Family Life
Chapter 9 Key Themes

• Socialisation is the main mechanism by which culture is passed on from one generation to the next and thus it runs through many of the substantive areas of the text. For example, education (Chapter 10) is one of the main agencies of secondary socialisation and the media (Chapter 12) is increasingly seen as important in the process. For teh impact of socialisation on men and women, see Chapter 6 'Gender Relations'.
  
• The reserve army of labour is used to describe how groups are brought into the workplace in times of labour shortage and then, when they are no longer needed, are encouraged to leave. In the family. it is wives who are characterised as the reserve army. The concept can be followed through by looking at Chapter 11 'Work and non-Work' or Chapter 8 on race and ethnicity.
  
• Life-course is an anti-essentialist approach emphasising the diversity of experience in the courses of people's lives. The theoretical underpinnings of the concept can be seen in Chapter 18 'Making Social Life: Theories of Action and Meaning', but the idea of choice is important in many substantive areas, for example see Chapter 14 'Crime'.