Native American Family Structure

After obtaining my recent degree in Anthropology from the University of Georgia and securing a job as a campaign assistant for a candidate running for U.S. senate, I have been assigned the task to help my candidate write the best family values policy platform he can. To accomplish this goal, I have interviewed one participant, nineteen-year-old Brandon, about his kinship system. This will help me gather information on the social issues of a family and family values. To give you a quick introduction, Brandon is my boyfriend and someone who I have known for almost a year. I am quite familiar with his family. Brandon grew up in a single-parent home after his parents divorced when he was six. They are not alone here; in 2012, there were 11.2 million single-parent households documented (BOOK pg 366). In this home, he was raised primarily by his mother, and lived there along with his older sister Chrissy Dale. Brandon has a bilateral descent group, meaning the relationships in his family are recognized through both his mother and fathers’ sides of the family (LECTURE). His kinship system is also homogamic, meaning all of the couples in his family married from inside their social group. (LECTURE). Brandon is not my participant’s real name, but will be used for the sake of this project for ethical reasons. In this report, I plan to make known step by step Brandon’s family and who inhabits it, what occupational patterns they have, what residence patterns they follow, and how

This essay will analyze Native American societies for world view and cultural and institutional differentiation. In so doing, we will discuss the possibilities or the lack of endogenously generated social change within American Indian societies and cultures. Mainly this essay will concentrate on two important aspects of world view that contribute to conservatism in Native American cultures. The two aspects are as follows, holistic Native American beliefs versus dualistic world views, and in so discussing we will illuminate the reader’s knowledge about the differences in views of purity and salvation. The second important aspect is that of the economic ethic: American Capitalism versus Native American subsistence labor

Cherokee women thus did not have an issue of dependency to tie them to unstable or unwanted relationships. Overpopulation was never a concern as women limited their children to two or three; monthly separation and cleansing rituals performed by both men and women required abstinence; breastfeeding for two years depressed fertility; and men were away for months, and sometimes years, as they were on hunting trips and war parties. Most importantly, however, was that Cherokee women used abortion and practiced infanticide on deformed infants; thus the control of their own lives was an integral part of what it meant to be female in the Cherokee

For boys when they hit puberty they had to move out of their parents’ house and into men’s ceremonial houses and were married soon after. Men never really went back to living with their parents because women were supposed to be closer with their parents. Also most of the men got married to women in a different tribe. But for girls they lived with their parents tell they got married and when they got married they either lived in the same house with the parents or on the parent’s land. Also most of the marriages were arranged by elders in the tribe to help gain better

n the upcoming page’s I will answer the following questions. Why is family the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are the changes? I will discuss the differences in marriage and family, I will discuss how they are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choices. The purpose of this study is to explore the many different family functions and the paths that people are now choosing. I will give my opinion on whether these changes have had a positive or negative affect. I will finally discuss the trend of the modern family, back to pre-World War II family structure, how would that effect the strides that have been made in the progression of women rights.

Introduction: The theoretical approach that best suites the family during this session is “Structural Functionalism.” This basic assumptions of this approach identifies that all systems must work together to function properly and the function of families is to procreate and socialize children. Terminology that is used within the concept: structure, function instrumental, expressive, equilibrium, the benchmark family, deviant behavior, conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion.

Throughout the years, many theories and theoretical approaches have been developed in an attempt to explain not only the human experience, but the experience of the family as well. It is through theories that social scientists and human service professionals come to study and understand families and close relationships throughout the human lifespan. While there are many family theories that are useful in studying and understanding families, I have chosen to discuss the Life Course Developmental framework and the Systems framework in terms of their importance to family and professionals in the social sciences and helping professions.

In college classes, the traditional nuclear family is defined as a family consisting of one or both parents and their dependent children in a single family unit without any extended relatives (Kendall, 2013). Some sociological perspectives suggest that any departure from what is known as the “traditional,” or nuclear, family indicates a social problem, while others maintain that the definition of family has simply evolved beyond the nuclear family. Some even suggest that the social constructs of marriage and the traditional nuclear family actually undermine the notion of community ties by discouraging any kind of extended family inclusion (Gerstel, 2011).

Developed by Carter and McGoldrick (1988), the family life cycle views dysfunction in relation to normal functioning, It frames problems within the course of the family as a system moving through time. The individual life cycle takes place within the family life cycle (Carter & McGoldrick, 1988, p. 4). The foundation of the theory assumes that all families go through predictable change precipitated by life events and sometimes-unpredictable events (Azar, 2017b, 6). As these changes are occurring, the family must be able to adapt accordingly in order to avoid dysfunction. This may involve tasks that must be negotiated as they become more complex, and new roles and operations.

The Life-Course Theory or the Life-Course Perspective is the study of people’s lives, social changes, and structural contexts (Mitchell, 2003). This concept directs the focus on the power connection between individuals and the factors around them. It is defined as "a sequence of socially defined events and roles that the individual enacts over time" (Mitchell, 2003). This concept defines family as a "collection of individuals with shared history who interact within ever-changing social contexts across ever increasing time and space" (Mitchell, 2003). Various concepts are included in the fundamental principles from this theory: socio-historical and geographical location; timing of lives; heterogeneity or variability; linked lives and social ties to other

• Family developmental theory is an approach to studying families, which is useful in explaining patterned change, the dynamic nature of the family, and how change occurs in the family life cycle.

A Family development theory is an approach through which people study the family. The theory helps to highlight the changes that happen in the institution of the family. The family development theory depicts the institution of the family as ever changing following a certain path. An institution of the family moves from one stage to another and during each of the stages, certain roles characterize the process. In understanding the family, one can identify the level of development that has taken place since it started. The stages that characterize the family can help to explain the course that a family institution undertakes before it can reach the level of having adults who can start their families. In understanding the process of transition

In order to fully understand family dynamics, one must understand family theories. Eight family theories were discussed in our book. Each person who studies family theories tends to truly understand several of the theories while showing favoritism towards a particular theory. The two theories I best understood are symbolic interaction theory and social exchange theory. Social exchange theory will be the theory that I will critique.

The traditional American family can be traced back to the aggressive marketing in the 1950’s. The image of a white, middle class family owning a moderate sized home with a well-kept lawn. The father is the head of the household who would teach his kids all the life lessons and be the only source of income by working a white collar, corporate job. The mother would stay at home in a full skirt and heels looking after the kids, preparing meals, and taking care of the house. The kids, usually two, would be well behaved and well dressed. This view of the family is narrow and rigid, but through aggressive media portrayals has come to be viewed as normal and ideal. Shows such as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father knows best” reinforced that idea of a good family eating together at dinner, praying together, and being proud of the nation.

Europeans could never understand the hierarchy of Indian communities, where women had much more power politically rather than just perform domestic activities as done in English homes. Nor could they understand that many Indian nations were matrilineal. Native American women had more access to positions of power than did their European counterparts. Their children belonged to them and not their husbands. In agricultural tribes such as the Iroquois, women held most of the power. They controlled the food supply and men could not go to war if the women refused to give them supplies. (Berkin) Throughout the French and Indian War, the Indians sided with the French because the English treated them as savages and never bothered to understand their way of life. When the English won the war, the French were driven out of Canada leaving the Indians to negotiate an alliance with only the Crown. (Berkin, 111) When the American Revolution broke out, the English were the lesser of two evils to side with compared to the Americans. The Americans were “land grabbers”, if they won they would continue to move west and continue to take Native American lands.