Fiona a is h £t Jo Tomlinson

Track 2U
Lecturer: 
The fa m ily is a topic which we w ill look at in great detail this te rm . For sociologists, the fam ily is often 
seen as the beginning of socialisation. Indeed, it is the seed of society itself. In recent decades, many 
old people have no longer been able to rely on th e ir offspring fo r support, w hich was com m on fifty
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Listening for IELTS

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CD1: Tracks 22-26
years ago. Many children are brought up by only one parent, som ething v irtu a lly unheard of before 
the 1960s. We can ce rta inly say th a t during the last h alf century we have seen an e norm ous change in 
tra d itio n a l fa m ily s tru c tu re s .
The extended fam ily lasted w e ll into the early 1900s, and this kind of strong fam ily unit was essential 
due to property ow nership. Housing often was scarce and it was necessary fo r people to live w ith parents 
and take over the property when th e ir parents died. Of course, people s till benefit from th e ir fam ily line. 
S till today, people generally inh erit any money that th e ir m other or father m ight have.
In the UK, the last fifty years has also seen a decrease in the n um be r of offspring parents have. 
W hereas in the 1950s only ten per cent of o ffsp ring w ere only ch ild re n, th is n um be r has risen. 
Nowadays, th is is the case fo r just over a th ird of c h ild re n .
T rack 25
Lecturer: 
In V ictorian tim es, the upper classes made up less than three per cent of the entire population of
B ritain, yet th is class held m ore than ninety per cent of the country's w ea lth. This show s the massive 
gap there was between rich and poor, a gap w hich has sh ru n k considerably in the last century. Today 
w e 're going to look at the w ide differences in fa m ily life between rich and poor in Victorian tim es. Let's 
begin w ith the upper classes.
The upper classes of the V ictorian period w ere gen erally the n ob ility o r the clergy. Most of th e ir 
servants w ere very poorly paid, but w ere always accom m odated w ithin the hom es of u pper-class 
Victorian fa m ilies, so they d id n ’t have to pay fo r accom m odation, food and often c lo th in g .
The money w hich they did earn, they n o rm a lly sent home to th e ir fa m ilies.
Many V ictorian servants came from the countryside, w here the effects of the in d u s tria l revolution 
had resulted in job losses. A m ongst these servants w ere cooks, housem aids, stable hands, and 
butle rs. The fa m ily w ould also em ploy a nanny, who although employed by the fam ily, was not 
tra d itio n a lly seen as a servant. A nanny’s p rim a ry role was to care fo r the ch ild re n. She was 
responsible fo r teaching the children how to behave, looking a fte r th em w hen they w ere ill, and 
in s tillin g d iscip lin e into them . Nannies did not, however, educate the ch ild re n. Generally, children 
fro m w ea lthy fa m ilie s did not attend school outside the fa m ily home. Tutors w ould come to the house 
to do th is , and although on occasion m oth ers ta ug ht th e ir children to read and fa th ers gave th e ir 
children some in stru ctio n in Latin, th is was not a com m on occurre nce .
Now, the Victorian upper classes have the reputation of being quite crue l; but this w asn ’t always the 
case. They were also quite charitable. Ragged schools were set up w ith funding from the upper classes 
so th at poor children could have some fo rm of education. Additionally, m ost Victorian parents were very 
proud of th e ir children, who w ere often seen as 'prized possessions'. This goes against the com m on idea 
th at parents were very hard on th e ir children. In fact, the opposite was generally the ru le . However, the 
situation fo r low er class fam ilies was very different. In the low er classes child labour was rife. Children 
as young as eight earned a living as chim ney sweeps fo r w ealthy houses.
Now, let's move on to looking at the low e r class fa m ilie s in m ore detail. You'll find t h a t ...