REDUCING INEQUALITIES IN FIELD RELATIONS: WHO GETS THE POWER?

Abstract

Over the twentieth century, there was a wide range of demographic changes in the family. Demographic shifts included a decline in the number of first marriages, and a rise in the divorce rate, the number of births outside marriage and the number of one parent families. Whilst ideologies (Eatwell, 1993; Seliger, 1976) of the family are many and varied, they tend to privilege the intact nuclear family as the natural, ideal and normal family form (Jagger & Wright, 1999) and as patriarchal, white and middle class. Other family structures, in contrast, can be seen as deviations from the norm. Such ideologies of the family are at odds with the changes in family structure outlined above. This tension between the ideal and the real can help stereotype children who live in families which deviate from the perceived norm of the intact nuclear family. This can disadvantage children who may be otherwise well-adjusted (Ferri, 1976; Mitchell, 1985).

Citation

Hudson, C. (2004), "REDUCING INEQUALITIES IN FIELD RELATIONS: WHO GETS THE POWER?", Jeffrey, B. and Walford, G. (Ed.) Ethnographies of Educational and Cultural Conflicts: Strategies and Resolutions (Studies in Educational Ethnography, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 255-270. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-210X(04)09012-6