As sociology coursework – effects of a fatherless childhood

I chose this area of study because I spy that compared with personal knowledge, the New Right Ideology appears to exaggerate how fatherless upbringings affect children. Amongst my peers there are pack raised(a) in lonely(prenominal) parent and nuclear families, and members of both groups experience identical amounts of problems and share similar social determine, unlike Rebecca ONeills conclusion that children from lone parent families are more in all likelihood to have weeny sex callable to a lack of parental control.(100 words)Contexts and ConceptsIn 1993, Olson and Haynes conducted a study of American lone parent families. The results led to them identifying seven strengths of these families, six were pertinent to my query. The first was that lone parents accepted the responsibilities of their roles and problems were always solved. The insurgent was prioritisation of the parental role, sozzleding parents did not have to split attention. The third strength was landin g field, proving children did not go without discipline and they knew how to behave in society.The fourth was open communication, meaning children would impression able to call down to parents, preventing long marches emotional problems. Parental self nurturance was the fifth strength. The final relevant strength was the rituals and traditions which meant the childrens lives had structure and they did not young lady out on things that nuclear families are thought to have more of, such as family holidays.Olson and hay proved the lone parent family to be beneficial to both parents and children, showing no deprivation of a second role model in the home to instil things such as social values and discipline. This is very relevant to what I aim to prove.In September 2002, Rebecca ONeill conducted the study, Experiments in Living The Fatherless Family, concerning lone-mother parenting, as a result of birth outside marriage, divorce or changes in marriage or cohabitation. She researched the cause of a fatherless upbringing on the children of fatherless families and adults who had been raised in fatherless families. When studying the effects on children, ONeill found they were likely to suffer emotional problems. She found that young teenagers were likely to take punishable substances, commit crimes and have sex before marriage, activities linked to socialisation and discipline in the home. ONeills study of adults raised by lone mothers showed them to be less likely to gain qualifications and become employed, meaning they were more likely to be unemployed and depend on the state for benefits, therefore continuing the dependency culture and socialisation children to think it is okay to depend on the state. ONeills results also showed adults from lone-parent families were less likely to marry and more likely to commit crimes.The conclusions of this study are very supportive of the New Right ideology, in that the best environs for a child to be raised in is the traditional nuclear family including mother and father, I set near to prove this wrong.(400 words)Main Research MethodMy interviews testament be unstructured, as it would be the most relevant way of gaining qualitative results, which are useful for purpose out the opinions and emotions of interviewees, leading to a conclusion about personal social values. Using unstructured interviews would be significant because each person would have various(prenominal) values, ones which they may not be able to fully express with structured interviews. Unstructured interviews would also mean the interviewees could talk about things that are relevant which I had not thought about prior to the interviews.The interviews go forth still have slight structure, in that I will be taking an active apostrophize in engaging the interviewees in conversation about points I would like to cover for my research. I sense of smell that an active approach would be useful as an interviewee engaged in conver sation would probably be more likely to talk about their opinions and create a sense of friendship and trust. These may be needed to allow the interviewee to feel comfortable about topics such as sex, intoxicant use and reprehensible activity, things which they may otherwise consider as taboo. These topics are relevant to the social values outlined by ONeill, but if they are not probed about, they could easily go unmentioned. I will operationalise concepts by explaining their definitions, which will vitiate responses being affected by lack of understanding.My sample will be of 140 students at my school, 20 from each year group, half of whom will be from lone parent families and half of whom will be from nuclear families. Doing a split sample will allow me to show the similarities between the groups in legal injury of social values, emotional stability and educational attainment. The sample will be of pupils at my school, as commenting interviewees will be easier and it would be cost efficient, with less travelling needed, also leading to a rescue of time.My sample will be voluntary, perhaps through advertisement. I would ask for voluntary interviewees who would openly talk about family matters. This sampling method would be suitable for my research because the interviews will be about well-nigh family matters, illegal activities and emotional subjects. These things can be hard for some people to talk about, so ask people to volunteer would be better than producing a random sample of which some people would feel uneasy talking about the covered issues.(391 words)Potential ProblemsAs with any study, potential problems can be found in using unstructured interviews. Ethical issues can cause problems such as concealment being invaded. Some interviewees may reveal information they did not intend to reveal at first, due to the informal nature of the interviews. Another problem is the moral dilemma I will be face with if an interviewee reveals information tha t indicates they are at risk of harm or that they are committing serious crimes. Would it be in force(p) for me to breach confidentiality and get local authorities involved? I will also need to find ways of ensuring my interviewees come to no emotional harm as a result of the interviews.Validity may be difficult to ensure. Due to my methods informal nature, I may find myself making comments or ask questions that are biased, influencing interviewee responses. Also affecting validity is the interviewee. Some may have bad memories, and report things other than to what they are, others may conform to social desirability and make statements which are untrue, just to have themselves perceived in a certain way. This may also affect how reliable responses are when coming to a conclusion.The research method will be free in terms of money, but not time. Realistically, for me to get the uttermost information out of interviewees, I would need to spend at least an hour with each. But, that wo uld take at least a month if all were to be done in school hours. Therefore, I will only probably get half an hour with each interviewee.My method also has the disadvantage that superior general conversing in unstructured interviews could lead to the discussion of irrelevant topics. My sample could cause a problem of the small group I use not being representative of youths of other ages or social backgrounds.