can anyone explain..... in sociology,the Interpretive theory on the family???? And the Marxist theory ???

Question

heeeeeeeeeeeelp !! ive just started college and just cant seem to understand the differant approaches of marxism and the interpretive approach on the family

Answer 1

Sorry. I really wish I could help. I took sociology but that was years ago. :) Good luck. Hope you find the answer

Answer 2

I've never heard of interpretive theory. Perhaps you mean interactionist theory.

Symbolic interactionism was developed at the University of Chicago between the turn of the last century and the 1930's by George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley. They maintained that people interact with each other through the use of symbols. Words are verbal symbols. A handshake is a physical symbol.

In families, each individual has a constellation of roles, each of which has certain symbolic expectations. For example, the role of father may infer that he is the disciplinarian or the bread-winner. Because the roles are differentiated in certain ways, the family works together as a harmonious unit.

Marxism developed in Central Europe in the mid-1800's. Marx believed that the family was a microcosm of society, in which the powerful exert their influence over the powerless. In a traditional family, the father held the power, and the wife and children were the "have-nots." According to Hegelian philosophy, which is the basis of Marxism, there must be a conflict between the two categories. Therefore, family conflict would not end until women gained equality with men, and children were enfranchised in decision-making and other family functions.

There are other theories, like structural-functionalism. Each has a unique perspective, and the bright student will take an eclectic approach, using the various theories in different situations and analyses.

Answer 3

Marx said we all believe what we are told by the establishment through the use of the media. But we also believe the people we most trust - our parents. The two concepts in a way oppose each other. We are influenced by both - by parents and role models up to our teenage years and perhaps beyond and then we start to be influenced by the media more and more - but still our childhood is still an influence. Sometimes there is a real conflict. In Russia, children were often brought up as religious and the establishment tried to force on them communism and athiesm. Often people try to overcome what they were conditioned to do as children to fit in to a modern society controlled by people who were conditioned differently. Even regional accents can be deemed to be a bad thing, class prejudice is another example. We interpret as adults what we were taught as children and try to adapt that to the pressures of modern fashionable behaviour. This is often stressful and the cause of excessive alcohol use and drug abuse. Children are brave playing cowboys and indians as children - but the GI's of the Vietnam war needed drugs to be heroes - usually the aptly named heroin.