FAMILY

Functionalists on the Family

George Peter Murdock

● The family has four (4) major functions – economic, sexual and reproductive and
educational/ socialization.
● These functions are beneficial to the individual and the society as well. For example, the
educational/socialization functions for society by providing consensus therefore
ensuring there is stability and no chaos, and it functions for the individual by teaching
him how to behave so he or she won’t be an outcast.
● The sexual function is functional for the individuals in the family by strengthening the
conjugal bond between husband and wife, therefore making the home a happier place. It
functions for society by reducing promiscuity as adults who are getting sex at home will
not seek sexual gratification outside the home.
● The economic function is functional for the individuals as it ensures that their needs
are satisfied. Additionally, both spouses enjoy a safety net as they can depend on the
other for economic support. It is beneficial for society as it relieves the state of the
burden of financing all its citizens.

Talcott Parsons

● The family has two (2) basic functions: Primary socialization and the Stabilization of
adult personality.
● During primary socialization, the child develops his personality, and a major part of
his identity. The child learns who he is and who he ought to be from his parents.
Consequently, many children grow up to be similar to their parents.
Social Pathology -Thomas Simey

● This perspective developed in the Caribbean has similar views to that of the
functionalist.
● The approach was followed by the West Indian Royal Commission of 1937.
● They concluded in their findings that man in West Indian Society was not viewed as
the head of the household.
● It also identified the woman as the supporter of the home and claimed that
promiscuity and illegitimacy were prevalent.
● Family life was seen as loose and unstable, and relationships appeared to be
casual.
● Conjugal ties were occasionally faithful and enduring but were more often
promiscuous and transitory.
● The fathers contact with children was irregular and because of poverty he was usually
unable to provide economic support.
● Children were illegitimate, effectively fatherless, unschooled and subject to severe
parental discipline.

Marxist Feminists on the Family

Margaret Benson

● Women are exploited by the capitalist system as they perform domestic labour for which
they are not paid. The domestic labour performed by females ensure that males who toil
in the capitalist economy have a comfortable home to return to. This is important as
work in a capitalist society is alienating and frustrating and the man leaves each day
angry and willing to initiate the much needed proletariat revolution.
● However, once they get home, the woman ensures that he is comfortable, by providing
a clean home, a good meal and all the sex he needs. The domestic and sexual services
the woman provides de stresses him, thwarts his anger and postpones his desires to
revolt.
Fran Ansley

● When wives play their traditional role as “takers of shit” they often absorb their
husband’s legitimate anger and frustration at their own powerlessness and oppression.
With every worker provided with a sponge to soak up his possibly revolutionary ire, the
bosses rest more secure.

Dianne Feely

● Wives also indoctrinate their children into subordination which produces the docile
attitude necessary for working the exploitative system.

Radical Feminists on the Family

Leonard and Delphey

● The family is an economic unit in which all members work for the head of the
household –the male. The male is seen as the head of the household even if the wife
earns more than he does.
● Labour and payment in the household is determined by gender, with the domestic
burden borne mostly by the female. Females are however, paid very little ( if any at
all) by their husbands for the work they do.
● The sons are seen as superior to the daughters in the homes and many times daughters
have to perform domestic labour for sons.
Laura Purdy

● Women are exploited daily by men in the family as they are often times dependent on

them financially. This dependence is further facilitated by motherhood which ties the
woman to the home and makes her more dependent on the father.
● Women can only escape the exploitation of family life if they go on “baby strike.”
Without motherhood, they will no longer be tied to be home or so dependent on their
male counterparts.

TYPES OF UNIQUE CARIBBEAN FAMILIES

East Indian Families in the Caribbean - Morton Klass

● Dominant in Trinidad and Guyana where the East Indian population is large.
● Strongly based on patriarchy. Authority is in the hands of the elder males and those
who go against their wishes are ostracized.
● The importance of the father figure stems from the fact that he represents the family in
the Indian community.
● Family and Kinship relationships are very important and there are very strict
guidelines about marriage practices.
● Marriage is strongly encouraged as it strengthens family ties.
● Families are extended and women marry young without engaging in visiting
relationships while in their fathers' homes. This is unlike the blacks.
● However early marriages usually take the form of religious rather than legal
ceremonies and the breakup rate is quite high.
Kindred Groups - Davenport

● Lower class Jamaicans live in extended family forms.

● This extended group or “ kindred group” usually includes “ parents, their children,
parents’ parents, parents' siblings and their children.
● However, it can also include other relations with whom they have special relationships.
Thus, a second cousin or a grandaunt who lives nearby or who is close to the members
of the group may be included in the “kindred group”.
● In the “kindred organizations” sibling relationships and mother children relationships
are most important.
● The “kindred group” is usually described by its members as “near family” and all
other relations as “far family”
 EDUCATION

Emile Durkheim - Functionalist

● The education system has three (3) major functions

● Its most important function is the creation of social solidarity via the transmission of
society's norms and values thus ensuring there is a value consensus.
● This is done via the teaching of history and loyalty to one's country.
● Education also prepares us for society by exposing us to social rules. At home the
rules are not always enforced and there are not set consequences. This is not so u
school where rules and punishments at enforced regardless of attributes (similar to
laws in society). School is therefore a bridge between the home and society
● Finally, the education system equip with the specialized knowledge nee for the
division of labour characteristic capitalist society.

Talcott Parsons - Functionalist

● Education system is meritocratic (fair) as it exposes us to universalistic standards,

thus ensuring that status is achieved.
● Universalistic standards are those that are applied to all regardless of colour class or
creed. Hence, we all go to schools, have similar teachers and take the same exams.
● This is unlike in the home where standards are particularistic, and status is a scribed. In
exposing us to universalistic standards it is also preparing us for a society in which
status is achieved. Hence, like Durkheim, he believes that school acts as the bridge
between the home and society.
● The school is an agency of secondary socialization that ensures social reproduction
and order.(Durkheim also shares this view)
● Education systems also functionally teach two (2) very important values: 1.
The value of achievement 2. The value of equality of opportunity
● In summary, the functionalists believe that education has three (3) basic
functions: socialization, skills provision and role allocation.
Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore - Functionalist

● Education systems function for society by ensuring that the most talented gets the
most functional job.
● The system ensures all students work hard by re-enforcing that great rewards are

given to those who excel. The greatest of those rewards are high paying jobs. ➢ Then

through the use of exams the system sifts and sorts to ensure that the brightest
students are rewarded with the best qualification and the most important/ functional
jobs.
● These functional jobs carry the highest salaries; hence the functional job is a reward for
the hard work and talent- yes, I see the irony) of the talented.
● Davis and Moore also believe that the education system is meritocratic as those who
are talented regardless of initial social class will have the ability to achieve a high
income job.

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis - Marxist

● The role of the education system is the reproduction of the capitalist labour force.
● It does this via the hidden curriculum which teaches the values and attitudes necessary to
be a part of the exploitive capitalist labour force.
● These values include: Subservience and Docility, Motivation By External Rewards,
Fragmentation of Knowledge, Acceptance of Hierarchy
● The most disturbing of the values is the motivation by external rewards. Bowles and
Gintis argue that school, like work is alienating and boring and students hate the
experience. This is so as teachers employ the “jug mug” teaching methodology, where
teachers as the jug simply pour the information in the heads of the students (the mugs).
● Still students continue to go to school as they are motivated by the external rewards of
qualifications. The same happens at work where persons hate their capitalist jobs but go
just the same because they are motivated by the external rewards of wages.
 ● Additionally, the education system is not meritocratic as only those who can afford to
stay long in school (the bourgeoisie) will be rewarded with high qualifications and the
consequent high paying jobs. Hence the status quo is maintained.
● Bowles and Gintis wrote that “a high IQ is not the cause, but the consequence of long
stay in school.”

Pierre Bourdieu - Marxist

● Neo-Marxist Pierre Bourdieu argues that the educational system is owned and
operated by upper class individuals.
● Consequently, the aim of the education system is cultural reproduction, i.e., they
only teach and test upper class norms and values.
● On entering the educational system, the upper class student who has been previously
socialized (at home) in the upper class norms and values are at a significant
advantage.
● The advantage they possess is called Cultural Capital.
● Lower class students on the other hand are at a disadvantage, as they were socialized
in the lower class culture at home. Hence on entering the educational system, they
have to start from scratch and on some occasions unlearn some of the truths they
knew to be true if they are to be successful.
● Still both the upper class and lower class students are taught using the same methods
and are forced to sit the same exams.
● Upper class students (the possessors of cultural capital) are therefore more likely to
succeed in the educational system and the lower class more likely to fail. ➢ This,
however, is the way the bourgeoisie want the system to be.
David Hargreves et al - Interactionalist
● Failure and success in the education system is determined by the teachers who label
students according to their social class.
Cicourel and Kitsuse - Interactionalist
● Once students are labelled, they normally fulfil the teacher’s prophecy about
themselves fulfilling the prophecy.

EDUCATION IN THE CARIBBEAN

Gordon & Beckford - Marxists

● Education system maintains the privileges of the white it allows Blacks to fail it is
not meritocratic.
Ishmael Baksh - Marxist
● Lower class students in the Caribbean are given inferior technical subjects which
will lead to low paying jobs. The education system is not meritocratic.
Neisha Applewaite (Feminist)
● Girls are encouraged by parents and teachers to do well academically, boys do not
get as much encouragement, so will fail in the education system
Errol Miller - Marxist
● Educational success is not associated with masculinity, so boys do not try as hard in
the educational system. Thus, girls outperform them.
Barry Chevannes- Functionalist
● Mainly female teachers in the education systems leave boys with few role models.
Additionally, female teachers teach in a manner conducive to the learning styles of
girls not boys.
Mark Figueroa - Functionalist
● The prevalence of the Matrifocal families leads to the failure of boys as single
mothers are unable to control their teenage boys who are left to their own devices
which usually does not include educational pursuits.
Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968) - Interactionists

● Conducted research to test the validity of the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ in an

elementary school.

Howard Becker (1963) - Interactionist

● Looks at the labelling of students, (good, bad or dull) and argues that this affects
student’s performance because they accept their labels. Labels such as
“learning-disability” and “gifted” have effects on students.
 RELIGION
Functionalists on Religion
Emile Durkheim
● Believed that religion was functional to both individuals and society as a whole.
● Separated human experiences into two broad categories; the profane and the sacred.
The profane refers to taken for granted day-to-day activities. Profane things tend to
be known and controllable. The sacred refers to objects or ideas held in awe or high
veneration. Sacred things are usually unknown and cannot be controlled.
● Believed that religion provided the foundation for the promotion and reinforcement
of the main values and norms of society.

Talcott Parsons
● Believed that religion can provide solace and comfort to members in society.
● Contributes to the functional prerequisites to society.
● Religion helped to provide meaning to life, “it serves as a social antidote to some of
the social inequalities in life”.

Branislav Malinowski
● Sees religion as a method of reinforcing social norms and values and helps promote
social solidarity.
● The aim of religion is to help people cope in time of change and anxiety e.g., marriage
and death.
● Through the use of rituals such as funerals, persons are given activities which provide
them with social comfort and cohesiveness when they need it most.
● The result is that persons receive the mental stability necessary to exist in a harsh
world, society is therefore stabilized as well.
Marxists on Religion
Karl Marx

● Marx sees religion as an illusion that eases the pain produced by exploitation and
oppression. Religion facilitates the ruling class ideology by justifying and legitimizing
the subordination of the subject class, and the domination and privilege of the ruling
class.
● He saw religion as an illusion that justified the existing arrangements in society and
encouraged people to accept them.
● The ideology of religion serves to distract the people from a true perception of their
social environment. Exploitation is seen as tests by God, which if passed on earth,
will result in great rewards in heaven.
● Poverty is seen as virtue or God’s will; thus, lower classes never truly understand that
they are being oppressed by the upper class and that they should do something about it.
● Religion was created by the ruling elite in societies. It is used to control the masses by
blocking class consciousness. People are deflected from their real interest and what
emerges is ‘false class consciousness’.
● Religion also promotes continuity and blocks change as we are taught that everything is
the way God wanted it to be, and instead of trying to do all we can on earth we should
direct our attentions on getting to heaven. “ The rich man in his castle, the poor man at
his gate, God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate”. A line from the
hymn. “ All things bright and beautiful”
● Religion was man made. There is no all-powerful being above but rather this is a
creation of the capitalists to serve their interests, therefore all religions are fake.
● Perhaps the statement made by Marx summarizes his theory on religion, ‘Religion is
the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of the
soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
● In other words, those who suffer from the exploitative effects of capitalism without
knowing how to find a solution to them, turn to religion as a release from the miseries of
life. These individuals find consolation in religion, which enables them to tolerate their
situation.
● Marx sees religious beliefs as a product of a particular set of economic relationship in
society, namely capitalism. Religion would disappear with communism.
Interactionists on Religion
Max Weber

● While the Functionalist and Marxist examine religion as promoting social integration
and preventing social change. Weber argued that the effects of religion on society could
be flexible, that is, it can act as a conservative force as well as an impetus for change.
● Weber adopted the approach of trying to understand the subjective meaning of beliefs
for the believers themselves.
● Weber was interested in religion as a precursor to capitalism. He did not agree with
Marx’s theory that capitalism existed only because of economic factors. He admitted
that at certain times and in some places, religion is shaped by economic factors, but this
is not always the case.
● Weber saw religion as one of several forces that existed and needed to exist before
capitalism could develop. Weber examined how Calvinism and its ethics influenced or
in fact led to the development of capitalism.
● The Calvinist religion is based on the premise that God has already chosen those who
are going to heaven- “the select few”.
● Only God knows who those select few are, however, prosperity and success in one’s
calling/career is evidence that you were selected by God.
● Thus, all Calvinist protestants developed a particular work ethic geared at success
and prosperity so that they could be assured (they could convince themselves that
they are among “Gods select”
 SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Functionalists and Stratification

Talcott Parsons
● Stratification is the ranking of units of social systems according to their importance
to society.
● An individual’s rank is a reward or punishment for the level of work done.
● Conflict exists between the social ranks as those at the top are often arrogant those
at the bottom are resentful.

Davis and Moore

● Stratification is an essential element of society and is needed for the survival of
society.
● It ensures all roles within society are filled by persons who are adequately trained
and best suited for them (role allocation).

Marxism and Stratification

Karl Marx
● Stratification functions only to exploit.
● There are only two major groups in a stratified society, the bourgeoisies and the
proletariat.

Melvin Tumin
● In opposition to Davis and Moore, maintained the view that stratification promotes
conflict, resentment, animosity and exploitation.
Interactionists and Stratification
Max Weber
● Stratification is the result of a struggle for scarce resources, wealth, power and
prestige.
● A distinction is to be made between those who owns the means of production and
those who do not.
● Four types of class groupings: propertied upper class, property-less white collar
workers, petty bourgeoisie and manual working class.
● Status and wealth are not interrelated, a person may have wealth but have little
status (e.g., lottery winners, next of kins)
● Status is related to the amount of honour, prestige and esteem associated with social
positions. Persons with the same status often have similar lifestyles.
N.B. Weber’s stance on stratification is more pro-Marxist, however Marxists argue Weber
spent too much effort in defining market details (skills & income) and failed to take into
account the division between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

STRATIFICATION IN THE CARIBBEAN

Lloyd Braithwaite (1960) - Caribbean society is still stratified by means of an ascriptive

particularism based mainly on race and colour.

M.G. Smith (1965) - Each stratum in society needs a different cultural grouping.
Industrialization resulted in the widening of the economy and thus the emergence of social
classes but blacks still remain at the bottom of society.

Selwyn Ryan (1990) - Notes that the stratification system in the Caribbean had changed
from significantly from 1960 due to the rise of blacks to power and greater access to
education. He argues changes in the region have undermined the old social order and
meritocracy is now evident.
Dereck Gordon (1982) - Argued that economic changes in the Caribbean led to an
occupational transformational in which jobs are more white-collar in nature.

Carl Stone (1970) - based on a survey, he believed that people distinguish themselves
based on their class, rather than factors such as race, gender and colour. Some noted that
these ascriptive factors still has an impact on people’s life chances but it was clear that they
were losing significance.

Reddock (1999), Ellis (2003) and Mohammed (1998) - These women note that gender
plays a significant role in Caribbean stratification. They argue that gender inequality is
rooted in the patriarchal nature of the region. Social mobility among women is evident
because of greater educational opportunities and the occupational changes in the region.

George Beckford - Argued that the Caribbean was still based on the plantation society and
was influenced by the ascriptive barriers that characterized plantation society. This explains
why blacks were at the bottom of society and a small group of whites who hold economic
power remained at the top of Caribbean society.

Document created by Connor England.