The issue of ‘family ideology’ has been systematically ignored by a majority of ‘family1 scholars whilst it has been taken for granted by a minority. The following study arises from the author's attempts to explore the issue of alternative theoretical approaches to the analysis of family life’.2 Increasing numbers of contemporary researchers concur in recognising the diversity of ‘family forms’ and the inappropriateness of speaking of ‘The Family’.3 Despite these recognitions many researchers find themselves re‐adopting the term ‘The Family’ in their discussions and especially in the titles of their work. For example. Segal clearly recognises that the ‘traditional family model’ no longer reflects the reality of our lives (1983, 11) and yet the title of her book is What is to he done about THE FAMILY? (emphasis added). One reason for the re‐importation of the idea of ‘The Family’ may be found in the rather limited nature of previous conceptualisations of ‘family ideology’. With the exception of Barrett (1980), recognitions of ‘family ideology’ tend to be conceptualised in terms of sets of partisan beliefs supporting a particular ‘family form’. Thus the concept of ‘The Family’ is rarely regarded as being problematic in itself, rather attention is paid to the presumed virtues or deficiencies of the particular form of ‘The Family’ which is assumed to be prevalent. Notwithstanding the recognition of ‘family diversity’ or the inappropriateness of the term ‘The Family’, nearly all discussion becomes a straightforward attack upon, or defence of. ‘The Family’.4 Only very rarely does analysis avoid this trap and question whether ‘The Family’ really exists to be attacked or defended; thus Collier et al. have asked ‘Is there a Family?’ (1982) and the present author has asked ‘Do we really know what “The Family” is?’(Bernardes, 1948a). The objective here is to identify and explore a specific conceptualisation of ‘family ideology’. The aim is to avoid engaging in attacks upon, or defences of, ‘The Family’ but rather to address the ideological context of such debates themselves, especially in respect of the assumed existence of ‘The Family’. It is hoped that this approach will stimulate a much more critical examination of ‘family ideology’ and the concept of ‘The Family’. More generally, the attempt to conceptualise ‘family ideology’ in this much broader sense is seen as a pre‐requisite for the development of an alternative theoretical approach to the analysis of ‘family life’.
This analysis takes Elder's work on the life-course as a starting point.Two proposals are made: (1) That the sociological use of the concept of 'the family' should be restricted to indicate only the occurrence of everyday usage; (2) That the notion of the 'family life-course' be replaced by the notion of individual life-courses coinciding upon developmental pathways. In this way the idea of a central type of 'the family' is made redundant and we are required, instead, to discover when and why participants refer to a particular developmental pathway as being 'a family'. This approach not only facilitates the conceptualisation 'family diversity' but also compels researchers to engage the rich complexity of everyday life.To be fair, it must be made clear that some highly respected authors on both sides of the Atlantic are quite content to use a central model of 'the family'. Indeed, Mount argues that 'the family' has survived all attempts to subordinate it (1982) and Brigitte and Peter Berger attempt to defend the 'bourgeois family' (1983). Harris, the author of an influential UK 'family' textbook (1969), has recently presented a new text including a chapter on the 'Sociology of the Elementary Family' (1983).Of researchers recognising the existence of 'family diversity' many have found themselves facing a simple problem. Despite quite explicit rejections of the usefulness of a central notion of 'the family', researchers find themselves having to re-adopt the term in order to complete their arguments. Despite the earlier adoption of the notion of 'family patterns' (Study Commission on the Family, our lives (1983,11), Segal adopted the title of What is to be done about the family? Most ironic is the work of Barrett and Mclntosh who criticise Anderson for re-adopting the idea of 'the family' (Barrett and Mclntosh, 1982, 81-83) and yet have to re-adopt the idea in order to pursue their own argument (ibid., see esp. 131). 1980, 8-16) the Study Commission clearly uses a central notion of 'the family' in its final report (1983). Despite his own argument that . there is not, nor ever has been, a single family system' (1980, 14), Anderson entitled his book Approaches to the History of the Western Family. Despite arguing that the 'traditional family model' no longer reflects the reality ofThe highlighting of this contradiction is not based upon a mere semantic quibble nor upon a misunderstanding of the role and use of ideal types in social science. It has been suggested elsewhere that several major debates were only made possible by the use of an ideal type notion of 'the family', debates including those concerning the functions of 'the family' and the change in 'family type' in response to industrialisation (Bernardes, 1985a, 198-200). Recent analysis of 'family ideology' (Collier, 1982;Bernardes, 1985b) implies that the continued use of the term 'the family' in academic journals and books reifies and objectifies the term. This serves to convince the academic community and the public at large that 'the family' exists as a r...
In examining 'family policy', previous work on 'family ideology' is developed to demonstrate that 'traditional family sociology' has been 'doing things with words'. In this area sociology, far from being innocuous, has had real impact upon society and may well have been oppressive and deeply reactionary.
Fog computing has emerged as a promising technology that can bring cloud applications closer to the physical IoT devices at the network edge. While it is widely known what cloud computing is, how data centers can build the cloud infrastructure and how applications can make use of this infrastructure, there is no common picture on what fog computing and particularly a fog node, as its main building block, really is. One of the first attempts to define a fog node was made by Cisco, qualifying a fog computing system as a "mini-cloud" located at the edge of the network and implemented through a variety of edge devices, interconnected by a variety, mostly wireless, communication technologies. Thus, a fog node would be the infrastructure implementing the said mini-cloud. Other proposals have their own definition of what a fog node is, usually in relation to a specific edge device, a specific use case or an application. In this paper, we first survey the state of the art in technologies for fog computing nodes, paying special attention to the contributions that analyze the role edge devices play in the fog node definition. We summarize and compare the concepts, lessons learned from their implementation, and end up showing how a conceptual framework is emerging towards a unifying fog node definition. We focus on core functionalities of a fog node as well as in the accompanying opportunities and challenges towards their practical realization in the near future.
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