1.1 Family Tree
Pre-Task: What can we learn from a Family Tree?
A family tree, or pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure.
1. Draw your family tree and discuss with your partner what can be learned from a family tree. 2. Explore more information from Sharon’s family tree. 3. Based on the family trees, work out a tentative definition of family.
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1.2 Types of Family
We are all alike. We all have families. We are all different. Some of us live with moms. Some of us live with dads. Some of us live with moms and dads. Some of us live with grandmoms and granddads. Some of us live with brothers and sisters. Some of us look like our moms and dads. Some of us look different from our moms and dads. What is your family like?
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Video Time & Post-task: Different concepts about family
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Questions: 1. What is Ian’s concept about family? 2. How large is Toula’s family? 3. What makes the difference? 4. How will the difference in family concept influence their interaction? |
Nuclear family Extended families Single-parent family Re-married family DINK family Adoptive family ...
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Pair work:
◊ List other types of families.
◊ Explore the reasons causing the diverse types of families.
1.3 Definition of Family
Family is “a group of intimates, who generate a sense of home and group identity, complete with strong ties of loyalty and emotion, and an experience of a history and a future.”
--Noller & Fitzpatrick
Based on the above definition, decide which of the following is a family?
1. A husband and wife and their offspring.
2. A single woman and her three young children.
3. A fifty-two-year-old woman and her adoptive mother.
4. A man, his daughter, and the daughter’s son.
5. An eighty-four-year-old widow and her dog, Fido.
6. A man and all of his ancestors back to Adam and Eve.
7. The 1979 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates (their song: “We Are Family”)
8. Three adult sisters living together.
9. Two lesbians in an intimate relationship and their children from a previous marriage of one woman and a previous relationship of the other woman with a male friend.
10. Two children, their divorced parents, the current spouses of their divorced parents, and the children from previous marriages of their stepparents.
11. A child, his stepfather, and the stepfather’s wife subsequent to his divorce from the child’s mother.
12. Two adult male cousins living together.
13. A seventy-seven-year-old man and his lifelong best friend.
14. A childless husband and wife who live one thousand miles apart.
15. A widow and her former husband’s grandfather’s sister’s granddaughter.
16. A divorced man, his girlfriend, and her child.
17. Both sets of parents of a deceased married couple.
18. A married couple, one son and his wife, and the latter couple’s children, all living together.
Summary: Getting to Know Family
1. A family tree is a chart that maps the family members and their relationships in the form of a tree. From the family tree, we can obtain basic information about the family (history, size...).
2. The family is the principal transmitter of knowledge, values, attitudes, roles, and habits from one generation to the next. Through word and example, the family shapes a child’s personality and instills modes of thought and ways of acting that become habitual.
--DeGenova & Rice
3. Economic changes, technological innovations, globalization, together with other factors, have made families less typical and family types diversify.
4. With diversified family types, it is no easy job to arrive at a single definition of family, and with the social development, family will be viewed from more perspectives.
2. Functions of Family
Pre-task:
◊ What have you learned from your parents?
◊ Do you agree that parents are best teachers for their children?
◊ How is family education different from school education?
Read the following functions of family
Functions |
Examples |
Reproduction |
keeping the society going well |
Teaching economic values |
economic sharing and responsibility (important cultural values such as materialism, thrift, sharing, hard word, etc) |
Socialization |
shaping the child’s behavior to conform to established norms and customs |
Teaching core values and worldview |
teaching norms, rules, religious belief,etc |
Identity Development |
providing information about individual’s most important social identity |
Communication Training |
introducing individuals to the language of their culture and training them how to use the language by observation, imitation, and practice |
◊ Illustrate the above functions of family with your personal example.
◊ How do different cultures vary in performing the functions?
3. Cultural Variants in Family Interaction
3.1 Gender roles
Pre-task:
What does the following Arab proverb mean?
“Your wealth brings you respect, your sons bring you delight.”
Reading 1 (Cultural Differences in Family Structure)
Japan |
Mexico |
Arab |
father served first at meals, getting the first bath |
male-oriented, father at the center |
men stronger than women, women in need of male protection and guidance |
Reading 1 (Caught Between Two Cultures, see 拓展阅读Extensive Reading)
Differentiating Terminology: patriarchy VS. Matriarchy
Patriarchy: a social system in which males hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege. In addition, property and title are inherited by the male lineage and descent is reckoned exclusively through the male line, sometimes to the point where significantly more distant male relatives take presidence over female relatives.
Matriarchy: a social system in which females hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property at the specific exclusion of men.
Post-task: read & reflect
“A system that privileges the men from birth on, Landes also argues, simply because they are male, and gives them power over their sisters and other female members of society, is bad for the men. It builds in them a sense of entitlement that discourages what it takes to improve, to advance, and to achieve.” --Thomas L. Friedman (The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century)
Video Time & Post-task: Husband and wife
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Questions: 1. What made her feel unsatisfied with her life? 2. Why did he fail to understand his wife? 3. What did she decide to do to find herself? 4. How did you feel about her decision? |
3. 3 Interaction between parents & children
3.3.1 Power Distance
Pre-Task: Decide whether the following situations occur in your family.
Situation |
Yes |
No |
Do you turn to your parents for help when you are in trouble? |
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Do your parents lay down strict regulations for you? |
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Do your parents often use “You should...” sentences? |
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Do you consider yourself as equals to your parents? |
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Reading: 拓展阅读Extensive Reading
◊ List the distinctions between the three types of parents(the monarch type, the servant type, and the friend type) .
◊ Exchange with your partner how your parents interact with you at home.
Post-task--Video time: Mother and daughter 文化影音Cultural Video
Questions: 1. What are the two types of daughters according to the mother? 2. Why does the daughter rebel? 3. What causes this conflict? 4. Using examples to illustrate how do children react differently in different cultures.
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3.3.2 Individualism VS. Collectivism
“An individual could no more be separated from the family than a finger from the hand.” (An Indian proverb)
Items |
Individualism |
Collectivism |
family size |
parents and children (nuclear family) |
parents, children, grandparents, uncles and aunts, in-laws, cousins, and even people not related by blood |
values |
independence and individual autonomy; self-reliance |
interdependence among family members; lifelong support and emotional security provided by family |
decision-making |
making decisions for themselves |
family, especially elders as an important source of decision-making |
collective interests vs. individual interests |
individual interests over collective interests |
collective interests over Individual interests |
3.3.2 Perceptions of the elderly
Participatory learning--Explain the following statements
◊ “America is the battlefield for the young and the graveyard for the old.”
◊ “A house without an elderly person is like an orchard without a well.”
◊ “An elderly is a treasure of the family.”
Post-Task--picture reading
The above picture describes one of the 24 traditional stories about filial piety. Exchange your pair the other stories and reflect on the following questions:
1) How you have learned to respect the elderly from early age?
2) Should we still pass on those stories in this modern society?
3) What are the reasons for this great respect and reverent attitude toward the elderly in places such as China, Korea, and Japan?