8/26/15 What is a family?  The US census definition: a family consists of two or more people related by birth, marriage, or adoption residing in the same housing unit.  Families are persons who provide one another with intimacy, emotional support and love. More inclusive. Characteristics of Institutions  Institutions endure across time and space.  Does the family endure across time and space? Yes, because you don’t get rid of these connections. Over time, historically, a family is one of the oldest institutions. There is some sort of family life.  Institutions entail distinct social practices o Families provide intimacy, support and socialization (teach children how to interact with people, integrate us into society, what to wear, how to be a human).  Institutions have social positions characterized by norms that both facilitate and constrain behavior of its members.  Different positions about being a parent, things mothers and father’s do. Among them providing housing for children, cleaning, sending them to school.  Gender roles mothers and fathers are to do differently.  Expectations of the child, siblings, spouses.  Institutions are important to their member, and their rules and expectation become internalized as important identities and parts of selves. 8/28/2015 Institutions are inconsistent, contradictory, and rife with conflict  Institutions are organized and permeated by power.  Individuals must adapt to institutions but they remake them at the same time.  Institutions continuously change.  We see changes in attitudes towards family relationships. Families interact with other institutions  Education: children are required by law to attend schooling or receive an equivalent education.  Law: marriage certificates, birth certificates mean that the state monitors family formation and dissolution and allocates tax benefits based on family composition.  Economy: families purchase services they used to manage themselves, including some food and clothing, cleaning and child/elder care, cooking transportation.  Marriage incentive on taxes, if you make $60,000 a year and are married, you’d make $250 more dollars a week. How to Study Families Chapters 2-3 Discussion Questions – Cherlin “Critical” in the context of reading research means to use careful judgment and a set of established rules. Cherlin turns a critical eye on how social science research is presented, and asks readers to notice how it can reflect the values of those who are presenting the work. What are some of Cherlin’s examples?  Cherlin shows up how big of a deal transparency is.  Next step is to examine critically the way people interpret the relationship of one fact to another.  Congressmen’s wife example.