Multidimensional Developmental Pathways: A Proposal to Facilitate the Conceptualisation of ‘Family Diversity’

Abstract

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...

Family Theory Versus the Theories Families Live By

“…Finally, by starting with the ways families live as a complex unity of experience (Bernardes, 1986), rather than through disciplinary predispositions to examine subsets of family reality, we can create explanations of family reality that are more fully interdisciplinary. The negative spaces discussed in this paper have received some attention in other disciplinary literatures; but as I argue, they do not have a strong presence in family theory.…”

Theorizing Family Change: A Review and Reconceptualization

“…Our third approach, what we conceptualize as a postinstitutional approach, interprets recent changes in family life as a diversification of family forms rather than a deinstitutionalization or individualization of it (Bernardes, ; Widmer, ; Widmer & Jallinoja, ). In creating this group, we find a much less clear or delineated conceptualization of family and an approach that is filled with some ambiguity and contradictory elements in its theorizing of family change.…”

We Must Not Define “The Family”!

“…Moreover, the image of universality encourages many people to try to make their own family life like the image of ''The Family'' and imitate what may be uncomfortable and unworkable images of personal behavior and gender. It is astonishing the impact sociology has had on society in glorifying and continually extolling ''The Family,'' in the oppression of huge numbers of individuals and the creation of suffering and misery on a truly grand scale (Bernardes, 1985b(Bernardes, , 1986a(Bernardes, , 1986b(Bernardes, , 1987(Bernardes, , 1988.…”

“…In the UK, this approach usually focuses upon individuals, life courses within assumed models of the normal ''nuclear family. '' In an attempt to facilitate the study of family life, I developed the idea of conceptualizing the coming together of individual life courses upon Family Pathways (Bernardes, 1986a). We should think of individual life courses meeting, sometimes being or becoming interdependent, even combining and perhaps later parting.…”

“…First, the way we split up features of social life for study (e.g., class, ethnicity, family, education, crime) and fail to look at the essential unity of people's lives. Second, the way we study surface appearances or even presume features to exist (e.g., ''The Family'') rather than seek underlying actuality: what is actually going on (Bernardes, 1986a).…”