American Family and Kinship Structures Analysis

Use T. Parsons analytical framework for describing and analyzing the American Family to compare and contrast todays effective kinship unit (its role structure, relationship to broader kinship structures, other institutions and institutional spheres, cultural patterns, etc.) to the effective kinship unit Parsons described and analyzed in the 1940s and 1950s. What are the contributions of contemporary families (qua effective kinship units) to meeting the functional requirements of todays adults and minor children, and of non-family institutions in which todays adults and minor children participate (at their current or later stage of their life-cycle)? If those functional requirements are no longer primarily or exclusively met by, and in, families, how are they met and to what extent are they met?