The New Right Theory and the Traditional Family
The New Right theory was developed in sociology in the 1980s. It's based on the idea that the traditional nuclear family and its values (mum, dad and kids, parents are married, dad in paid employment) are best for society.
Charles Murray is a New Right sociologist who says the traditional family is under threat. Murray says that welfare benefits are too high and crave a 'culture of dependency' where an individual finds it easy and acceptable to take benefits rather than work. He also created 'underclass' which is the idea of people who live or benefits and do not work.
New Right theorists are particularly concerned about giving lots of welfare benefits to single mothers. They also think that it's a very bad idea to have children brought up in families where adults aren't working and in lone parent families or fatherless families. Moral panic and fear of breakdown in social fabric due to lone parent families.
New Right sociologists believe that the increase in loan-parent and reconstituted families and the easier access to divorce have led to a breakdown in traditional values. They say that this causes social problems such as crime increase.
Blaming
The New Right tends to blame victims for things that are not of their own making. Many of the problems identified come from low wages, lack of employment opportunities as well as cultural changes which are endemic rather than unique to an underclass. For example many celebrities are single parents, cohabit, divorce or have affairs.
Idealistic
New Right is spending too much time looking to the past for a golden age which never really existed. Victorian times were seen as the ideal, but even then lone parenting, cohabitation and extra-marital relations were common
Charles Murray is a New Right sociologist who says the traditional family is under threat. Murray says that welfare benefits are too high and crave a 'culture of dependency' where an individual finds it easy and acceptable to take benefits rather than work. He also created 'underclass' which is the idea of people who live or benefits and do not work.
New Right theorists are particularly concerned about giving lots of welfare benefits to single mothers. They also think that it's a very bad idea to have children brought up in families where adults aren't working and in lone parent families or fatherless families. Moral panic and fear of breakdown in social fabric due to lone parent families.
New Right sociologists believe that the increase in loan-parent and reconstituted families and the easier access to divorce have led to a breakdown in traditional values. They say that this causes social problems such as crime increase.
Blaming
The New Right tends to blame victims for things that are not of their own making. Many of the problems identified come from low wages, lack of employment opportunities as well as cultural changes which are endemic rather than unique to an underclass. For example many celebrities are single parents, cohabit, divorce or have affairs.
Idealistic
New Right is spending too much time looking to the past for a golden age which never really existed. Victorian times were seen as the ideal, but even then lone parenting, cohabitation and extra-marital relations were common