Essay About Example Of A Primary Group And Small Group

The Family an Example of a Primary GroupEssay title: The Family an Example of a Primary GroupINTRODUCTION“The family we are born into is the small group to which most of us owe our primary allegiance for the first fifteen or twenty years of our life, and, indeed for many people in our society, it remains a focus for allegiance throughout their lives.” (Douglas 1983: p86 Quoted from Tajfel 1978:p179)

People can establish or grow their social structure, status and leadership abilities just by being a part of a group of people. Many theorists have discovered and revealed reasons why people join group, as Carl Jung stated that member belongs to a group because of personality dimensions. With regard to the family group, members are born / adopted into the group and have lifetime membership.

The focus of this assignment is unlike voluntary or involuntary group organisation. The research study proposes to find out the functions of the family group, whether the family can be defined as a primary group and reasons for group membership in a group. It also strives to define the physical environment that surrounds the group. The group structure is also dealt with and defined i.e. norms, values, sanctions, roles and status that govern the family group. The process of group development is also explored as well as any leadership roles that are present in the family dealt with.

The methodology used was a literature review and this was then was used to further investigate family group behaviour according to the different authors. The objective of this assignment is to distinguish how group theories relate to the family group. The information gathered was then used to relate any interesting findings the author had discovered about group behaviour from the literature and then used to analyse the author’s own family group.

LITERITURE REVIEWNATURE AND TYPE OF GROUP‘Most definitions define the family as an institution based on the notion of man-women-children nuclear family and the central function it performs.’ (Barnard:2007) The family group occurs naturally through stages. The dyadic relationship between the parents firstly arises. Dyadic implies a group that contains exactly two interacting people. It then develops into a primary group after the parents introduce child/children into the group to develop a sub-group. Their territoriality is represented by their home, that is, a place of significance and the family would generally sacrifice everything to protect it

2.1.1Functions of the family groupBezuidenhout (2007) describes the functions of groups as being a vehicle for social change, a haven for individuals in time of need, also enabling individuals to achieve what they can not on their own and to provide a psychosocial environment to meet the individuals psychological and social needs. There is no really choice to be part of a family, one is born into it. As a child grows up, the need for guidance and support from the parents increase and a family group support emerges. From the above functions, being part of family satisfies all the functions of a group and the family almost always come together to move forward in triumphing over obstacles or achieving goals.

Consequently, family groups were popularized in the post-war period and a small set of functions of family groups were elaborated in the 1960s. Following the demise of a single family group, families became a regular part of local societies. By the mid-1990s the number of family groups increased much, especially in rural areas. By the late 1990s the number of families was decreasing to around 800,500.[1] However, even after a large increase in the number of individual members (since the time of writing), the population of families in general has remained relatively stable over the years. These trends suggest the following important point: There is no real problem in the fact that the family group is a common feature of a society. This should be noted (by this authors) that the number of children of single parents in a single family is usually higher in rural areas than in urban areas [1,2]. The present study demonstrates the positive relationship between a group of single parents and the life situation at home. In a rural area the family of three children in a family group can be regarded as a single family family [3]. However, most families in a single family group live in an urban area, with most of their household members in small families and many residing in the same household [4]. It is therefore possible that the community at home may be quite different than in a rural area where the families of four children live in a single household. This scenario may explain why there are different number of children in families. In order to avoid future misunderstandings about the impact of children on living conditions and attitudes towards health and morals, this project is aimed at creating information about the family group in the post-war period. The main focus of this study has been on the influence of single and multi-parent families on the functioning of many social issues. To investigate the effects of family groups on children’s behavior and the children of single mothers, different data were collected. In the children of single mothers there is often an increase in their self-esteem, which is correlated with increased motivation to go to school [5]. By comparison, non-single mothers have a decrease in self-esteem and self-esteem with increasing numbers of children. In a series from 2002. to 2003. the most often reported decrease in self-esteem results from being in a stable family group. This was also reported in studies from the United States to Italy [6–8]. From 2009. to 2010. the most common decrease in self-esteem resulted from being in a group without parental support or other forms of supervision and with increasing levels of family members [9–11]. At the high end, as in the children of dual non-maternal and single mothers, there was a change in the attitude of children toward childlessness [i

2.1.2Primary Groups‘Primary groups are characterized by intimate face-to-face association and cooperation. They are primary in the several senses, but chiefly in that are fundamental in forming the social nature and ideals of the individual.’(Cooley: 1909) The family group can be described as primary group because they interact on the daily basis in the home environment.

2.1.3Reasons for group membershipThe home is the haven for the family. There is the proximity factor (people tend to form groups with people closest to them), day to day interaction, shared activities done within the household, emotional support is readily given and there can also be homophily factors a cultural household.

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENTThe physical environment refers to the place where groups interact and allow for social dealings. In the family group the physical environment is the community or suburb in which the members live. It is normally a home, flat or any other type of residence or shelter. The home enables the group members to communicate, share meals together and also serves as a place of resting. The home, the family physical environment, therefore enables the family members to meet their needs and to survive or sustain themselves and almost always there are interactions between the group members. (Bezuidenhout, 2007, p5)

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