Chapter 2 Family & Personal Relationships (1) Sept. 2005 Xiao Huiyun.

Chapter 2Family & Personal Relationships (1)

Sept. 2005

Xiao Huiyun

A 1 The FamilyIn modern Britain post WW2,

the amount of the diverse families has grown due to changes over time

Nuclear family ( 3 types )Lone-parent familyCohabiting couple

A 1 The Family cont.One-parent families & their

dependent children

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

2.4

2.6

2.8

3.0

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

Estim

ate

d n

um

ber

(mill

ions)

Dependent children inone-parent families

One-parent families

A 1 Family cont. Almost half of all marriages fail. If present divorce rates continue, more than one

child in four will experience the divorce of their parents before they reach age sixteen.

Britain has one of the highest divorce rates in Europe.

Lone parenting has increased three-fold in the last twenty years.

1 in 10 families is a lone parent family 4 in 10 people are born outside marriage 1 in 10 of Britons cohabiting Annual marriage rates are at their lowest since

records began in 1840

A 1 Family cont. From all these facts and figures, it appears that the

traditional family is in decline. But is this really so? According to the Soul of Britain survey: 80% of Britons believe that marriage is not out-dated 76% of Britons expect our marriages to last for life 46% of Britons disapprove of lone parenting as a

lifestyle choice Columnist Melanie Phillips argues that the traditional

nuclear family has been at the root of their democracy, because it leads to the formation of people who are secure, stable, inner-directed and self-confident, and who have a sense of duty and responsibility to each other.

A 1 Family cont. Traditional families are better for children Bob Rowthorne, professor of economics at Cambridge U

niversity challenged the propaganda that the blended family or step family ‘at its best’ can provide a good alternative to the traditional family.  He claimed that there is overwhelming evidence that on average (rather than ‘at the best’) step families are very dangerous places for children to be. The level of child murder is many times higher in step families than in traditional married couples.

Rowthorne also pointed out that children do not do as well in lone-parent families or in cohabiting families as they do in stable married couples.

The phenomena of lone- parent families in contemporary British society have led to an increase in poverty and social problems related to poverty.

A 1 The FamilyHome is Where the Heart is

Stable marriage will be the most important ingredient for a happy home life in Millennium Britain, according to a new Alliance & Leicester public opinion poll by MORI.

The survey asked 1,938 people what would be the most important ingredient to family life in 25 years time. Key findings included:

Stable marriage and less divorce topped the poll with more than one in four people (26 per cent). The importance attached to stable marriage was consistent across all age groups, dispelling the possibility that the findings on marriage were simply a symptom of youthful idealism.

A 2 Youth Youth is not simply an age group, but a social

organization. In Britain in the 1950s things happened that changed the way that young people thought about themselves and the way they behaved. For about ten years after the end of the Second World War in 1945 there was a rise in the birth rate. There were more young people around with money to spend. Companies started to manufacture things - music, films, clothes - especially for young people

Existing in the British culture this kind of age group is a subdivision of the national culture, hence the term ‘youth subculture’.

A2 YouthYouth Subcultures

Subculture : a ‘cultural group within a larger culture often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture (COD)

Youth subcultures have a distinct individual style – certain ways of dressing, speaking, listening to music and gathering in similar places.

Youth subculture can be described as the way of life shared by young people.

Youth subcultures are inevitable products of affluent society. ( e.g. The Teddy Boys )

The majority of people leave the subcultures at some later point, often at the point of marriage.

A 2 Youth The 1950s was the Rock 'n' Roll era. This mu

sic was originally made by black people in the USA. When copied by white musicians like Elvis, it became popular with white audiences - especially white teenagers.

British kids loved it too and one of the first post-War teenage cults, the Teddy Boys or 'Teds', adopted it as their music. Teds had slicked-back 'quiffs' or 'DA' haircuts. They wore narrow 'drainpipe' trousers, 'drape' jackets, fancy shirts and 'bootlace' ties. They had a reputation for violence

A 2 YouthTeddy Boys cont.

Characteristics of Teddy boys: Group-mindedness – a reaffirmation of traditional working

class values and the strong sense of territory. They demonstrated working class resistance through rituals.

Extreme touchiness to insults – this over-sensitivity became attached to the distinctive dress and appearance of the group

Conditions for its formation – extensive welfare provision (social security, health, housing), European economic boom with Marshall plan, abolishing of draft, introduction of hire purchase

Teddy Boys drastically and fundamentally altered the concept of the adolescent and introduced the concept of a youth subculture

A 2 Youth cont.Teddy Boys in the 1950s

A 2 Youth cont.The Beatniks

Beatniks -  Members of the “beat” movement in the United States in the 1950s. Beatniks frequently rejected middle-class American values, customs, and tastes in favor of radical politics and exotic jazz, art, and literature.

Their visual symbols - jazz, poetry, marijuanna were exported to Britain & became the hallmarks of British Beatniks, a section of middle-class youth

The Beatniks therefore constituted a counter-culture in the decade.

A 2 Youth Beatniks cont

Characteristics Extremely pessimistic about future & possibilities of

progress Aspired for freedom and the anguish of being alone,

undecided and separate Their central ideology did not gain wide popularity in Britain

until mid-1960s, when it was further developed with the coming of the Hippies

A 2 YouthThe Beatniks

A 2 YouthMods and Rockers

The 1960s Rock 'n' roll rebellion faded away a little between 1958 and 1963. Bu

t then, as a new mood of optimism and change began to sweep through British society, the young brought rebellion back. With a bang. In the early sixties there were the mods and the rockers. Rockers liked rock 'n' roll and big motorbikes, and they 'dressed down' in leather jackets and denim. Mods liked American rhythm and blues music and rode scooters. They 'dressed up' in sharp suits and ties (Italian style).

Like the Teddy Boys, Rockers came from working class, but far more butch and masculinity driven than the former..

The Mods were from working-class backgrounds but worked in non-traditional clerical or service jobs

A 2 YouthRockers and their motor-bikes

A 2 YouthThe Beatles

A 2 YouthMods and their scootors

A2 YouthThe Hippies

In addition to Mods and Rockers, there were the Hippies and Skinheads.

The term ‘hippie’ covers a wide range of bohemian, student and radical subcultures.

They are critical of growing dominance of technology & bureaucracy of capitalist societies.

They distrusted establishment. They criticised inequality and affluence of society and so

ught social change through peaceful means. The subculture contains contradictions – they scorned m

aterialism, yet lived to share the fruits of affluence. They preached egalitarianism, but remain reactionary.

A 2 YouthSkinheads cont.

Unlike Beats and Hippies, Skinheads largely came from the unskilled working-class community.

Their lifestyle was centred round working-class activities, located around the pubs, football and streets , associated with football hooliganism.

Hallmarks Dress – big industrial boots & jeans rolled up high to reveal the

m Skinheads appeared towards the end of the 1960s, the result

of relative worsening of situation of working-class. Appearance –hair cut to the skull Emphasis on collectivity, physical toughness ,,and local rivalry;

this explained why hippies became targets for the aggression of skinheads

A2 Youth cont.Hippies (left) Skin heads (right)

A2 YouthPunks

The 1970s The seventies can be characterised by Punk, Heavy Metal an

d Rastafarianism. Punk was youth culture in the extreme. With their spiked hair, ripped and outlandishly customized clothing and much-publicized obscene language, Punks tried to both cut themselves off from society and also to shock it into action. Heavy Metal music first appeared in the sixties, but really grew in the seventies, when bikers - descendants of the rockers who still had a taste for motorbikes and long hair - took to it. It has increased in popularity since then and the music has been adopted by other cults. Rastafarianism is a philosophy and a religion originating in Jamaica. It became popular in black Britain in the seventies. It was popularised in the rest of British society through the reggae music of Bob Marley.

A 2 Youth cont.The punks

A2 YouthRastas

The Influence of Reggae on Punk

Search for authenticityThe romanticization of petty criminality“white translation of black ethnicity” (Hebdige p.64)Reggae music

Non-mainstreamWorking class credentialsPolitical awarenessMusic of the “outsider”

A 2 YouthThe Ravers

The 1980s Cults of the eighties included: the New Romantics, a s

hort-lived cult of the late seventies and early Eighties which involved wearing flamboyant clothes often like those of the eighteenth century 'dandies'; Hip Hop, originating in the black communities of the USA, takes in rap music, graffiti art, sportswear-based dress and other cultural elements; Rave, which grew out of the 'acid house' cult of 1988. Devotees favoured American 'house' music, baggy colourful clothing and taking drugs like LSD and Ecstacy. 'Ravers' go to all night dancing events called raves. These were often held in remote out of the way places

A2 YouthRavers

A 2 YouthRagga & Jungle

The 1990s The nineties, saw the emergence of Ragga and Jungle. P

redominantly black, ragga or raggamuffin culture revolves around ragga music, a dance-oriented form of reggae commonly with the lyric spoken or 'chatted'. Many young Asians who were born in Britain and now in their teens and twenties have developed a similar culture often referred to as 'bhangramuffin' after the Asian music, Bhangra. Jungle, meanwhile, fuses ragga with elements of house music and rave culture, and has become the most innovative, original youth culture of the mid-1990s.

A 2 YouthMillennial Tension

Young males – postmodernity destroyed traditional social role, respect, authority

Erosion of ‘masculine’ forms of work, sources of self-respect

A 2 YouthSuicide Solution

Massive increases in suicide amongst young males in UK (5X higher than young women

A 2 YouthConclusion

Hunger for and exposure to commercial consumption of youth has increased as society has aged

Blurring of upper and lower boundaries of youth Consequently subcultures no longer so subcultural (or opp

ositional) more escapist Absorption into mainstream has undermined exclusive ass

ociation of youth with styles BUT has reinforced expectation that youth will generate co

nsumer ideals Childhood associated with modernist optimism, youth asso

ciated with postmodernist freedom and possibility But the real problems of youth are being forgotten

A 4 Marriage & Divorce

Marriage and cohabitation In 2000 : 54 per cent of men and 52 per cent of women aged 16

and over were married; 10 per cent of men and nine per cent of women were

cohabiting 27 per cent of men and 18 per cent of women were

single Three per cent of men and 12 per cent of women were

widowed Six per cent of men were either divorced or separated,

compared with nine per cent of women.

Sociological Explanations of the Increase in Divorce

The value of marriage Conflict between spouses The ease of divorce Women, paid employment and marital

conflict Income and class Age Marital status of parents Background and role expectations Occupation

Towards a More Civilised Society Most other European economies have fiscal instrumen

ts of support for marriage, through joint taxation. In Britain, family commitments have become largely ir

relevant to tax assessment, whereas in most of Europe adults with families to support are paying tax at much lower rates than single earners.

It is time for the state to signal its approbation and support for the structure most successful in maintaining social stability: the married family.

The nurture of children should be a primary objective of every civilised society. -- Center for Policy Studies

YouthSamuel Erman

1. Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees, it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, it is the freshness of the deep spring of life.

Youth cont

2. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows merely by a number of years; we grow old by deserting our ideas.

3. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Youth cont 4. Whether 60 or 16, there is in every

human being’s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from man and from the Infinite, so long as you are young.

Youth cont

5. When the aerials are down, and your spirits are covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you’ve grown old even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up to catch waves of optimism, there’s hope you may die young at 80.