Are their goals and plans different from what they saw in their childhood family? In what ways are they similar or different?
Relationship Goals
For this paper, you will interview someone about their relationship and family aspirations. You will find out whether they eventually hope to get married, cohabit with a partner, have children, or not. You will also ask them about their career goals and how they hope to combine their work and family lives. Finally, you will compare their goals with the type of family they experienced growing up and analyze why they are similar or different.
I am giving you a semi-structured set of questions to ask, but you do not need to follow this exactly. Let the person you are interviewing guide the discussion. For example, if the person shares that one of their parents was a first-generation immigrant, it would be great to ask them how that experience affected their childhood. Just make sure that you ask enough questions to get the information you need to complete the assignment.
You are welcome to interview anyone for this assignment except for someone you grew up with. It would be very difficult for you to do an objective interview with one of your siblings (unless they lived in a different household, in which case that would be fine). The interview questions are written as if you are interviewing a friend your own age. If you interview someone older, you may need to change the phrasing (e.g., instead of “do you plan to get married?” you would ask “did you ever get married?”). You can interview one of your parents for this project.
Your paper should include the following:
- What type of family did the person you interviewed hope to have someday (e.g., did they want to get married, have children), or what type do they have?
- What are their career or employment aspirations?
- How do they anticipate they will prioritize or manage work and family obligations?
- Are their goals and plans different from what they saw in their childhood family? In what ways are they similar or different?
- What factors explain this similarity or difference?
Please note that you should not just summarize the interview. In fact, doing that would take a lot of space and you probably won’t have room to actually answer these questions. You also should not identify the person you interviewed by name – you can give them a pseudonym or just refer to them as “interview participant”.
The paper should be 4 pages long. You should cite anything you include that is not your own idea, but you do not need to cite broad ideas. For example, you would not need to cite the statement, “exchange theory emphasizes that families weigh the costs and benefits of decisions around household labor”, but you would need to cite the statement “women with children under 6 years old spend more time working in the home without pay, but spend a proportional reduction of hours in paid employment (Center for American Progress, 2018)
Semi-Structured Interview Guide
Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview. This is part of a class assignment for Sociology 130 – Sociology of the Family. This is not part of any research and no part of our conversation will be shared in any way outside of my class paper. I will not use your real name in my paper. Do you have any questions?
[If you are recording the interview, please ask permission.]
Describe your family growing up: who did you live with, were your parents married, did you have siblings, did you live with extended family members or non-family people, did your household composition change at different points?
How did your family divide household responsibilities? Who did what tasks? Who decided how tasks were divided?
Was anyone in your home primarily responsible for household tasks within the home? Did anyone earn significantly more income working outside the home? How was this decided? Did this change during your childhood?
Describe your eventual ideal relationship situation; do you plan to get married or live with a partner? Do you want to have children?
What characteristics will you eventually look for in a partner if you want to have a long-term relationship or get married? If not, why do you think you won’t look for a long-term relationship?
What are your career goals?
How do you see yourself combining your work and family goals? Describe what that might look like for you?
Subject: Social Science
follow exact directions.
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