may stay unsolved even it is passed. For example, the father can use the fact that he is a head of a family, his work and obligations have to be appreciated, and he deserves the right for fishing. At the same time, he can say that it is his decision, and no one can disprove it. Any family member can hardly change such position. Father’s power plays a crucial role, and the outcomes of its usage cannot be predicted.

In general, the development of personal and professional relationships is not an easy task for many people. A number of rules have to be considered, certain goals should be met, and various outcomes may be achieved. It is not enough to have some theoretical knowledge and be confident in personal abilities to develop strong, free-from-conflict relationships. It is necessary to learn the goals of conflict and the role of such concepts as power, interdependence, and the type of relations in order to succeed in conflict management and prove that conflict communication is an important concept for future research.

Sears, M.S., Repetti, R.L., Reynolds, B.M., Robles, T.F., & Krull, J.L. (2016). Spillover in the home: The effects of family conflict on parents’ behavior. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78 (1), 127-141.

Wilmot, W., & Hocker, J. (2014). Interpersonal conflict. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

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Conflict in family communication.

John P. Caughlin John P. Caughlin University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
and Emily Gerlikovski Emily Gerlikovski University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1465
Published online: 22 November 2023

Conflict is a common experience in families. Although conflicts can be intense, most conflicts in families are about mundane issues such as housework, social life, schoolwork, or hygiene. Families’ negotiations over even such mundane topics, however, have important implications. Through conflicts with other family members, children typically first learn about managing difficulties with others, and the skills they learn in such conflicts are important to their social lives beyond their families. Yet poorly managed conflicts that become more intense or personal can undermine the well-being of families and family members. Family conflicts are extremely complex, and understanding them requires analysis at multiple levels, including examining the individual family members, dyads and larger groups within the family, and the sociocultural context in which families are embedded. At the individual level, family members’ conflict behaviors (e.g., exhibiting positive affect vs. negative affect), conflict skills (e.g., whether they are able to resolve problems), and cognitions (e.g., whether they make generous attributions about other family members' intent during disputes) all are important for understanding the impact of family conflicts. Examining conflict from the dyadic and polyadic levels recognizes that there are important features of conflict that are only apparent with a broader perspective. Dyadic and polyadic constructs include patterns of behavior, conflict outcomes that apply to all family members involved, and beliefs shared by family members. There are also particular types of relationships within families that have salient conflicts which have drawn considerable scholarly attention, such as parent–child or parent–adolescent conflicts, conflicts between siblings, marital conflicts, and conflicts between co-parents. In addition, families experience various transitions, and the life course of families influences conflict. Some key periods for conflict are the early years of marriage, the period of launching children and empty nest, and a family member navigating the end of life. Finally, family conflicts occur in a larger sociocultural context in which societal events and conditions affect family conflict. Such contextual factors include broad social structures (e.g., societal-level power dynamics between men and women), financial conditions, different co-cultural groups within a country, cross-cultural differences, and major events such as the COVID-19 pandemic that have direct effects on families and also elicit dramatic social responses that affect families. Despite the complexities, it is important to understand family conflict because of its implications for the health and well-being of families and family members.

parent–adolescent relationships
adolescents
family communication

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15.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Learning objective.

Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories.

Sociological views on today’s families generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced earlier in this book. Let’s review these views, which are summarized in Table 15.1 “Theory Snapshot” .

Table 15.1 Theory Snapshot

Theoretical perspective	Major assumptions
Functionalism	The family performs several essential functions for society. It socializes children, it provides emotional and practical support for its members, it helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction, and it provides its members with a social identity. In addition, sudden or far-reaching changes in the family’s structure or processes threaten its stability and weaken society.
Conflict	The family contributes to social inequality by reinforcing economic inequality and by reinforcing patriarchy. The family can also be a source of conflict, including physical violence and emotional cruelty, for its own members.
Symbolic interactionism	The interaction of family members and intimate couples involves shared understandings of their situations. Wives and husbands have different styles of communication, and social class affects the expectations that spouses have of their marriages and of each other. Romantic love is the common basis for American marriages and dating relationships, but it is much less common in several other contemporary nations.

Social Functions of the Family

Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. As such, the family performs several important functions.

First, the family is the primary unit for socializing children . As previous chapters indicated, no society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help socialize children from the time they are born.

One of the most important functions of the family is the socialization of children. In most societies the family is the major unit through which socialization occurs.

Colleen Kelly – Kids Playing Monopoly Chicago – CC BY 2.0.

Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, help in times of emotional distress, and other types of intangible support that we all need.

Third, the family helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction . All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate emotional and practical care when they are born. The incest taboo that most societies have, which prohibits sex between certain relatives, helps minimize conflict within the family if sex occurred among its members and to establish social ties among different families and thus among society as a whole.

Fourth, the family provides its members with a social identity . Children are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. As we have seen in earlier chapters, social identity is important for our life chances. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race/ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Beyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and by extension the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.

The Family and Conflict

Conflict theorists agree that the family serves the important functions just listed, but they also point to problems within the family that the functional perspective minimizes or overlooks altogether.

First, the family as a social institution contributes to social inequality in several ways. The social identity it gives to its children does affect their life chances, but it also reinforces a society’s system of stratification. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (see earlier discussion), helping to ensure men’s status at the top of the social hierarchy.

Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, and as the news story that began this chapter tragically illustrated, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.

Families and Social Interaction

Social interactionist perspectives on the family examine how family members and intimate couples interact on a daily basis and arrive at shared understandings of their situations. Studies grounded in social interactionism give us a keen understanding of how and why families operate the way they do.

Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001). A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964) found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred. Such gender differences seem less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976) found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.

Other studies explore the role played by romantic love in courtship and marriage. Romantic love , the feeling of deep emotional and sexual passion for someone, is the basis for many American marriages and dating relationships, but it is actually uncommon in many parts of the contemporary world today and in many of the societies anthropologists and historians have studied. In these societies, marriages are arranged by parents and other kin for economic reasons or to build alliances, and young people are simply expected to marry whoever is chosen for them. This is the situation today in parts of India, Pakistan, and other developing nations and was the norm for much of the Western world until the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Lystra, 1989).

Key Takeaways

The family ideally serves several functions for society. It socializes children, provides practical and emotional support for its members, regulates sexual reproduction, and provides its members with a social identity.
Reflecting conflict theory’s emphases, the family may also produce several problems. In particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict.
Social interactionist understandings of the family emphasize how family members interact on a daily basis. In this regard, several studies find that husbands and wives communicate differently in certain ways that sometimes impede effective communication.

For Your Review

As you think how best to understand the family, do you favor the views and assumptions of functional theory, conflict theory, or social interactionist theory? Explain your answer.
Do you think the family continues to serve the function of regulating sexual behavior and sexual reproduction? Why or why not?

Komarovsky, M. (1964). Blue-collar marriage . New York, NY: Random House.

Lystra, K. (1989). Searching the heart: Women, men, and romantic love in nineteenth-century America . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, L. B. (1976). Worlds of pain: Life in the working-class family . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation . New York, NY: Quill.

10.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Learning objective.

Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories.

Sociological views on today’s families and their problems generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced in Chapter 1 "Understanding Social Problems" . Let’s review these views, which are summarized in Table 10.1 "Theory Snapshot" .

Table 10.1 Theory Snapshot

Theoretical perspective	Major assumptions
Functionalism	The family performs several essential functions for society. It socializes children, it provides emotional and practical support for its members, it helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction, and it provides its members with a social identity. Family problems stem from sudden or far-reaching changes in the family’s structure or processes; these problems threaten the family’s stability and weaken society.
Conflict theory	The family contributes to social inequality by reinforcing economic inequality and by reinforcing patriarchy. Family problems stem from economic inequality and from patriarchal ideology. The family can also be a source of conflict, including physical violence and emotional cruelty, for its own members.
Symbolic interactionism	The interaction of family members and intimate couples involves shared understandings of their situations. Wives and husbands have different styles of communication, and social class affects the expectations that spouses have of their marriages and of each other. Family problems stem from different understandings and expectations that spouses have of their marriage.

Social Functions of the Family

First, the family is the primary unit for socializing children . No society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help socialize children from the time they are born.

Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, and help in times of emotional distress, and other types of support.

Fourth, the family provides its members with a social identity . Children are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race/ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Beyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and, by extension, the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.

The Family and Conflict

First, the family as a social institution contributes to social inequality. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (since men made money working in factories while women stayed home), helping to reinforce men’s status at the top of the social hierarchy.

Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.

The conflict perspective emphasizes that many of the problems we see in today’s families stem from economic inequality and from patriarchy. The problems that many families experience reflect the fact that they live in poverty or near poverty. Money does not always bring happiness, but a dire lack of money produces stress and other difficulties that impair a family’s functioning and relationships. The Note 10.9 "Applying Social Research" box discusses other ways in which social class influences the family.

Conflict within a family also stems from patriarchy. Husbands usually earn more money than wives, and many men continue to feel that they are the head of their families. When women resist this old-fashioned notion, spousal conflict occurs.

Applying Social Research

Social Class and the Family

A growing amount of social science research documents social class differences in how well a family functions: the quality of its relationships and the cognitive, psychological, and social development of its children. This focus reflects the fact that what happens during the first months and years of life may have profound effects on how well a newborn prospers during childhood, adolescence, and beyond. To the extent this is true, the social class differences that have been found have troublesome implications.

According to sociologist Frank E. Furstenberg Jr., “steep differences exist across social classes” in mothers’ prenatal experiences, such as the quality of their diet and health care, as well as in the health care that their infants receive. As a result, he says, “children enter the world endowed unequally.” This inequality worsens after they are born for several reasons.

First, low-income families are much more likely to experience negative events , such as death, poor health, unemployment, divorce, and criminal victimization. When these negative events do occur, says Furstenberg, “social class affects a family’s ability to cushion their blow…Life is simply harder and more brutish at the bottom.” These negative events produce great amounts of stress; as Chapter 2 "Poverty" discussed, this stress in turn causes children to experience various developmental problems.

Second, low-income parents are much less likely to read and speak regularly to their infants and young children, who thus are slower to develop cognitive and reading skills; this problem in turn impairs their school performance when they enter elementary school.

Third, low-income parents are also less able to expose their children to cultural experiences (e.g., museum visits) outside the home, to develop their talents in the arts and other areas, and to otherwise be involved in the many nonschool activities that are important for a child’s development. In contrast, wealthier parents keep their children very busy in these activities in a pattern that sociologist Annette Lareau calls concerted cultivation . These children’s involvement in these activities provides them various life skills that help enhance their performance in school and later in the workplace.

Fourth, low-income children grow up in low-income neighborhoods, which often have inadequate schools and many other problems, including toxins such as lead paint, that impair a child’s development. In contrast, says Furstenberg, children from wealthier families “are very likely to attend better schools and live in better neighborhoods. It is as if the playing field for families is tilted in ways that are barely visible to the naked eye.”

Fifth, low-income families are less able to afford to send a child to college, and they are more likely to lack the social contacts that wealthier parents can use to help their child get a good job after college.

For all these reasons, social class profoundly shapes how children fare from conception through early adulthood and beyond. Because this body of research documents many negative consequences of living in a low-income family, it reinforces the need for wide-ranging efforts to help such families.

Sources: Bandy, Andrews, & Moore, 2012; Furstenberg, 2010; Lareau, 2010 Bandy, T., Andrews, K.M., & Moore, K.A. (2012). Disadvantaged families and child outcomes: The importance of emotional support for mothers . Washington, DC: Child Trends; Furstenberg, F. E., Jr. (2010). Diverging development: The not-so-invisible hand of social class in the United States. In B. J. Risman (Ed.), Families as they really are (pp. 276–294). New York, NY: W. W. Norton; Lareau, A. (2010). Unequal childhoods: Inequalities in the rhythms of daily life. In B. J. Risman (Ed.), Families as they really are (pp. 295–298). New York: W. W. Norton.

Families and Social Interaction

Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001). Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation . New York, NY: Quill. A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964) Komarovsky, M. (1964). Blue-collar marriage . New York, NY: Random House. found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred. Such gender differences are less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts, but gender differences in communication still exist in these families. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976) Rubin, L. B. (1976). Worlds of pain: Life in the working-class family . New York, NY: Basic Books. found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.

According to the symbolic interactionist perspective, family problems often stem from the different understandings, perceptions, and expectations that spouses have of their marriage and of their family. When these differences become too extreme and the spouses cannot reconcile their disagreements, spousal conflict and possibly divorce may occur (Kaufman & Taniguchi, 2006). Kaufman, G., & Taniguchi, H. (2006). Gender and marital happiness in later life. Journal of Family Issues, 27 (6), 735–757.

Key Takeaways

The family ideally serves several functions for society. It socializes children, provides practical and emotional support for its members, regulates sexual reproduction, and provides its members with a social identity.
Reflecting conflict theory’s emphases, the family may also produce several problems. In particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict.
Social interactionist understandings of the family emphasize how family members interact on a daily basis. In this regard, several studies find that husbands and wives communicate differently in certain ways that sometimes impede effective communication.

For Your Review

As you think how best to understand the family, do you favor the views and assumptions of functional theory, conflict theory, or social interactionist theory? Explain your answer.
Do you think the family continues to serve the function of regulating sexual behavior and sexual reproduction? Why or why not?

Chapter 10: The Changing Family

10.2 sociological perspectives on the family, learning objective.

Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories.

Sociological views on today’s families and their problems generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced in Chapter 1 “Understanding Social Problems” . Let’s review these views, which are summarized in Table 10.1 “Theory Snapshot” .

Table 10.1 Theory Snapshot

Theoretical perspective	Major assumptions
Functionalism	The family performs several essential functions for society. It socializes children, it provides emotional and practical support for its members, it helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction, and it provides its members with a social identity. Family problems stem from sudden or far-reaching changes in the family’s structure or processes; these problems threaten the family’s stability and weaken society.
Conflict theory	The family contributes to social inequality by reinforcing economic inequality and by reinforcing patriarchy. Family problems stem from economic inequality and from patriarchal ideology. The family can also be a source of conflict, including physical violence and emotional cruelty, for its own members.
Symbolic interactionism	The interaction of family members and intimate couples involves shared understandings of their situations. Wives and husbands have different styles of communication, and social class affects the expectations that spouses have of their marriages and of each other. Family problems stem from different understandings and expectations that spouses have of their marriage.

Social Functions of the Family

Kids Playing Monopoly with their parents

One of the most important functions of the family is the socialization of children. In most societies the family is the major unit through which socialization occurs.

Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, and help in times of emotional distress, and other types of support.

Beyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and, by extension, the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.

The Family and Conflict

Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.

The conflict perspective emphasizes that many of the problems we see in today’s families stem from economic inequality and from patriarchy. The problems that many families experience reflect the fact that they live in poverty or near poverty. Money does not always bring happiness, but a dire lack of money produces stress and other difficulties that impair a family’s functioning and relationships. The Note 10.9 “Applying Social Research” box discusses other ways in which social class influences the family.

Applying Social Research

Social Class and the Family

First, low-income families are much more likely to experience negative events , such as death, poor health, unemployment, divorce, and criminal victimization. When these negative events do occur, says Furstenberg, “social class affects a family’s ability to cushion their blow…Life is simply harder and more brutish at the bottom.” These negative events produce great amounts of stress; as Chapter 2 “Poverty” discussed, this stress in turn causes children to experience various developmental problems.

Sources: Bandy, Andrews, & Moore, 2012; Furstenberg, 2010; Lareau, 2010

Families and Social Interaction

Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001). A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964) found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred. Such gender differences are less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts, but gender differences in communication still exist in these families. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976) found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.

Key Takeaways

The family ideally serves several functions for society. It socializes children, provides practical and emotional support for its members, regulates sexual reproduction, and provides its members with a social identity.
Reflecting conflict theory’s emphases, the family may also produce several problems. In particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict.
Social interactionist understandings of the family emphasize how family members interact on a daily basis. In this regard, several studies find that husbands and wives communicate differently in certain ways that sometimes impede effective communication.

For Your Review

As you think how best to understand the family, do you favor the views and assumptions of functional theory, conflict theory, or social interactionist theory? Explain your answer.
Do you think the family continues to serve the function of regulating sexual behavior and sexual reproduction? Why or why not?

Bandy, T., Andrews, K.M., & Moore, K.A. (2012). Disadvantaged families and child outcomes: The importance of emotional support for mothers . Washington, DC: Child Trends.

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Kaufman, G., & Taniguchi, H. (2006). Gender and marital happiness in later life. Journal of Family Issues, 27 (6), 735–757.

Komarovsky, M. (1964). Blue-collar marriage . New York, NY: Random House.

Lareau, A. (2010). Unequal childhoods: Inequalities in the rhythms of daily life. In B. J. Risman (Ed.), Families as they really are (pp. 295–298). New York: W. W. Norton.

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Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation . New York, NY: Quill.

Social Problems: Continuity and Change. Provided by : Social Problems: Continuity and Change is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2010 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative.. Located at : http://open.lib.umn.edu/socialproblems/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Kids playing Monopoly Chicago. Authored by : Colleen Kelly. Provided by : Flickr. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/familytravelck/7112758505/ . License : CC BY: Attribution

Family Conflicts

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Elena Marta 3 &
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Family conflict refers to active opposition between family members. Because of the nature of family relationships, it can take a wide variety of forms, including verbal, physical, sexual, financial, or psychological. Conflicts may involve different combinations of family members: it can be conflict within the couple or between parents and children or, again, between siblings.

All interpersonal conflicts, whether they occur between family members, romantic partners, or groups, have certain elements in common. One of the popular definitions of conflict offered by Coser ( 1956 ) asserts that conflict is a “struggle over values and claims to scarce status, power, and resources in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure or eliminate the rival” (p. 8).

In 1973 , Deutsch maintained that conflict “exists whenever incompatible activities occur… an action which prevents, obstructs, interferes with, injures or in some way makes (resolution) less likely or less...

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The Marxist View of Family: An Outline, Explanation, and Analysis

The Marxist perspective offers a unique lens through which to examine the institution of the family . Developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marxism focuses on the relationship between social classes and the economic system. In this blog post, we will outline, explain, and analyze the Marxist view of the family, shedding light on its key concepts and implications.

Outline of the Marxist View of Family

Marxism views the family as a product of the capitalist mode of production. According to Marxists, the family serves to reproduce and maintain the existing class structure within society . Here are the key points of the Marxist perspective on the family:

The family is a social institution that is shaped by the economic system.
The family functions to reproduce the labor force, ensuring the continuation of capitalist production.
The family serves as a unit of consumption, perpetuating consumerism and supporting the capitalist economy.
The family is a site of socialization, where children are taught the values, norms , and behaviors necessary for their future roles in society.
The nuclear family structure reinforces patriarchal power and gender inequalities.

Explanation of the Marxist View of Family

Marxists argue that the family plays a crucial role in maintaining the capitalist system. They view the family as a means of reproducing and perpetuating class divisions. The capitalist mode of production relies on a working class (proletariat) and a capitalist class (bourgeoisie). The family, according to Marxists, serves to reproduce and socialize individuals into their respective class positions.

Firstly, the family is responsible for producing and reproducing the labor force. The capitalist class relies on the working class to generate profit through their labor. The family unit ensures the reproduction of the labor force by raising and socializing children to become future workers. This process involves instilling the values, skills, and attitudes necessary for individuals to fit into their predetermined roles within the capitalist system.

Secondly, the family acts as a unit of consumption. Capitalism thrives on constant consumption to sustain economic growth. The family, as a consumer unit, plays a crucial role in perpetuating consumerism. Advertisements and societal pressures push individuals to acquire material possessions, leading to increased consumption and economic activity. This cycle benefits the capitalist economy by maintaining demand and profitability.

Furthermore, the family serves as a site of socialization. Children learn societal norms , values, and behaviors within the family unit. These teachings often reinforce the existing class structure and perpetuate gender inequalities. For example, boys may be socialized to adopt dominant and assertive traits, while girls may be encouraged to embrace submissive and nurturing roles. These gendered socializations contribute to the reproduction of patriarchy and the maintenance of gender inequalities within society.

Analysis of the Marxist View of Family

The Marxist perspective on the family has both strengths and limitations. On one hand, it highlights the influence of the economic system on the family and its role in reproducing social inequalities . By examining the family as a product of capitalism, Marxism offers valuable insights into the power dynamics and class divisions within society.

However, critics argue that the Marxist view of the family overlooks other important aspects, such as emotional bonds, love, and personal fulfillment within familial relationships. While Marxism focuses on the economic functions of the family, it may not fully capture the complexity of human relationships and the diverse experiences within families.

In conclusion, the Marxist perspective provides a thought-provoking analysis of the family as a social institution. It highlights the role of the family in reproducing and perpetuating class divisions within the capitalist system. While the Marxist view has its limitations, it offers valuable insights into the interplay between the economic system and the institution of the family.

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Marxists Perspective on the Family

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Marxists view the family as a tool of capitalism. They believe its primary functions are to reproduce the workforce, pass down private property (maintaining class inequality), and act as a unit of consumption to support the capitalist economy.

Marxism is a structural conflict perspective in sociology. This means that Marxists see society as being structured along class lines.

Institutions generally work in the interests of the small, elite bourgeoisie class who have economic power or those of the much larger working class, or proletariat.

In Marxism, the bourgeoisie gains their wealth by exploiting the proletariat’s labor. For this reason, there is an inherent conflict of interest between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Key Takeaways

Marxists believe that the family is a tool of capitalism and its main function is to maintain capitalism and reinforce social inequalities.
Marxism is a conflict perspective in the family that argues that the working-class, the proletariat, is exploited by the capitalist class, who profit off of their labor.
Marx and Engels believed that the monogamous nuclear family emerged from, and benefits, capitalism. According to Engels, the nuclear family promotes inheritance and consequently intergenerational inequality.

An illustration of a big happy family standing together in a group

Marxist Functions of The Nuclear Family

Engels: inheritance of wealth.

An isolated nuclear family means that men can confirm whether a child belongs to them and ensure that wealth remains in the family through private inheritance.

It helped preserve capitalism by depositing wealth in a private family instead of passing it on to the community.

In Engels view, the monogamous nuclear family emerged with capitalism. Before capitalism, traditional and tribal societies were classless and did not have private property. Instead, property was collectively owned, and this was reflected in family structures.

Rather than the modern nuclear family, family tribal groups existed in groups where there were no restrictions on sexual relationships. This means that Engels believed that anyone could have sexual relations with anyone else in the tribal group, and multiple partners (Stern, 1948).

However, the emergence of capitalism, a system of private ownership, in the 18th century changed society and the family.

The bourgeoisie , or capitalist class, used their personal wealth to invest in businesses in order to make a profit which they did not invest for the benefit of everyone else.

Eventually, the bourgeois started to look for ways of creating intergenerational wealth, rather than having it distributed among the masses of society.

The monogamous nuclear family guaranteed that people could pass on their property to their own kin, as monogamy made clear whose children were whom (Stern, 1948).

Ultimately, however, this arrangement served to reproduce inequality. As the children of the rich grew into wealth, the children of the poor remained poor. Thus, the nuclear family served to benefit the bourgeois more than the proletariat.

Zaretsky’s Cushioning Effect

The cushioning effect is similar to Parson’s theory of the Warm Bath, in that the family acts as a relief from social stress and tension.

However, Zaretsky believed that the family allowed the breadwinner man to feel in control and strong, which they did not feel at work due to the oppression of the bourgeoisie capitalist class. Therefore, the family maintains capitalism because it prevents the proletariat from acknowledging its oppression and starting a revolution.

In Zaretsky’s view, the family works in the interests of capitalism. Writing from the Marxist perspective, the sociologist Zaretsky developed the view that modern capitalist society created an illusion that the “private life” of the family is separate from the economy.

Zaretsky was interested in psychology, and specifically the idea that the family can perform a psychological function. People can be nurtured, supported, and have their individual needs met by the family. This is in parallel to the Functionalist Talcott Parsons warm bath theory (Tilly, 1978).

However, fundamentally, Zaretsky did not believe that the family was able to provide for the psychological and social needs of the individual. While cushioning the effects of capitalism, the family perpetuates the system and cannot compensate for the alienation between the rich and poor created by capitalist society.

Zaretsky believed that the family was a prop to the capitalist economy. For example, the capitalist system depends on the unpaid labor of mothers who reproduce, feed, and clothe future generations of workers.

Workers who have families are also less likely to rebel against their bosses, such as by going on strike, because the loss of earnings could affect not only them, but also their dependents.

For Zaretsky, the family could only serve as a way of providing psychological support for its members when there is an end to capitalism (Tilly, 1978).;

The Family as a Unit of Consumption

In Zaretsky’s view, the family also serves as a vital unit of consumption. Not only do capitalists and business owners want to keep workers” wages low to make a profit, but they also must be able to sell the worker’s goods.

To sell the workers” goods, however, they must create demands for their products. The family structure builds demand for goods in several ways.

Key to understanding this theory of the family as a “unit of consumption” is the idea of “false needs.” Marxist theory considers false needs to be perceived needs created by the capitalist system, rather than by people’s real needs (Zaretsky, 2010).

Real needs, for example, are basic material things such as food, shelter, clothing, transportation, health, education, and general welfare.

False needs, meanwhile, arise due to the demands of the capitalist system rather than the real needs of individuals. These can include things that make life in a capitalist system bearable, such as things that fulfill a need for distraction.

Additionally, false needs can encompass anything people may buy to give a sense of social status, or something that people buy or do to give themselves or their children an advantage in an artificially unequal world.

False needs can also include many of the products that people buy out of fear, or to make themselves safe, especially if that fear is engineered by the capitalist system in order to keep the population under control (Zaretsky, 2010).

These false need purchases could include, in a family (Zaretsky, 2010):

Purchases parents make to quit their children and give them time to manage their lives in situations where parents do not have enough time at home due to their obligation to work in the capitalist system. This could include toys, tablets, and subscriptions to entertainment.

Purchases parents make too advantageous for their children educationally. Marxism contends that education reproduces class inequality because the middle classes can buy their children a better education. For example, tutoring or preparatory schools could widen inequality.

Purchases parents make to give their family a sense of status to outsiders. This could be for the whole family — sick as a new car — or parents giving their children high-status clothes or electronics.

Products bought to keep children “Safe,”

Further exacerbating these purchases motivated by “false needs” is the built in obsolescence of many products.

For example, the latest phone will become obsolete, or even nonfunctional, a few years after it is purchased and clothing tends to go frequently in and out of fashion.

There are two additional main factors that drive the family as a unit of consumption in the view of contemporary Marxists (Delphy, 1980):

Families must keep up with the material goods and services acquired by neighbors and peers.

Media and companies target children through advertising. These children can then persuade their parents to buy more expensive items.

Althusser: The Family as a Socializer

Althusser argues that the family, as part of the superstructure of capitalist society, socializes children into norms and values that are useful to the capitalist ruling class. That is to say, the family is an ideological agent, a puppet, of the ruling class.

For example, children learn obedience and respect for those in authority within the family.

This means that the capitalist class can later exploit these children because, when these children become adults, they are more likely to view the power and authority of the capitalist class as natural.

By socializing children into ruling-class values, the family ensures that children will become uncritical and conformist adults and passive workers who accept exploitation with little complaint.

Marxist vs. Functionalist Views of the Family

Marxism and Functionalism are both macro or structural theories.

This means that they are both interested in how the family contributes to the running of society, rather than how individuals experience family life on a daily basis.

However, whereas functionalists tend to see the family as good for both society and the individual, Marxists suggest that the family, particularly the nuclear family, is used by the capitalist class to ensure that the proletariat never challenges extreme inequalities in wealth and income produced by capitalism.

Marxists have been criticized for overemphasizing how the family is shaped by the needs of capitalism. Indeed, Marxists have done little research to investigate whether members of families actually do have this relationship with capitalism.

Interactionists, meanwhile, are critical of Marxism because they believe that Marxists ignore the meanings families have for individuals (Brown, 2012).

Scholars have also argued that Marxism presents people with an oversocialized view of humans, seeing socialization as a one-way process where children are imbued with capitalist culture. This does not consider the possibility that proletariat parents and children may actively resist this process (Thompson, 2014).

Additionally, the Marxist view of the family has been criticized for its over-focus on the negative aspects of the family while ignoring the satisfaction it gives people.

For example, the positive experience of being a housewife and mother is dismissed as capitalist ideology and false consciousness regardless of how real these feelings are for the individuals involved.

While Marxists focus on the nuclear family by way of showing how it meets the needs of capitalism, Marxists ignore recent economic and educational changes that seem to have resulted in a radical change in how women think of their careers.

Resultantly, a small percentage of women are housewives. The last hundred years have also ushered in a diversity of family forms, such as dual-career families, single-person households, same-sex couples, polyamorous groups, and so on.

These alternative conceptions of the family are outside of the Marxist analysis of the nuclear family (Thompson, 2014).

Althusser, L. (1969). For Marx (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: Penguin Press. (Original work published 1965)

Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy and other essays (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: New Left. (Original work published 1970)

Althusser, L., & Balibar, E. (1970). Reading Capital (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: New Left. (Original work published 1968) Brown, H. (2012). Marx on gender and the family: A critical study (Vol. 39). Brill.

Delphy, C. (1980). Sharing the same table: consumption and the family. The Sociological Review, 28 (1_suppl), 214-231.

Johnson, D. P. (2008). Contemporary sociological theory. An Integrated Multi-Level Approach . Texas: Springer.

Stern, B. J. (1948). Engels on the Family. Science & Society , 42-64.

Tilly, L. A. (1978). The family and change .

Thompson, K. (2014). The Marxist Perspective on The Family .

Zaretsky, N. (2010). No direction home: The American family and the fear of national decline , 1968-1980. Univ of North Carolina Press.

DOI: 10.2307/349311
Corpus ID: 144532097

The Family as a System in Conflict.

Published 1 November 1969
Journal of Marriage and Family

124 Citations

On the management of conflict in families., virtue and marital conflict: a theoretical formulation and research agenda, violence at home: a review of the literature., methods for analyzing marital conflict discourse: implications of a systems approach., introduction: toward a better understanding of family violence in japan, social conflict theories of the family, notes towards a metatheory of wife abuse, conflict management within cohabitation relationships, intra-family conflict in nepal: result of a game between doing and getting done, family science: historical roots, theoretical foundations, and disciplinary identity, related papers.

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Family Conflict (Essay Sample)
Intense family conflict can lead to break-ups and dissolution of marriages or separation of siblings and everlasting disunity even in important matters that affect the family members. Family conflicts arise for various reasons. Finance and jobs are the main causes of family conflicts. Failure to secure a good job that earns the breadwinner ...
PDF Social Conflict Theories of the Family
conflict theory." Our way of responding to this frustration this particular essay has been to limit our discus- sion of the historical roots social conflict theory to several basic themes that we believe be abso- lutely critical to a social conflict conception of the family. 1 These themes are the following: (1) tendency toward conflict as a ...
Understanding conflict in families: Theoretical frameworks and future
To be in a family is to experience conflict: it is an unavoidable feature of family life. However, families vary tremendously in how they handle conflict. Episodes of conflict can be productive, helping to facilitate communication, or they can be damaging, destructive, and even dangerous. For researchers and clinicians who focus on families, theories of why conflicts develop, how they unfold ...
Conflict Communication in Family Relationships Essay
Unresolved conflict is a situation resulted from a quarrel, a talk, or an action that offenses or disturbs one party and remains to be unsolved at the moment. This concept has to be discussed in terms of family relationships and used for improving conflict communication. When people are involved in one or even more unresolved conflicts, it is ...
Conflict in Family Communication
Summary. Conflict is a common experience in families. Although conflicts can be intense, most conflicts in families are about mundane issues such as housework, social life, schoolwork, or hygiene. Families' negotiations over even such mundane topics, however, have important implications. Through conflicts with other family members, children ...
15.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family
15.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family
Sociological Perspectives on the Family
Conflict theory: The family contributes to social inequality by reinforcing economic inequality and by reinforcing patriarchy. Family problems stem from economic inequality and from patriarchal ideology. The family can also be a source of conflict, including physical violence and emotional cruelty, for its own members. Symbolic interactionism
Social Conflict Theories of the Family
The conflict theory views the family as a societal init that is in a continuous clash and a state of disharmony. The dynamics in the world have led to changes in roles played by each member of the family. The theory identifies and elaborates on the dynamism of roles and the genesis of conflicts in the family. Furthermore it uncovers on ways in ...
10.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family
The family contributes to social inequality by reinforcing economic inequality and by reinforcing patriarchy. Family problems stem from economic inequality and from patriarchal ideology. The family can also be a source of conflict, including physical violence and emotional cruelty, for its own members. Symbolic interactionism.
(PDF) Conflict Theory
Conflict theory focuses on differences in power between individuals or social groups. This theory emerges from philosophical perspectives developed by Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas. Hobbes, and Karl ...
Family Conflicts
Definition. Family conflict refers to active opposition between family members. Because of the nature of family relationships, it can take a wide variety of forms, including verbal, physical, sexual, financial, or psychological. Conflicts may involve different combinations of family members: it can be conflict within the couple or between ...
The Marxist View of Family: An Outline, Explanation, and Analysis
Here are the key points of the Marxist perspective on the family: The family is a social institution that is shaped by the economic system. The family functions to reproduce the labor force, ensuring the continuation of capitalist production. The family serves as a unit of consumption, perpetuating consumerism and supporting the capitalist economy.
Topics of Conflict Across Family Subsystems
The present study investigated topics of conflict across multiple family subsystems (i.e., the romantic couple, parent-adolescent, and parent-younger child) in present-day American families. Research questions were addressed from a nationwide sample of 593 adults parenting at least one child. Findings highlight the heightened severity of ...
Conflict Theory and the Family
The traditional family pattern is thought to be the product of a particular (patri- archal, sexist, capitalist) society and thus is of limited relevance for the future. For organizational theory, on the other hand, the traditional family structure answers universal needs. Whereas conflict theory believes that the progress of.
Navigating Family Dynamics: Conflict vs
Theoretical Framework 1: Conflict Theory Issues of the Case Study: In the case study we see that the family is considered middle class and while the parents have good paying jobs when given some sort of extra financial burden tension can be presented between people in the family or home. When the uncle came to stay with them while the uncle was welcome and the parents wanted to make sure he ...
Conflict Theory
Abstract. Rooted in sociology, conflict theory affords a valuable lens for examining family relationships. While the theory has been used to explain class differences within society - particularly as related to economic wealth, political power, and social status - when applied to families, conflict theory is helpful in understanding how and ...
Functionalist and Conflict Perspectives on Family
Introduction. The functionalist and the conflict perspectives are two major approaches of sociological analysis. These perspectives can apply on different aspects to help us understand the society, for instance, deviance and social control, culture and socialization and so forth. In this paper, I will first focus on the particular features of ...
Marxists Perspective on the Family
Marxists Perspective on the Family
The Family as a System in Conflict.
In this paper the conventional treatment of family harmony and conflict, in a consensus-equilibrium framework, is discussed and judged inadequate. Instead a view of the family as a system in conflict is suggested as an alternative and more fruitful theoretical approach. The major premises underlying such a frame of reference are briefly outlined. Its theoretical implications for the study of ...
(PDF) Family Conflicts and their Developmental Implications: A
The other two factors of the SRQ, Conflict and Rivalry, can be seen as products of the interpersonal process between siblings and other family members, rather than as main dimensions of the ...
Family Conflict Essay
Introduction: The family is displaying the conflict theory. Conflict theory is explained to be the differences between classes within society and competition for scarce resources. Conflicts arise when resources, status, and power are unevenly distributed between groups in society. These conflicts can be so intense, that it become to the reason ...

Family Conflict (Essay Sample)

Conflict Communication in Family Relationships Essay

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15.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Social Functions of the Family

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10.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Social Functions of the Family

The Family and Conflict

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Families and Social Interaction

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Chapter 10: The Changing Family

Social Functions of the Family

The Family and Conflict

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Family Conflicts

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124 Citations

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