AICE Soc. Family

Come to this Page For the Course Content for the Rest of the Semester

STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW GOING FORWARD

All right, everyone. I hope all is going well. I’m going to be posting some lessons for you guys right here, at the top of this page to help you get the info you need going forward. I’ll try to post something for every day until your scheduled papers. I’ll also offer some advice on how to study.

A good source of information is the website Revise Sociology. It is a blog that has been put together by AICE Sociology readers, so it’s a good idea to give it a look.

Note

Okay. This is the end of the lessons that I will be posting on this page. Starting Friday I will start the Paper 1 Review on a new page titled AICE Review.

Day 41 April 4: Paper 2 Practice

Here is a Practice Test from October/November 2023 with the Mark Scheme

Day 40 April 3: The New Right and Family Policy

Yesterday we learned about the rise of what became “The New Right” movement in both the United States and Britain. The New Right that emerged from the 1970s and consolidated political power in the 1980s was a coalition of Laissez Faire economics advocates influenced by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Law and Order advocates influenced by Richard Nixon, and conservative Christian movements influenced by Jerry Falwell and Phyllis Schlafly and others (It should be noted that the Christian influence was much stronger in the U.S. than in Britain).

This political movement was so successful in the eighties under the leadership of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher that it transformed the social contract that was taken for granted after the New Deal. It shifted the nature of the political debate in both countries to the political right, or in a more conservative direction. Up to this time, state policy concerning families was shaped by liberal concepts of social democracy. The state taxed high-income earners more and used that money to fund public goods, provide social safety nets, and regulate the marketplace in the interests of workers and consumers.

The social democratic tradition saw the advent of programs like Social Security, or National Insurance in Britain, Medicare/Medicaid in the United States, and the National Institute of Health in the UK. The United States created social welfare programs like the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), unemployment insurance, food stamps (SNAP), and other social safety net programs. The idea was to help the less fortunate get a leg up during hard times. It was understood that the “government” or the state as I will refer to it, would take direct action to deal with social problems.

The New Right, on the other hand, saw government interventions in the market as wasteful and inefficient. They believed that progressive taxation and redistributive policies (support for the poor paid for by taxes on the rich) punished the most successful citizens, the business owners, and allowed the poor to become idle and dependent on “the dole.” Cutting taxes and deregulating the economy would spru economic growth and increase economic opportunities for the poor. Those who still fell through the cracks were better served by stable traditional families, in cohesive communities, stewarded by robust churches. These traditional social structures could provide all the social safety net that was needed without government intervention.

The New Right was successful in cutting back funding to programs like Medicaid, AFDC, and SNAP. These programs were “means-tested“. In other words, a person receiving the benefits had to demonstrate a legitimate need. Conservative politicians were able to paint such programs inherently unfair because hard-working Americans had to pay taxes to support the lazy. New Right activists identified anecdotal examples of fraud being committed. This was exemplified by Ronald Reagan when he referenced the “welfare queen“, a real con woman and criminal who took advantage of the welfare system. Reagan made it seem that such fraud was rampant in the system rather than a notable exception. Everybody claimed to see people driving to the welfare office in their Cadillacs to pick up their welfare checks. It was understood that welfare recipients simply laid back and allowed themselves to be taken care of by the state while the rest of us went off and worked. Furthermore, there was a racial component to this messaging.

Research into these claims did not really support their arguments. Actual fraud was rare. Most people using these programs were rural whites. Most people using means-tested programs were working or had a history of work. Whereas there were examples of people who remained on welfare (shorthand for all social safety net programs) throughout their lives, most people received services for between a few months and a couple of years.

Furthermore, whereas it was relatively easy to scapegoat means-tested programs, especially among the working and middle class, the New Right had a much harder time rolling back universal programs. Unlike means-tested programs, universal programs are benefits that everyone receives. Social Security in the United States, or National Insurance, and the National Institute of Health in the United Kingdom are examples of universal benefits. The New Right doesn’t like these programs either, but they are overwhelmingly popular. Funny how people are fine with cutting benefits for “those people”. That is, after all, wasteful government spending. But MY benefits are not wasteful. We saw this in 2017 when Republicans wanted to eliminate the hated “Obamacare” (otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act). The ACA isn’t entirely universal, but enough of it is, that even those who voted Republican didn’t want it to go away.

That’s not to say there weren’t real problems in the system. Let’s say you are a mother receiving welfare (AFDC), food stamps, and Medicaid. You are working, but your income is below the poverty line, let’s say $20,000 a year for you and your family. You go to school, get a certification, and now you qualify for a job paying $30,000. If you take it, however, you will lose your welfare, food stamps and Medicaid, benefits that amount to maybe $15,000 a year. So, in taking that job you are taking a net loss of resources of $5,000 a year. You may want to take the job and better yourself, but you have children to care for, you will not be able to afford health insurance at $30,000 (before Obamacare). What if one of your kids has asthma?

Let’s say you meet someone and want to marry. But upon marrying that person your net income now disqualifies you from welfare. Do you marry out of love and take the financial hit? That’s really romantic, but for low-income people this is a real hardship. Both of these are examples of a Welfare Trap, when the policies intended to help someone get out of poverty end up perpetuating the poverty.

The position of the New Right was that all government programs were inherently flawed by virtue of being government programs and could not be reformed. They could only be dismantled. Economic conservatives emphasized that taxing the most successful members of society to pay for flawed social programs that disincentivized work and encouraged fraud weakened the economy. They professed that the free market could solve all the problems associated with poverty more efficiently and effectively than government programs. Reagan expressed the motto of this movement when he announced during his inaugural address that, “government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem.”

The New Right strategy in this case was to do away with social safety net programs. This would force people to work, even if they had to accept low pay, and incentivize them to improve their condition, to work harder to make more money. Cutting the social safety nets would also allow the government to cut taxes on the wealthy and incentivize the wealthy to invest in more jobs, creating more opportunities for advancement. This policy approach, largely crafted by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, was a centerpiece of Neoliberalism. This approach emphasized finding solutions for social problems in the capitalist marketplace rather than through government policy.

The social conservatives were also on board with this approach. They drew on Functionalist and Neofunctionalist sociology and social research that identified social problems like poverty as a spillover effect of social democratic policies. The most noteworthy theorist in this field was Charles Murray, co-author with Richard Herrnstein, of a very influential and controversial book in the 1990s called The Bell Curve. Murray theorized that social welfare policies created an underclass, dependent upon government handouts. This underclass included a whole generation of “idle youth” who rejected the work ethic as a legitimate social value.

Murray pulls from sociologist Oscar Lewis who proposed that poverty was not just an economic issue, but was also a cultural issue. According to Lewis, people in poverty adopt norms and values consistent with being poor. These values correspond with a sense of fatalism, or loss of control in their personal lives, setting short-term goals, prioritization of present needs over long-term goals, distrust of institutions, especially banks, and a sense of solidarity with other impoverished people. These values create a Culture of Poverty perpetuated from generation to generation.

Among the most controversial elements of Murray’s thesis is the notion that social stratification is largely a reflection of biological differences in intelligence, aptitude, and stamina rather than biases in the social system. And yes, The Bell Curve does make the argument that southern racial minorities (Latin American and African) are biologically less intelligent than white and Asian subgroups. This biological difference, according to Murray and Herrnstein explains most of the disparities in American social stratification. From this perspective, social safety nets can never give a leg up to those who are at a biological disadvantage. Consequently, Charles Murray and The Bell Curve are notoriously controversial.

The third leg of the New Right stool is conservative Christianity. Conservative Christians were also on board with the larger policy objectives of the movement based on a notion of traditional values. The Christian Right saw the functions taken by the state as better served by the church community. Charities organized by churches and the Christian community could serve as social safety nets and support to help people get through hardship. This community would ensure that nobody became dependent and only received support as long as they needed it.

Furthermore, the Christian right saw liberal social policies as being antagonistic to the traditional, patriarchal nuclear family. They discouraged women with children from getting married or remaining married and under the supervision of a strong male figure. Children in single-mother homes either lacked the discipline vouched by a strong male figure or were feminized by a lack of a strong male role model. This situation leads to crime and further state dependency.

The Christian Right also identifies feminist notions of independence as a problem. Women in the workplace are abandoning their “natural” role of nurturing their children for a shallow existence in the career world. Technologies like birth control and family planning sexualize women rather than liberate them and they discredit the sacred ethical virtues of motherhood. Abortion incentivizes irresponsible behavior, allows men to avoid their responsibilities as fathers, and further burdens women with the “choice” of motherhood rather than the gift of motherhood. The conservative activist Phylis Schlafly took great delight in antagonizing feminists.

Based on these notions, the New Right advocates a different approach to dealing with poverty by emphasizing policies that secure the traditional, patriarchal nuclear family as the right and natural foundation of society. Margaret Thatcher even went so far as to claim that there is no such thing as society, “There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.” This is not exactly a sociological approach. But the policies are socially consequential.

The New Right has been most successful in shifting the debate in the United States and Britain. By the 1990’s in the United States, both Republicans and Democrats largely agreed on Neoliberal goals and skepticism of means-tested programs. They were so successful that it was Democratic President Clinton who famously “ended welfare as we know it,” by signing the 1996 law that replaced AFDC with a Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Today, the United States and Britain, much more politically conservative countries than say the Scandinavian countries, or France, are among the least generous countries when it comes to social welfare policies.

The New Right has also been very successful in pushing tax-cuts. After all, who doesn’t like paying less in taxes? But they have not been particularly good at cutting government spending…which means more debt. The reason for this is that money saved by cutting back on social safety nets and public goods, instead of being reinvested into the general account, were instead diverted to law and order policies, especially on the military, intelligence and border security at the national level, and policing and corrections at the state and local level.

This is consistent with New Right paradigms on social problems, for which the “breakdown of the family” is a central feature. According to the New Right, most social problems are the spillover effects (neofunctionalism) of the loss of the traditional nuclear family as the centerpiece of society. Feminism and liberalism have opened the fields for alternative family structures, including same-sex parenting and single-parent, especially female headed families. Such family structures fail to instill in their children a sense of personal responsibility. Without a strong male presence and a nurturing maternal hand, these children are more likely to be sexually promiscuous, which means they are more likely to become pregnant at young ages and get sexually transmitted diseases. They are more likely to commit crimes. The best approach is to return to church and restore traditional nuclear families.

Critique of the New Right

Consequently, the New Right (as is true for all social and political movements) tends to look for data that confirms its position rather than looking for data that validly tests its position. For instance, political movements tend to use anecdotal data to support generalized claims (again, this is not a fault of The New Right specifically, all social movements tend toward motivated reasoning). For instance, the “Welfare Queen” was a real person who defrauded the welfare system. She was caught and put in prison for her actions. Was she representative of all welfare recipients, or even most welfare recipients? No. In any large enough system, you’ll find people who scam it.

The biggest critique of the New Right is that it is not a scientific endeavor. The other perspectives are lenses through which to try to take a look at subjective reality as objectively as possible and to draw conclusions from valid and reliable research. We’ve seen how things can get complicated with say Marxist theorists who are also political activists. They have to be careful that their activism isn’t informing their research. But, there is valid Marxist theory and research to draw from. The New Right, on the other hand, is specifically a political movement. Its goal is to effect policy change, not to advance social research.

Often, research that has been informed by a political agenda is often vulnerable to critical analysis. Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve is a perfect example. This book offers a flood of data charts and graphs to prove its thesis that inequality is largely the result of biological differences between groups. However, most of this data is derived from a single source. Further, the researchers often omit fundamental facts and conflate correlation for causation. The Bell Curve became notable not because it was a well-constructed scientific study, but because it appealed to a popular political constituency.

The New Right, as a conservative movement, is of course interested in social stability. That’s true of all conservative movements. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with social stability. Consequently, they draw a great deal from functionalist and neofunctionalist theories. They also tend to eschew any research from other perspectives and are often openly hostile to Conflict theories, especially Marxism, Feminist and Postmodernist theories (because they tend to be left-leaning). The New Right emphasis on the Nuclear Family and the spillover effects of changes to foundational family structures do offer some reasonable analysis.

However, using Talcott Parsons’ Fit Thesis, if the nuclear family no longer “fits” the needs of the late/postmodern world, how effective will policies be that privilege traditional nuclear families over other arrangements? A functionalist would predict that you can’t make a square peg fit in a round hole. A functionalist would argue that it is better to let the society reach stasis with existing structures than to try to force an antiquated structure to fit a contemporary world. It would be like bring back feudalism.

Conflict Theorists argue that even when the traditional nuclear family was rigidly in place, things like poverty and crime still existed. Sociologists like William Julius Wilson have found that rather than poverty, crime, and drug use are consequences of economic breakdown, not changes in family structure. The economic stressors are, in fact, often the causes of family breakdown. From this perspective, policies that might effectively deal with poverty would likely improve family life.

Feminists point out that returning to traditional nuclear family structures would require women to give up a range of choices and freedom that they have worked hard to achieve. They would point out that women often experience a “motherhood penalty“. For many women, careers are very important and meaningful elements of their lives.

Postmodernists might point out that contemporary life has changed to the point where there is no going back. Recently, scholars have become interested in the “baby recession” many advanced nations are in. Women are giving birth to fewer children, often below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. The United States is currently at 1.67 children per woman. This will ultimately lead to declining populations. Some nations have instituted very generous “pro-natal” policies to encourage women to have more children. This is based on the conflict perspective and the assumption that modern capitalist societies have made child care too expensive, thus disincentivizing childbirth. It turns out that’s not the case. Even countries with very generous social safety nets and public goods and tax incentives for having children are not experiencing higher fertility rates. Sweden’s fertility, for instance, is 1.66…almost exactly the same as the stingy United States. Why? We’re really not sure.

Regardless, the New Right cannot really be evaluating using the same standards that one would use to evaluate a scientific theory. The advancement of scientific knowledge is not the goal. Like all political movements, its goal is to leverage political power to achieve the goals of its coalition. You have to keep that in mind when referencing the New Right in your papers.

Day 39 April 2: The Family, the State, and the New Right

Since, in my retirement, I’m all about making my life easier, I went back and reviewed the “Covid University” video I did on this topic. It turns out this topic is the first video I did after the lockdown. It covers most of the stuff that I was planning on writing about today. There’s no sense reinventing the wheel. I also posted the handout that I created that goes over some basic terms that we will be using.

The important thing to get out of the lecture is the shifting in functions from the family to the state. For instance, in pre-industrial societies most individual needs were satisfied within the family or clan arrangement. Everything from education to healthcare to hygiene to waste disposal was taken care of by the family. The house you lived in was made from materials gathered from your local environment and built and maintained by the family, maybe in conjunction with other families in the community. Interaction with the state, in this case the lord of the fiefdom, was rare and often not appreciated.

As we shift from pre-industrial to industrial, and now post-industrial, we see a loss of functions on the part of the family, and the expanding functions of the state. The most obvious example of this is in education. In pre-industrial societies, you received your education via your family relations. Maybe you are being apprenticed to learn a trade. That means you live with the family that was training you and become a member of their household. Even if you were wealthy, you received your education mostly via tutors hired by your family to provide the education. Boarding schools and universities came a little later. Really, the only exception to this would have been the church. You may have gone to a seminary if you showed academic promise. In this case, however, education was taken on by the church, not the state.

Today, most young people go to public schools. In fact, you are mandated by the state to attend school. The curriculum is decided upon by the state. The school standards are decided upon by the state. In some countries, the state runs or subsidizes higher education. In the United States, we have a public university system but get access to state-guaranteed loans to attend. Regardless, the state is more involved.

In some ways, we like this arrangement. In pre-industrial societies, families would go out and dig their own latrines or out-houses in which they…well…you know! Today, the state installs sewer systems and mandates that home builders install toilets and plumbing that can be connected to the sewers. Families no longer have to deal with all of the issues that come with having and maintaining out-houses. Who can complain about that?

On the other hand, how much state intervention is too much? If the state takes on all of these functions for the family, does that not result in individuals becoming less dependent upon their families, therefore less connected to their families, and more dependent upon the state? Whereas most people don’t have a problem giving up their freedom to dig latrines in exchange for a state monopoly on sewer lines, some areas of state intervention are up for debate.

For instance, should the state have the power to intervene in how we discipline our children? At what point does “discipline” become “abuse”, and should the state be the institution that makes that decision? This is huge. Legally, teachers are “mandated reporters”. In other words, if we see what we interpret as signs of abuse on a child we are working with, we are legally obligated to report that to the state. The state will investigate, and the Department of Children and Families will get involved. This is a significant state intervention that depends on how the larger society defines abuse. Certainly, there are levels of violence that are almost universally condemned. But there are some levels of violence that are up for debate. Spanking, for instance. Most Americans see spanking as an acceptable level of violence to be used to “discipline” a child. Even those of us who disapprove of spanking don’t want to see children taken away from their homes because they were spanked. Well, to what extent? Using the hand? A belt? A paddle? A board? Where does it cross the line?

We mentioned public schools. As it stands, the state mandates that families send their children to school. We take this for granted, but when this debate started in the mid 19th century through the early 20th century, there were many who believed that this was an undue imposition of the state. The rules of education had to be negotiated based on the needs of the family. That’s why you have summers off, to allow farmers to have their children during the growing season.

That is no longer salient, but other issues are. For instance, the current debate…what should students in a mandated public school be exposed to? Should the school and the teacher be able to expose a child to material that the family does not approve of, or seem to contradict the values of the family? To what extent should teachers enjoy academic freedom? To what extent should families be able to intervene in the curriculum or the lesson plans?

Now, obviously, I’m not unbiased on this particular issue. I would point out, however, that all sides of the debate have reasonable arguments. Public schools, since the beginning, have always served as stages where the larger societal debates have played out. Religion. Race Relations. Scientific Debate. Sex. Gender. Ideology. If these debates are taking place in the larger society, you can bet they are playing out in the classroom. And, for the most part, I think that’s a good thing. A democratic society should be engaged in these debates. Problems arise, however, when one political cadre can leverage disproportionate power to impose its will without negotiation or compromise…and that’s true regardless of where this cadre falls on the political spectrum.

Remember our buddy, Louis Althusser. Althusser is the guy who came up with a two-sided model of state power: Repressive State Apparatuses, and Ideological State Apparatuses. Repressive State Apparatuses have to do with law enforcement and the means by which the state can impose its will on citizens. Ideological State Apparatuses are those institutions that pass on the values of the state. In this case, the Family serves as an Ideological State Apparatus. So, the state has an incentive to assert as much control over the functions of the family as possible. Stable families mean stable young people. Stable young people are less likely to engage the State’s Repressive measures. In democratic states, however, this could be an issue as different interest groups vie for access to state power.

The New Right

This leads to the final lesson of this class, which is the New Right as a political movement engaged in debates on the family. This is a part of the AICE curriculum that you need to know because you may find a question on this topic in your Paper 2 Exam. However, I want to make clear that “the New Right” is a political movement…not a specifically sociological perspective. I think this causes a great deal of confusion among students. This is the first time I will go into depth about a social lens that is not a sociological perspective or theory. The New Right is a political lens, but it does draw from some sociological approaches, most notably the Functionalist and Neo-Functionalist perspectives.

So, I’d like to give a little historical background, because…of course I do!

The Progressive Movement of the turn of the 20th century witnessed a transformation in the ideological focus of political liberalism. Political liberalism, historically, emphasized individual human rights including the right to vote, a limited role for a government based on republican principles, and capitalism. Throughout the 19th century, liberalism was ascendant. Old traditional hierarchies, mostly based on the feudal order, were replaced by parliamentary governments with large bourgeois coalitions passing laws. These liberal governments focused on building a capitalist nation-state. They focused on expanding infrastructure, improving law enforcement, making it easier for holders in capital to invest, including stable currencies, and expanding individual freedoms. In the United States, this kind of liberalism was embodied in Alexander Hamilton in his role as the first Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton believed the focus of government should be growing the domestic economy. His philosophy became the foundation of the American System advocated by politicians like James Monroe, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and others. In England, this perspective was embodied by William Gladstone and his Liberal Party. Nations that embraced this concept of liberalism became very wealthy and experienced rapid technological advancement.

This early form of liberalism, or what is today called “classical liberalism”, did lead to the rise of wealthy nation-states. Unfortunately, this wealth was often the result of exploitation of the vast majority of citizens. These citizens, ironically, also had the expectation of greater political voice because of liberalism. So, on one hand, citizens in liberal nations were subject to intensive exploitation at the hands of capitalists. On the other hand, they were also incentivized to organize for social change. This tension came to a head in England in the middle of the 19th century with the rise of the labor movement, and in the United States toward the end of the 19th century with the rise of the progressive movement.

These movements, often responding to more radical left-wing and socialist movements, advocated for a state-regulated capitalism. Capitalists could still do business and seek profit, but the negative consequences of this would be mitigated by state action. Rules would be put in place to regulate work conditions. Redistributive taxes would be used to provide social safety nets. The government would oversee all areas that might have health consequences for working people, like codes for minimum housing standards, waste management, food production, medical practice, pharmaceuticals, etc. Hence a new debate on the role of the state in regulating capitalism was born, with conservatives largely taking the Laissez Faire or “hands off” approach, seeing state regulation of business as hampering economic growth, and progressive liberals taking an economic justice approach advocating minimum living standards for citizens.

This progressive or labor approach to liberalism came to dominate the political economy as a result of the Great Depression. By the end of World War II, all industrial nations practiced some version of what is now known as Social Democracy. In other words, capitalism remains the primary system for organizing the economy, but the state would use higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for programs to mitigate the negative effects of capitalism by investing in public goods (schools, parks, sewer systems, subsidized electricity, etc.), regulation (FDA, Child Labor Laws, OSHA, EPA, etc.) and providing for a “welfare state” (Income supplements, food stamps, health care, etc.). This was the dominant structure of Western political economy, depending on the country, from the late 19th century into the 1970s.

Political conservatives evolved to oppose this social democratic system. They saw it as an undue burden on the most effective economic agents in the nation…the business owners. In Europe conservatives were the inheritors of the old feudal system, in the United States they were the remnants of the plantation system (more or less, this stuff is often complicated). Political conservatism was also reinforced by social conservatism often represented in working-class rural communities dedicated to traditional values.

In the 1960’s we see the emergence of a conservative movement based on a reinterpretation of the classical liberal concept of “limited government.” According to this view, all state regulations, taxes, and social safety nets make the economy more cumbersome and less efficient. The costs of these state interventions are borne by business owners and investors who thereby become less inclined to invest. Less investment means the state must increase its intervention, and people become more dependent on the state to meet their needs. Eventually, according to this perspective, what will happen is well-meaning social democrats will eventually create the kind of authoritarian state seen in fascist and communist countries. The theoretical rationale for this concept was elaborated by the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek in his book The Road to Serfdom. In the United States, Senator Barry Goldwater ran for president on this version of conservatism…but he was obliterated by the more socially democratic Lyndon Johnson. But he did, effectively consolidate a growing political movement.

This political movement gained traction in the 1970’s when global economic shifts created a series of crises experienced in the United States as Stagflation. Economists like Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics blamed the stagnant economy and the high inflation on government spending and intervention in the market. Politicians like Ronald Reagan in the United States, and Margaret Thatcher in England, were able to engage this argument to increase their political prestige against the moribund “liberals” who were ruining everything.

Reagan and Thatcher engaged another corner of the political debate. Political advances for women, including the right to divorce, birth control, and abortion, as well as increasingly tolerant attitudes toward social deviants like sexual minorities, drug users, hippies, and the Counterculture, etc., had activated more conservative religious institutions. These conservative Christian churches were willing to enter a coalition with political conservatives to leverage state power to pursue their agenda of a more traditional Christian nation.

By the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, a three-prong conservative coalition emerged, often acting in concert. First was the pro-business, Lessaiz Faire capitalists who wanted to see fewer regulations on business and lower taxes. Second was the “law and order” group that emerged with the rise of Richard Nixon. These folks were responding to higher crime rates, drug use, and sexual promiscuity that they saw emerging from the 60’s Counterculture. Finally, was the Christian Right who were concerned about the erosion of Christian values in the face of an expanding secular liberalism. This coalition became The New Right.

The New Right has been the dominant political influence in the United States and Britain since the early 1980s and the overwhelming political victories of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Even presumably “liberal” political institutions readjusted their goals in response to the political success of the New Right. Political parties became more ideological than regional, especially in the United States where once it wasn’t unusual to see liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. By 2000, the Republican Party was “the conservative party” and the Democrats well…they were a mess. The old-school “New Deal” and “Great Society” Democrats were moved to the back burner. The more business-friendly New Democrats, like Bill Clinton, grew to dominate the party.

I can’t speak to why AICE wants me to focus on the New Right so much in this section. I suspect it has to do with how effectively the New Right coalition has reshaped social policy as it relates to families. Tomorrow I will dig into State policy and in the influence of the New Right.

Day 38 March 28: The Family, the Economy

Sorry, I missed yesterday. I was called away and didn’t get back until late afternoon. Today I had a doctor’s appointment that I could not miss. But I should be back to regular posting now.

The question now is, “so what?” Why do sociologists look into social phenomena like “the family” so acutely? What good is it to dig into something that it so mundane, so ubiquitous, that it can more or less be taken for granted?

Remember, in the beginning of the year I told you that sociology was a field that finds the “amazing in the mundane and the mundane in the amazing.” Why?

This is where we can start digging into what is called applied sociology. Understanding the family not just as a relationship between individuals, but as a social institution is important because decisions are made by professionals that impact the family…and how families function is important to how other institutions function. So, for instance, a non-sociologist might look at schools and families as separate entities. What happens in home has nothing to do with what happens at school and vice versa. A person interested in improving education may be inclined to look only at what teachers are doing in the classroom, or the curriculum being used, or access to technology. That’s been our approach for many years now.

It turns out, however, that the best predictor of academic success in school has nothing to do with what actually goes on in the school. The single best predictor of academic success in school is, believe it or not, the education levels of the parents–specifically, the education level of the mother. We often spend a lot of time looking at international comparisons in education, how much better Finnish and Singaporean students score on reading and math tests than do American students. Clearly something needs to change in American schools. But a closer reading of the data shows something different. In fact, the highest performing students in the world are American students in schools where fewer than 15% of the students are on free or reduced lunch. In other words, American students in wealthy districts outperform all other students in the world. At the other end of the spectrum, among the lowest performing students are those in schools with over 75% free and reduced lunch, or low Socio-Economic Status schools. It turns out, if you want to improve educational outcomes in the United States, you have to deal with poverty and low-income households. This is an irony, of course, because many teachers go into teaching believing that education is the key to solving poverty. It turns out that it is the other way around, dealing with poverty is the key to improving education.

But I digress. The bottom line is that it is important to understand the family as an institution because a great deal of family life is now shaped by policymakers. These policymakers need to have valid and reliable information from which to develop policies, including recommendations for legislation and laws that impact family life. A big part of sociology as a field is in shaping and implementing social policy at the city, state, and national level. Policy is shaped within the political and economic institutions, or what has traditionally been referred to as the “political-economy.” Today I will go over the relationship between the family and the economy. Tomorrow I will elaborate on the relationship between the family and the state. Today and tomorrow I will also talk about a political movement called the New Right because AICE wants me to focus on it and you may get a question related to it.

We can look at families as in important subfield in a given society. Society exists where Family, the State or Political Institutions, Economic Institutions, and Cultural Institutions overlap. This is classic Parsons. A consensus model of society suggests that so long as all four of these subsystems are doing what they are supposed to do (AGIL) then the society will function properly. The question then becomes, how do we integrate families into our economic structures in such a way that we can see a virtuous cycle by which families effectively serve the needs of the economy and the economy effectively serves the needs of the family?

Let’s break this down. The family serves as a locus for three different components of our current, modern, capitalist economy: consumption, production, and investment. The consumption locus is the easiest to deal with, so we’ll start with that. In order for a family to function, you need to buy stuff. Furthermore, the kind of consumption that is done for families is qualitatively and quantitatively different than the consumption made by a single individual.

First thing that comes to mind for me is how I take vacations today as opposed to how I took vacations before I had a family. Well, when I was first starting out…no vacations, of course. Once I was able, through my job, to make enough money and set time aside for vacation, I often just packed my stuff into my jeep and drove somewhere. I often stayed in campsites to save money and spent time visiting national parks and such. I spent very little. I used the same tent and backpack for years. Gas was probably my biggest expense.

Add a wife and kids to this mix and my vacations have changed significantly. Yes, at first there was a lot of camping, but now I was buying a pop-up camper and game and fun stuff to do with the kids. We went to tourist attractions. We bought higher grade food. Now, we fly to other countries and have luggage. We stay in fancy/schmancy hotels and eat at top restaurants. With a family consumptions patterns have changed. But these consumption patterns also changed as my economic position improved (not because of being a teacher, I might add).

Well, this is true for other areas my economic life. I used to drive around in clunker cars that I would hold together with baling wire and duct tape. Once my first child was born, that would no longer do. I needed a better, more reliable car. I needed a bigger home, preferably one with a yard. That costs more money. Kids grow out of and destroy clothes. I have birthdays I have to make purchases for. An anniversary. College. Organizing individuals into families vastly increases consumption beyond just the multiplication of individuals. Families simply need more stuff. Also, since the family is in a constant state of flux, needs change…which means more stuff.

This is why, in advanced nations, having a family is advantageous in the marketplace. For instance, it is easier for a spousal unit, typically a husband and wife, to get a mortgage than a single individual or even two single individuals cosigning. The bank sees two people who are bound together by law and tradition as less risky than other options. Because of this, a married couple may qualify for a lower interest mortgage than a non-married couple, saving them thousands of dollars in the long run. This is one of the major arguments made for same-sex marriage, since before same-sex marriage was legal, a same sex couple could not get access to this benefit the same way a heteronormative couple could. When I was single, whatever. I could live in my car for a little bit, or crash on my friend’s couch. That’s not so easy to do when there’s a family attached to you.

The second locus is as a producer. This means providing labor. This is a bit more complex because there are a lot of moving parts. From a production standpoint, families are critical for not just providing labor and reproducing that labor, but also stabilizing that labor. Take this old school country song performed by Johnny Paycheck…

Pay special attention to that first verse… Click the Title to hear the song.

Take this job and shove it I ain’t working here no more My woman done left and took all the reason I was working for You better not try to stand in my way As I’m a-walkin’ out the door.

Johnny Paycheck, Take this Job and Shove it

Notice the premise of the song. Here’s a guy working in a place he doesn’t want to be, for a guy he doesn’t like. He’s working there because of his “woman”. In other words, he’s trying to secure the resources to take care of himself and someone else (it’s not clear if he’s married). Either way, when she left, his reason for staying left. He can sustain himself without that job so…”Shove it!”

Families produce workers. One of the primary functions of the family is to socialize children to become good workers. Parents teach their children a “work ethic.” Often times we teach that association by paying our children for chores or for grades. How many of you have been told that going to school was “your job?” Maybe some of you are being paid for good grades. All of these things are being done to prepare you for life in the job market.

The care work that is done is also part of the the production locus. Workers do not meet their needs in the workplace. They meet their needs at home. When a worker gets sick or injured, even if they get sick or injured on the job, it is the family that secures the medical attention that they need. Today, there are policies like Worker’s Compensation. This is a program that business owners must pay into like an insurance policy in the event that a worker is injured on the job. This program is designed to help families in the event of an injury. It is also designed to incentivize the employer to make his workplace as safe as possible as every time a worker’s comp claim is made, the premiums paid by the employer go up…this is why your boss hates it when employees file worker’s comp. Still, the bulk of the care work is being done by the family and maybe medical professionals, not the workplace.

Finally, the family serves as a locus of investment. When we think about investment, we think about buying stocks or bonds. We spend money on stuff that makes us more money. Indeed, the family is central to this economic behavior. As a single man, I was fine living in my little apartment, living my life. As a family man it became important to buy a house. Well, buying a house is not just a consumer decision, it’s also an investment. In normal times, the value of houses increases, which means the money that I put into a house today will be paid for by increased value of the house tomorrow. That’s an investment. Furthermore, having a house that is gaining value means that I gain what is called “equity.” If I buy a house for $200,000, then a year later I have $190,000 left on the mortgage (because I’ve made payments on it for a year), but the house is now worth $230,000 at the market price, I have $40,000 in equity. In other words, I could sell the house and that’s how much cash I would have. Well, banks often treat that equity as if that were real cash on hand. I can use that equity to get, say, a business loan. That’s another investment.

But there are other forms of investment. For instance, sending our kids to school and paying for college is an investment. In this case, we are not making money from that, but we are using our access to economic capital to advance our child’s social capital, a higher level skill set, demonstrated through symbolic capital, a degree, that they can then use to advance themselves in the market.

This sounds familiar! We talked about this second quarter when we talked about Neo-Marxists/Critical Theorists and Pierre Bourdieu’s “Cultural Capital Theory”. Remeber, sociologists recognize different types of capital. That means we have different kinds of “investment” for which the family is central.

Economic: Money and wealth that can be used to generate more money or wealth. Equity on a house. Credit ratings. Investment accounts. Saving. Bonds. Stocks.	Cultural: Social knowledge and skill sets that allow you to identify with a particular social class or cadre. Ettiquette such as knowing which spoon to use in a five star restaurant. Wine tasting. Composure. Vocabulary.
Social: Networks that can be access to get resources that you need or want. Education. Having a lawyer on retainer. Knowing “a guy!” Background experience Resume or CV.	Symbolic: Physical representations of status. Armani suit. Expensive car. College degree hanging on your wall. Diamond jewelry.

Remember these! All of these are, according to sociologists, forms of capital. In other words, having these things can get you access to the resources you want or need. That’s why you are taking an AICE class. You can see taking an AICE class as a kind of investment in which you are building Social Capital, being able to say you are an AICE student which gives you recognition in institutions of higher learning. You get Symbolic Capital, that AICE Diploma, AICE courses on your transcript. It also gives you cultural capital. You learn the norms, values, and language of academia by which you can demonstrate belonging with other academics.

We can look at participating in youth sports, as an example of social investment. There’s often an economic investment in the form of spending money on equipment and spending time on practice, parents driving you to and from games. There’s the social capital that comes with being on a team. The symbolic capital of trophies, or extra-curricular credit. There’s the cultural capital by which you learn to work in concert with others toward a goal, often a competitive goal. Even if you never become a professional athlete…these forms of capital still have “value.” This can be said of Marching Band, Performing Arts, or any of a number of programs offered in school our outside of school. These are kinds of investment.

Practice

This is a good place to end this lesson. In the meantime, here’s a good practice for you.

1. Think of all the ways that your family is supported by the economy. List them.
2. Think of all the ways your family contributes to the economy. List them.
3. Now think about the balance of this particular economic account…is it balanced in favor of your family, in favor of the economy, or is it relatively balanced between the two…who benefits most?
   • Examine this balance from the following sociological lenses…
     • Functionalist
     • Neo-Functionalist
     • Conflict/Marxist
4. If you see this relationship as relatively unbalanced, what are some things that can be done to help balance the relationship between family and the market?
5. If you see this relationship as relatively balanced, what are some things that might happen to cause it to become unbalanced? What can be done to avoid that from happening?

Family Dysfunction

Day 33 March 8: Review Videos from COVID University

When we were all sent home for the Pandemic I did some videos for the AICE Sociology and other Classes. I called it COVID University. Here is a couple I did that review some of the material we’ve covered. Use these as a review.

Day 29 and 30 March 4-5: Practice

So, now is the time to take all of the information we’ve learned and do some practice. I’m posting the last Paper 2 Exam from November 2023 and the Mark scheme. I think a couple of days will give you a chace to complete and evaluate the entire exam. Now this exam asks about “cohabitation.” I’ve not really discussed cohabitation, but it is a current trend in family arrangements. Cohabitation is simply referring to otherwise romantic couples who are living together without being married. You can get a rundown on this topic at Revise Sociology, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to set up some speculation on why, in postmodern societies, cohabitation might increase.

Changing Conjugal Roles in the Family

Day 23 February 23: Applying sociological theories to understanding changes in family structure.

You now have four approaches to understanding changes in the family from pre-industrial societies to today: Functional Fit Thesis, Conflict/Marxist, Postmodernist, Neofunctionalist. Now is a good opportunity to actually apply these concepts. Below I have a current event article on family structure. First, read the article. Highlight and take note of trends that you can explain using.

Now organize your information. I would recommend a chart because…of course I would!

Divide the chart into four boxes, one for each theory. Remember, theories have two qualities. You use theories to explain what you are looking at and to make predictions about the phenomenon. So, divide up your boxes into a place to explain and a place to make predictions.

Fit Thesis: Explanation Prediction	Marxist Explanation Prediction
Neofunctionalist Explanation Prediction	Postmodernist Explanation Prediction

Predictions can be about what you think will happen with regard to this new structure in the future, but it could be about patterns that you predict you will see if you do the research on this particular structure. You can then, if you are interested, do the research to confirm or disconfirm your prediction.

For instance, you might, from a Neofunctionalist perspective, predict that such arrangements might lead to increased rates of divorce. Is there data out there suggesting that that is true? I really don’t know, but you can look and see.

From Modernism to Postmodernism

Readings on Contemporary Family Life

I realize that I have been remiss in giving you readings. That’s so unlike me! Anyway, the next couple of days we will be learning about the transition from modern/Industrial societies to postmodern/postindustrial societies and their impacts on family. This stuff will probably be the most interesting, because this is the stuff that you are living through. We will learn some theories and trends to help you understand that what is going on with your family is not just a personal matter. It’s a social matter.

Anyway, you have learned two theories. The Fit Thesis and the Friedrich Engels Theory on the State, Private Property and the Family. Below are some readings. You can use them however you want. Divide them up. Read all of them. But as you do the readings I want you to try to apply the theories that you’ve learned to understand what they are elaborating. How, for instance, does the Fit Thesis help explain Beanpole or Beanstalk families?

Also, if you are into Podcasts, Ezra Klein has a really good interview about friend-based family relationships that is really interesting. Click Here.

I also want to say this: I’m not personally advocating for any particular kind of family arrangement. I’m not trying to indoctrinate you into Polyamory or anything like that. I have been married to one woman for going on eighteen years and my family would be considered reconstituted family. I’m very happy with it. I’m sharing these ideas above because they are relevant to contemporary society and they are related to what we are going to be studying in the next couple of days.

History of Families: Pre-Modern to Modern Times

What is the Family and Types of Families

Below is a description of the Nayar culture in India.

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Research Methods Consolidated

Research Practice Assessment

Mark Scheme and Sample Response

As promised. I have written my own essay response to the prompt below. I’m good at this, so don’t be too put off if your essay doesn’t look just like mine. If it has most of the same elements you are doing fine. That’s why I also included the Mark Scheme, so you can see exactly what the AICE readers will be looking for.

I’m also going to make a suggestion. Take a look at the vocabulary (it’s linked on the AICE Sociology AS page also Here and Here) and start going over those terms. Those are the terms that the test creators pull from to design their questions. If you know those terms, you will do well on the exam. By the way, you’ll notice that Paper 2 and Paper 1 are switched. When I first put these lists together, Family was Paper 1 and Foundations was Paper 2. A couple years ago they flipped it so now Foundations is Paper 1.