Whose 'family'? A note on 'The changing sociological construct of the family'

The article presents a critical analysis of a qualitative research in the field ethnography: on the way of understanding the family lives and on the way sociologists use the term the family. Whilst sociologists accept that the so-called normal family is statistically insignificant, they object to the abandonment of the use of the term the family as an analytical category. They argue that we must avoid conflating households of different compositions with so-called family types. The way people use the term family is enormously complicated -- far more complicated than some sociologists believe. Firstly, there is the problem of primacy and immediacy. Secondly, there is the surprisingly protean nature of the concept which has been reconceptualised as ubiquity - that is, family terms are present in a host of different situations involving different meanings all at the same time. Thirdly, family terms are prototypical - that is, they carry political, ideological and moral power as patterns, models, standards or archetypes.