7.4 Explaining the Social Problem of Belonging
Kimberly Puttman
You may already be thinking about some of the reasons that people have different experiences of belonging. You might have some reasons that families have unequal access to resources and legal protection from the state. Let’s see what sociologists have to say.
Functionalist
Some sociologists examine the purpose of family in society. Functionalists uphold the notion that families are an important social institution and play a key role in stabilizing society. They also note that family members take on status roles in a marriage or family. The family and its members perform certain functions that facilitate the prosperity and development of society. For example, functionalists argue that families have a division of labor. In the nuclear family, men work outside the home, and earn money. Women work inside the home and care for all of the family members.
These essentialist versions of early sociologists are widely criticized today, because they assume women are often or always mothers and work inside the home, and that men are always or often fathers and work outside the home. However, the functionalists can help us understand the social problem of belonging by looking at how families support belonging.
For example, immigrant families face many challenges. Immigrant families are disproportionately poor. They experience nativism when laws and policies privilege citizens over non-citizens. For example, many immigrants can’t use the usual governmental social safety nets.
A function of the family for immigrants, then, is to ensure survival of the members of that family. The family becomes an essential survival strategy. For example, Hispanic families value “la familia” or familism, a strong commitment to family life that stresses the importance of the family group over the interest of an individual. Hispanic families are more likely than White families to live in extended family groups, share economic resources, and encourage reciprocity and solidarity (Landale et al. 2006). La familia creates belonging.
Conflict Theory
Rather than examining the functions of a family, conflict theorists look at power and inequality related to families. They connect the economics of capitalism with the institution of the family. They argue that, like the concept of private property in capitalism, families are also private. This idea is captured by the saying, “A man’s home is his castle,” the patriarchal idea that men should run their families without interference. According to conflict theorists, the family can be a way to reproduce class inequalities (Calder 2016). As we discussed in Chapter 5, children of wealthy families usually have access to better education than children of poor families. Additionally, education itself contributes to sustaining wealth. Conflict theorists link family and class.
More recently, conflict theorists say that families differ in their experiences of family autonomy, the ability