Assignment 2A

1. The definition of the “instrumental leader” is a person who leads the group and is focused on accomplishing the goals at task. An “expressive leader” is a person who is in charge of keeping the group together through emotional support. Families in the 1950's, the instrumental leader was the husband because he worked to financially support the family, while the mother was considered the expressive leader because she provided emotional support to her husband and children.

2. Theorists became very critical of the functional perspective because women began to join the work force during the 1960s and 1970s and the breadwinner-homemaker family started to lose its dominance.

3. The main theme of conflict theory is power. Conflict theory is all about who has the power and how that person comes to obtain that power. Its about how groups of people take a higher power over others.

4. Exchange theorists say that husbands have a stronger bargaining power verses that of their wives when they are the only ones making the money in the families, because the wives have less options of income. In contrast, when wives enter the workforce to earn their own money, the husband’s bargaining power becomes weaker.

5. Feminist theory is based on the idea that gender was culturally created to describe the social and cultural differences between men and women. The Feminist theory distinguishes men and women in society.

6. A. I would want to study in the micro level because I would be dealing with social life with individuals in a small group setting. Focus on the family’s reaction to their environment and why they would act a certain way.
B. To collect data I would use interviews. In the interviews I would focus on the group to collect data. I feel that it is better to work and get close to these families.
C. I would have about 15-20 people in my study.