What is a reconstituted or blended family?

A reconstituted family forms when a parent with children from an earlier relationship sets up home with a new partner. The children gain a step parent and sometimes step or half siblings.

What is a lone-parent family?

A lone-parent family is one parent living with their dependent children without a partner. ONS figures show that most lone-parent families in the UK are headed by mothers.

What is a same-sex family, and when could same-sex couples in England and Wales marry?

A same-sex family is headed by two partners of the same sex, often raising children. Same-sex couples could marry in England and Wales from 2014.

What is cohabitation?

Cohabitation is a couple living together in a sexual relationship without being married or in a civil partnership. ONS figures show cohabiting couples are the fastest-growing family type in the UK.

AQA GCSE Sociology 8192

The Sociological Approach

Topic overview Key sociological concepts Sociological perspectives: consensus and conflict Durkheim, Marx and Weber How sociological knowledge develops

Families

Topic overview Functions of families Family forms and diversity Conjugal roles and the domestic division of labour Changing relationships within families Criticisms of families Divorce in Britain since 1945

Education

Topic overview Roles and functions of education Education, capitalism and the correspondence principle Class and gender differences in achievement Ethnicity, parental choice and school markets Processes within schools

Crime and Deviance

Topic overview Social construction of crime and deviance Formal and informal social control Explanations of criminal behaviour Patterns of crime and public debates Crime statistics and the dark figure

Social Stratification

Topic overview Functionalist theory of stratification Marx, Weber and socio-economic class Factors affecting life chances Poverty as a social issue Forms of power and authority Power relationships

Research Methods

Topic overview Research design, hypotheses and data analysis Sampling methods Questionnaires and interviews Observation and mixed methods Types of data and official statistics Reliability, validity, ethics and practical issues

Families

Family forms and diversity

3 things to know
Paper 1

Overview

Nuclear, extended, reconstituted, lone-parent and same-sex families, cohabitation, monogamy, polygamy and communes, and the Rapoports' five types of family diversity.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started

Numbers

How do organisational and cultural diversity differ?

Key term

What is a nuclear family?

Key term

What is an extended family?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1
What is a nuclear family?
Model answer
A nuclear family is two parents and their dependent children living in one household. Functionalists long treated the nuclear family as the normal British family.
2
What is an extended family?
Model answer
An extended family is a nuclear family plus other kin, such as grandparents, aunts or cousins. Kinship is the network of ties between people related by blood, marriage or adoption.
3
What is a reconstituted or blended family?
Model answer
A reconstituted family forms when a parent with children from an earlier relationship sets up home with a new partner. The children gain a step parent and sometimes step or half siblings.
4
What is a lone-parent family?
Model answer
A lone-parent family is one parent living with their dependent children without a partner. ONS figures show that most lone-parent families in the UK are headed by mothers.
5
What is a same-sex family, and when could same-sex couples in England and Wales marry?
Model answer
A same-sex family is headed by two partners of the same sex, often raising children. Same-sex couples could marry in England and Wales from 2014.
6
What is cohabitation?
Model answer
Cohabitation is a couple living together in a sexual relationship without being married or in a civil partnership. ONS figures show cohabiting couples are the fastest-growing family type in the UK.

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The Sociological Approach

Families

Education

Crime and Deviance

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A communist society would follow.

classlesscapitalistfeudal

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AONS figures show that divorces rose briefly after the Second World War.

BDivorces then climbed steeply from 1971 and peaked in 1993.

CONS figures put the number at about 80,000 in 2022, after a long fall.

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Monogamy means marriage to only one partner at a time.

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