Unity and Difference in Postmodern Families

Abstract

It is argued here that recent changes in families require us to rethink the standard model of family change, initiated by Burgess, as disorganization/reorganization. The dominant image of family life in standard sociological theory was summarized by Burgess in his influential definition of the family as “a unity of interacting persons.” Yet Burgess's studies of families in the 1920s, in fact, revealed two contrasting patterns of relationships. He referred to them as “the highly integrated family” and the “unintegrated or loosely integrated family.” Burgess's devalorization of the latter is described as being typical of theories of the modern family. In the 1980s and 1990s, sociological attention has increasingly turned toward concepts of divergence and difference. It is recommended that these issues be brought into sharper focus in theories of the postmodern family. Some suggestions are made for a research agenda from this emergent perspective.