More Statistics

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7071611.stm

• 17.1 million families live in the UK.
• 71% are headed by a married couple.
• 1.8 is the average number of children in a family.
• 40% have two cars, one is likely to be a Ford Focus.
• 52% own a pet.
• 79% have a mobile phone.
• 79% live in a mortgage house.
• 65% have a home computer.
• Who goes out to work? 90% dads and 68% mums.

Statistics are taken from 2006.

Tally of Family Stats

Tally of Family Stats

1) Do you live with both your parents?

Yes – 44
No – 56

It is clear from these results that less people live with both their parents than those who do, however, it is not as different as I had first expected.

2) Do you have one or more siblings?

Yes - 84
No – 16

Many more people have siblings than those who don’t, this was unexpected as I had thought they would be about equal but this may be just because I am an only child and had never really thought about it before.

3) If you do not live with both your parents, which parent do you live with? If either?

Mum - 46
Dad – 10
Grandparent - 1
Both – 41
Alone – 2

The most common housing situation is for children to live with their mother, even more popular than living with both parents. I would have thought that mothers and fathers would be equal in the tally of custody due to all the recent changes in laws and campaigns concerning equal rights for fathers, however this is clearly not the case.

4) Are your parents married/divorced/never married?

Married - 41
Divorced - 37
Never Married – 18
Widowed – 4

More people’s parents are married than divorced, which doesn’t correlate with my figures about living situations. However, this is possibly due to separation but not actual divorce as many of the people I asked did state this in their answers.

My Primary Research

I will conduct research consisting of an email which will be send round to all the students at my college, i will hope for around 20 replies from which i will make graphs and observations. Here is a copy of my questions:

1) Do you live with both your parents?

2) Do you have one or more siblings?

3) If you do not live with both your parents, which parent do you live with? If either?

4) Are your parents married/divorced/never married?

This will help me to see how the 'average' family with children lives and works. I will then choose some more participants to watch episodes of my chosen soaps and dramas and ask them what certain scenes show them/what they think about families.

Your hypothesis

Do TV dramas reinforce the ideology of the family or do they interrogate it?

1. Background stuff on familial ideology/the 2.4 kids nuclear family stereotype etc
2. The ways in which soap opera has been regared as a genre which interrogates the family. (Gay men/masquerade etc).
3. What about other contemporary TV drama? Can we find texts which explicitly take on and interrogate the ideology of the family, by exploring the violences and abuses and fractured relationships which can occur within it, or do they generally support the ideology of the Bisto family?


You must DEFINITELY DECIDE ON three specific episodes of your chosen texts, get hold of them and begin your analysis of their family structures etc.

Definitions of Family

A classic definition of the family is one provided by the Functionalist sociologist George Peter Murdock ('Social Structure', 1949), when he states:

'The family is a social group characterised by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially-approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexual cohabiting adults.'

A more modern definition is offered by Anthony Giddens:

'A group of individuals related to one another by blood ties, marriage or adoption, who form an economic unit, the adult members of which are responsible for the upbringing of children.'

The most recent version from Giddens:

'A small group of closely related people who share a distinct identity and responsibility for each other that outweighs commitments to others. This group is commonly, but not necessarily, based on marriage, biological descent or adoption.'

From BBC News - a typical appeal to "the family"

Tories move to reclaim family values

Tories were told the family must be strengthened
The Conservatives have sought to reclaim their reputation as the party of traditional family values, stressing marriage as the foundation of society.
Shadow social security secretary Iain Duncan Smith also promised to oppose any plans by the government to means-test the basic state pension.
Mr Duncan Smith told the party's conference the Tories would back genuine welfare reform so long as it was based on certain principles - including that it must "strengthen the institution of the family".
He said: "The family is the biggest welfare provider."
"But critically this rests on married couples raising children and caring for others - the daughter caring for her mother, the husband for his sick wife, the mother or the father taking it in turns to care for a sick child."
Sixties blamed
"For too long the silent majority have felt beleaguered as the loud minority lectured them that marriage was entrapment by another name."
The "misguided" ideology of the Sixties' "crusade" to free women from marriage "has freed men from marriage, and from responsibility," he declared.
"It has also taught that children represented just another lifestyle choice.
"This is wrong. Marriage matters, and children are not just a lifestyle choice, but a lifelong obligation."
He charged that "Labour and the loud minority ... sneered at the 'school run mum' - the mother who works in the home raising her children."
'Fairness' for stay-at-home mums
Mr Duncan Smith said the non-working spouse had a right to expect "fairness".
Since 1945 the tax burden had fallen "disproportionately" on married couples with one person earning, and Labour had ratcheted up burdens on families by "attacking" savings, raiding pension funds and cutting the Married Couple's Allowance.
He added: "Now it is clear they want to means test the Basic State Pension.
"I pledge to you today that the Conservative Party will oppose the means-testing of the basic state pension."
The promise is expected to become a Tory manifesto commitment for the next election.
The shadow social security spokesman said families wanted to make their own choices, not have them imposed on them by a Labour government he accused of dictating to parents what children should eat and have read to them, how much homework they should do and when they should go to bed.
"New Labour will nationalise the family," he warned.
Internet links:
Conservative Party conferenceThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

Television Drama

from the exam board spec:

Television Drama
Research into the significance of television drama.Place of television drama in the schedules. The changing face of television drama. Issues of“quality”/dumbing down. Drama documentaries/”faction”. Representations of social groups.Drama series and serials. Soap operas. Comedy drama, costume drama. Literary adaptations. High culture v low culture debate. Audience reception of TV drama. Historical development. Notions of authorship in television drama. Relationships of genre to television institutions.

Soap - Eastenders
Comedy drama - Shameless
Desperate Housewives

Classic reps of family - the stereotype of the 2.4 kids nuclear family. Where do we find this sort of family on TV? In adverts? In sitcoms? But not, it appears, in many dramas. This suggests that either the stereotype is out of date or that it has never been accurate... Politicians talk about the two aprent nuclear family as being the right way to live, but if it is a minority household form and if it is not a cultural representation which holds much weight any more then why should politicians go on about "family values" and try to make those of us that come from non-nuclear 2.4 kids households feel like we are the "deficit" model way of living.

I wanted to explore the range of representations of "the family" in contemporary TV drama to understand this point. Does television drama operate a "deficit model" of non nuclear non 2.4 kids families or does it explore the complexities of modern family life.

What to do.

1. Read on representations of the family.
2. Do some analysis of some family structures available in tv drama (perhaps contrasing with some of the more stereotyped version on the Bisto ads or in sitcoms). What are the underlying attitudes to "the family" thet the dramas have?
3. Explore with a real audience some of these representations and how they respond to them.
4. Write it all up!

Statistics

Stats household types, one-family households:



Married couple with no children = 27 in 1971, 26 in 1981, 28 in 1991, 29 in 2001



Lone parent with dependent children = 3 in 1971, 5 in 1981, 6 in 1991, 6 in 2001



Lone parent with non-dependent children = 4 in 1971, 4 in 1981, 4 in 1991, 3 in 2001



The figure for childless couples has remained steady over the 30 year period. There is a drop of 12% in the proportion of married couples having children. The doubling of percentage of lone parents is accounted for by the rise in people not marrying and/or choosing not to live with their childrens father. Also the rise of separation and divorce.

Advertising and the male stereotype

Men with children but no spouse are more likely to be shown during football than are women with children but no spouse. Advertisements for computers and electronics are more likely to include men with children but no spouse than women with children but no spouse. Men appearing alone with children are more likely to be shown outside than women alone with children. Men are less likely to be portrayed cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, and shopping than women. Men without spouses are more likely to be shown with boys and less likely to be shown with infants than women without spouses. Men are infrequently shown taking care of a child and are never shown caring for girls. However, men are often shown teaching, reading, ta lking, eating, and playing with children. To the extent that men are shown as more involved in family life, they still tend to depend largely on knowledge and activities that are stereotypically male.

from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_1999_Sept/ai_58469479

10th April 2008

Related essay

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/scl0001.html

I have some more sociological stuff on the family.  Ask me for it.

Sean

My Texts

So far....

This is a text about how family is represented on television but mainly focuses on the male representation aspect.

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/scl0001.html

The family in children's advertising

This paper has some relevance to your proposed research:

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/scl0001.html

Sean

Yes, but...

...maybe Eastenders has never really showed the classic nuclear family. Maybe soap operas actually explore the tensions and problems within the family unit and thus expose the classic 2.4 model as an ideological construction, in a way that some other media forms don't. (The classic hero "fighting for his family" of some film genres, for example - this sort of representation hides any meaningful exploration of the problems of the family structure. ) This is an important issue because politicians are often talking about "family values" as a way of justifying their policies. Lots to think about here...

Sean

Eastenders

I will look at Eastenders because their main focus is often on family. However, at the top of all this families, are strong single parent women, making it very matriarchal. There are characters such as Peggy, Mo, and Pauline. It is interesting to see this as classic soap operas aim to reflect the nations general family life, and in the past it has portrayed families eating together at meal times with classic two point four children. Now, it portrays the single-parent families which are often the case in many family homes.

Your first ideas

Television Drama

“The family” in television drama.
What range of representations of “the family” are offered by television drama? Does the genre favour the traditional nuclear family over other forms? (ie is it basically a conservative genre? – does it assume that women, for example, should be doing the domestic work of the family rather than going out to work? Does it suggest that single parent families are inferior?)

V interesting title. No previous essays done on it so I cannot give you one to read.

This site, though from the US, gives a little background:
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/familyontel/familyontel.htm

You should look at some classic mainstream family dramas as well as the more interesting versions such as Shameless.

I will think about reading you need to do, but you should make a start by looking for stuff on “representations of families”.

You will also need to think about what primary research you will do. What about getting audience members from a range of different “family” setups to view a range of reps of families to explore their reactions? (This needs a bit more thinking)

Sean