Our changing family : a study on family beliefs and practices
This research aims to show that individuals are human actors who have agency in shaping their family lives through the various strategies they adopt vis-à-vis social structures. Specifically, the research examines the ideas and experiences that individuals have concerning the upbringing of children,...
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| Format: | Final Year Project |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66168 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | This research aims to show that individuals are human actors who have agency in shaping their family lives through the various strategies they adopt vis-à-vis social structures. Specifically, the research examines the ideas and experiences that individuals have concerning the upbringing of children, gendered family arrangements and work-life balance. Using the theoretical framework of agency and structure, the study seeks to address the scarcity of qualitative research on the contemporary Singaporean family. Through in-depth interviews with middle-aged respondents in Singapore, the findings demonstrate how individuals hold the capacity to act and react to the changing social environment amidst the expectations thrust upon them. Instead of a total compliance to state ideals and social structures, the respondents expressed how they negotiate the demands of work and family. Exposed to both traditional and modern cultural imperatives, middle-aged individuals adapt to their contemporary surroundings by amalgamating both the old and the new in the creation of nuanced family strategies and beliefs. Thus the family is a site brimming with subjective experiences and meanings that arise through the interplay between individual autonomy and structural conditions. |
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