英国家庭变化.doc

PengWei 200682308 FC005 ‘A family can be defined as a married heterosexual couple and their children’ How have social scientists challenged this kind of conventional definition of the U.K. family? In the past half-century, the families structures have changed quickly and there have many types of family structure in UK now, for example, nuclear families, lone parent families and step families. Before industrialization in UK, the majority of families were extended family. After about 1750 onwards rapid the population growth, urbanization and industrialization, the main family type have changed in UK (Gittins, 1985, p6.). Today most of families are nuclear family. Family is an important institution of our society, therefore, the family change will impact on the society. This essay will show different factors caused family change. Firstly, this essay will introduce the main family types in different period of time, and then through three social science disciplines to show how family structure changed. Finally, this essay will answer why social scientists have challenged the conventional definition of the U.K. family. Firstly, this essay will give definitions of some different family types. In order to analyze how family changed over the course of time, social scientists divide families into two main types: one is the nuclear family and another is the extended family. In fact, the extended family is a traditional family type in UK. “Nuclear family, a social unit consisting of wife, husband and dependent children” (Order lives, p47). This shows that the composition of the nuclear family is very simple. “The extended family, consisting of parent(s), child (ren), and grandparent(s) or other kin” (Gittins, 1985, p6.). As the time past, the number of nuclear family increase stably, however, the amount of the traditional household has reduced dramatically. At the same time, the amounts of other typical families were also increased in UK, such as the step family, single parent