Micro, Macro, and meso definitions

The argument

The position holds that there is no single sociological definition of a family, because what counts as one depends on the level of analysis a sociologist is working at. Three such levels are distinguished, and each produces a different definition rather than a different description of the same thing. A macro approach examines the relationship between a family and wider society, and macro sociologists accordingly define a family by its impact on that society. Durkheim, for instance, would argue that a family is a stabilising force in the wider social order, which defines the family by the function it performs for something larger than itself. On this approach the internal life of a household is of interest only insofar as it produces that external effect. A micro approach looks more closely at the power relations and dynamics within a family, and the definition it yields is correspondingly internal: a family is constituted by the relationships between the people in it. A sociologist working at this level would deduce that what makes a household a family is how its members stand toward one another, rather than anything it contributes to society at large, and households that look identical from outside may differ substantially by this measure. A meso approach occupies the level between the two and concerns itself with the sociology of mate selection, meaning the patterns by which people come to form partnerships. A meso-level definition may therefore identify the family with the romantic relationship between two individuals, treating that pairing as the unit from which a family is formed. The conclusion is that these definitions are not rivals to be adjudicated between. Each follows from the level at which the question is asked, which is why the sociological definition of a family depends on the type of family under discussion and the approach being taken to it.

Context

Depending on the sociological approach, the definition of a family will be difference.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The argument shows that different levels of analysis emphasise different aspects of family life, not that the definition of a family varies. Micro, macro and meso are distinctions of analytical scale, and all three descriptions offered can be readings of a single underlying object: Durkheim's claim that the family stabilises society is a claim about what families do, which the sibling position that families are defined by what they do captures as one definition rather than as a plurality of them. The examples are also not equally adequate, which undercuts the claim that it simply depends on the approach. Defining a family through the romantic relationship between two individuals — the meso example — excludes single-parent households, extended and multigenerational families, adoptive and fostering arrangements, and siblings raising each other, all of which the micro and macro descriptions include. That is not a different definition of the same term but a narrower and demonstrably inadequate one. And the position risks yielding no definition at all: if what counts as a family depended entirely on the approach taken, researchers using different levels could not be studying the same families, whereas in practice they compare findings across levels precisely because they take themselves to be describing one institution.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Durkheim's claim that the family stabilises society describes a function a definition might cite; it does not make "family" mean something different at the macro level. [Rejecting P2] The three levels differ in what they examine rather than in what counts as a family, and the meso example — a romantic bond between two individuals — excludes single-parent, extended, adoptive and sibling households, so the levels are not equally adequate definitions but one narrow and several broad ones.