Chris Harris

Families in transition : social change, family formation and kin relationships

This book addresses the complexity of family change. It draws on evidence from two linked studies, one carried out in the 1960s and the other in the early years of the 21st century, to analyse the specific ways in which family lives have changed and how they have been affected by the major structural and cultural changes of the second half of the twentieth century. The book shows that, while there has undeniably been change, there is a surprising degree of continuity in family practices. It casts doubt on claims that families have been subject to a process of dramatic change and provides an alternative account which is based on careful analysis of empirical data. The book presents a unique opportunity to chart the nature of social change in a particular locality over the last 50 years; includes discussions of social and cultural variations in family life, focusing on younger as well as older generations; explores not only what happens within family-households but also what happens within networks of kin across different households and shows the way changing patterns of employment affect kinship networks and how geographical mobility co-exists with the maintenance of strong kinship ties. The findings will be of interest to students of sociology, social anthropology, social policy, womens studies, gender studies and human geography at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Social Change and the Family

This paper explores the social change of the past 40 years through reporting the results of a restudy. It argues that social change can be understood, culturally, as involving a process of de-institutionalisation and, structurally, as involving differentiation within elementary family groups as well as within extended family networks. Family change is set in the context of changes in the housing and labour markets and the demographic, industrial and occupational changes of the past 40 years. These changes are associated with increases in womens economic activity rates and a decrease in their ‘degree of domesticity’. They are also associated with increasing differentiation within families such that occupational heterogeneity is now found at the heart of the elementary family as well as within kinship groupings as was the case 40 years ago. Thus the trend towards increased differentiation identified in the original study (Rosser and Harris: The Family and Social Change) has continued into the 21st century. This is associated with a de-institutionalisation of family life and an increasing need for partners to negotiate participation in both productive and reproductive work.

Researching a traditional territorial organisation: analogy, verstehen and the sociological imagination

Reports on a study of the state of the (Anglican) Church in Wales, which investigated the Church in Wales as a sociological institution through attitudes held by the clergy and lay members of the Church. Asserts that churches are institutional associational groups with rational‐bureaucratic forms of administration, rather than organizations, but that it helps to conceptualize the church as if it were an organization. Outlines some of the problems the Church faces – maintaining a presence in sparsely populated areas, secularization, decreasing personnel, and conservatism. Discusses the Church’s theory of itself and explores the conceptual world of the laity with regard to the nature of the Church, its structure, and the relationship between the Church and the world. Concludes that social enquiry is all about listening.

The decline of a liberal mainstream church : Issues and problems for the Church in Wales (UK)

Outlines some of the main issues in declining membership facing the Anglican Church in Wales including doctrine, clergy, laity, evangelism and variety in worship. Considers the growth of charismatic churches and the success of those with stricter codes. Concludes that many look to the church for occasional offices such as birth, marriage and death but little else. Advocates an element of strictness in order that the individual can see a difference in belonging. Points to a growth in affluence bringing tolerance and respectability and a fall in the birth rate of potential adherents.

RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH MARRIAGE IN A WELSH URBAN AREA

In this paper based on material gathered during the course of a study of extra-familial kinship in the County Borough of Swansea, we draw attention to the importance of a detailed consideration of affinal roles and relatlonshifre in studies of kinship and marriage in Britain. This study, financed by a generous grant from the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust, is still in progress. For this reason, this paper must necessarily take the form of a preliminary discussion with the emphasis on an examination of concepts rather than on ethnographic description. When considering relationships through marriage in Western society generally, it is in fact surprising to discover how little attention has been paid, either in rural or urban studies, to this subject or to the closely related questions of the demography of marriage, the factors in mate selection and marriage directions or the patterns of residence immediately after marriage in regard to both household composition and relative proximity to the kin of husband and wife. In Britain, the only published study which provides information on at least some of these subjects in a form suitable for comparison with the data from Swansea is that of Young and Willmott for Bethnal Green. Yet the whole question of the arrangement of marriage, and the consequent patterns of residence and role transformations, seems a vital element in the theoretical analysis of the kinship system of a Western society. The obvious neglect of this subject in the few previoiK studies that have b ^ n made in both rural and urban situations appears to arise from two sources. Firstly, this is an area of research in which the use of adequate statistical techniques is essential for the discernment of regularities in behaviour. Most previous ob^rvers in Britain have either dealt with units too small for the application of these techniques or have, through lack of adequate resources and so forth, been unable to apply them. Secondly and

Elements of religious belief and social values among the laity of the church in Wales

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between religious beliefs and secular attitudes of lay people within a single church, the Anglican Province of Wales (UK). The origins of the data are described and findings as to the distinctive social characteristics of the laity reported. Results of the analysis of the interrelationship between different dimensions of religious belief are reported and discussed. The secular attitudes of the laity are compared with those of the British population, and found to be on the whole more ‘liberal’. While some differences between the secular attitudes of the laity and the general population are clearly related to the distinctive social position of the former, social location is unable to explain all of these differences. A number of relationships between belief and secular attitudes are described. Anglicans with more ‘catholic’ beliefs seem more concerned in their secular attitudes with issues which they perceive as involving rule breaking or attitudes to authority,...