Chapter 6
Writing
IC3 Section
English | Vietnamese
IC3 | IT | TOEFL | Best Answer
Vietnamese translation of IC3
Assessment
Guiding Question
What are the priorities of a developing country in its course of renovation?
Câu hỏi hướng dẫn:
Các nước đang phát triển phải ưu tiên những gì trong công cuộc đổi mới của mình?
Skills:
In this chapter you will do these things:
IC3 Skills: Economics and the Changing Shape of Family
IT: Searching the Internet
Intercultural Communicative Competence
Economics and the Changing Shape of Family
Included in this IC3 section are two descriptions of the historical changes in families. The first, “’New Spirits Fear Old Ones’: Change in the Vietnamese” describes the Vietnamese family over a long period of time, but implies that the current policy of Đổi mới is changing the family currently. The second description, “ Does the American Family Have a History? Family Images and Realities” suggests that America’s images of it’s family life throughout history is somewhat distorted. What the two descriptions have in common, however, is to say that the histories of family in Vietnamese and American societies run parallel to the economic history of each country.
After reading these descriptions , discuss with classmates:
- Do these descriptions create an accurate description of family in your country?
- Do you agree that economics shape the family structure—therefore, changes in the economy may change the status quo of families. A renovation policy such as Đổi mới could change family life and structure, or an event such as The Great Depression in America’s 1930s could change the family.
- Then discuss how your family life is or is not different than the family life of your parents. Are there some general changes in family life that can be now described as characteristic or typical of the Vietnamese or American family?
- Globally, are families changing and what are the factors that create this change? Are there universal characteristics of family change today?
'New spirits fear old ones'
Change in the Vietnamese Family
http://hsc.csu.edu.au/pta/scansw/vietnam2.html
Historical overview:
" ... we should link the development of the Vietnamese with that of the Vietnamese nation and society. The immanent demands of the Vietnamese society and Vietnamese themselves at each historical period are valued scientifically as foundation for understanding and analyzing the Vietnamese family.
"Changes to the family, which is the cell or basic unit of society cannot be separated from those of the nation and the country"
--Le Thi, The role of the family in the formation of the Vietnamese personality
Family within Vietnamese civilization:
There are two main periods of 'civilization' in Vietnamese history
- Agricultural
- Industrial & Post industrial
Agricultural
During this period the family has a number of characteristics:
- • Marriages imposed by parents
- • Individuals interest must submit to those of the family
- • The son is highlighted
- • Attention is paid to the cult of ancestors
- • Children must work prematurely
- • Family must provide education care for sick and old
- • Family is often large
- • Infant mortality rates are high and life expectancy is low
Industrial - post industrial:
- • Development of urbanization
- • Women participate in production
- • Marriages increasing result in partner’s choice
- • More attention is paid to the individual's happiness and interests
- • Society takes a more active role in family affairs
- • Nuclear family becomes more popular
- • Divorce increases
- • Increase in alternative families and dislocated families
- • Development of intellectual labor
Both of these major forms of civilization exist currently within Vietnam. Although the country remains largely agricultural (85%) since Đổi mới (economic renovation) industrialization and urbanization have accelerated. The country is currently suffering from enormous uncontrolled urban migration, despite government attempts to restrict the flow. The standard of living in the cities and differing cultural influences is leading to and increasing polarized country between rural and urban areas.
The development of the Vietnamese family within an historical context:
There are five main historical epochs to consider:
- • The family pre French aggression
- • The family under French rule
- • The family during 30 year struggle with for National Liberation
- • The family during socialist reform
- • The family during Đổi mới
National Renovation or Đổi mới
. . .The Party introduced a series of reforms that have been termed Đổi mới or economic renovation. These reforms have been aimed at introducing market socialism. This term implies the continuation of the Communist Party control of Vietnam and the development of a Western style market economy.
The adoption of Đổi mới has lead to Vietnamese society being bombarded with new influences. This includes: industrialization, westernization, modernization, individualism and capitalism. All of these factors have had a profound impact on the nature of the Vietnamese family.
Marriage: The changes during this period have lead to a number of modifications of the traditional structure and nature of marriage. Marriage is still regarded as an important institution in Vietnamese society, despite the influences of westernization and western ideas few couples in Vietnam cohabitant before marriage. Young people in Vietnam now have the right to decide on their marriage partner but this is seldom followed through without parental consent. This is especially so as the parents bear the burden of the wedding expenses. In many cases the introduction capitalism has lead to a rise in the standard of living and the elaborate nature of Vietnamese wedding ceremonies.
“Young people nowadays are very snooty. They always spend a lot on their weddings” --Phuong Ha
"... nowadays people have much more money and they spend more on weddings "--Nguyen Trung Kien
Urbanization has seen a rise in the divorce rate and adultery which often leads to conflicts within the family. To accompany this recent social research has uncovered clear evidence of high rates of domestic violence in Vietnam. This is not a new phenomenon to Vietnamese society nor is it a result of the changing influences in Vietnam. However since Đổi mới there has also been an increasing openness in the investigation and handling of social issues.
The changes in the ideas of marriage have not lead to a significant increase in cohabitation, but there has been a considerable rise in the amount of newly web couples who chose to live separately from the family. 77.3% of newly weds preferred to live along while 89. 1% of single women would prefer to stay that way rather than live with in-laws.
Capitalism has also changed the perceptions of many young couples. A recent poll reported in the Vietnam Investment Review and conducted by the Thanh Nien newspaper 33.7 per cent of couples polled said that home appliances were the most important factor in family happiness, while sex polled only 27 per cent. In urban areas research has revealed that Vietnamese youth wait longer before getting married and are more likely to have intercourse before marriage. However the patriarchal nature of marriage remains. Despite increasing cases of both partners working men do on average 48 minutes house work per day compared to 3hrs and 9 minutes for women.
Structure of the family: In recent years Vietnam has suffered from the problems of uncontrolled rural - urban migration. This increasing urbanization of the country has lead to a change in the family structure. The western style nuclear family is becoming more and more common in Vietnam. A survey conducted in Ha Noi in 1995 showed that nuclear families accounted for 66% percent of all family types while the traditional three generation household accounted for 33%.
This urban migration has also lead to the break up of families in rural areas as young people leave their parents and grand parents in the village and move to the cities.. The parent - child relationship is also effect. With the move to the city often comes the development of a dual income family. This places new stresses on traditional family roles and values. Urbanization has also lead to less reliance on extended family members and the inability of families to rely on their community for support. The proverb of rich in children, abundant in wealth has come under threat from this rise in urbanization, but also in the government attempts to control the spiraling population of Vietnam by introducing a two child policy.
Another result of capitalism and rural - urban drift has lead to the break up of many rural families as they send their children to the city to find work to supplement the families incomes. This has lead to serious problems in large cities with street children and homelessness. However many 'alternative' or surrogate families have developed in the cities. Many young people from the same region band together in the cities to form surrogate families, living together, looking out for each others welfare and generally acting in the traditional role of the families left back in the countryside.
Changing gender roles: While Đổi mới has opened up opportunities for Vietnamese, these have not been shared evenly between the sexes. Vietnam is a country where gender roles are undergoing vast changes. However the new opportunities available to women has lead to conflict with traditional roles that can often be the cause of great anxiety and stress. Men still hold on to the idea that they are superior to women and that the women's role is to 'serve'.
The traditional role of following the custom of looking after the house is in direct contrast to the fact that a vast majority of women are now in full time positions outside of the family. Women are often doing the same work for the same pay as men and are making many non-family decisions but at home they are expected not to make certain decisions and continue there traditional role. Women are also become increasingly vocal about their demands to achieve equality. These ideas are being reflected by the increasing participation of women in parliament. By 1997 26.7% of the National Assembly were women.
Does the American Family Have a History? Family Images and Realities
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/familyhistory.cfm
A revolution has taken place in family life since the late 1960s. Today, two-thirds of all married women with children--and an even higher proportion of single mothers--work outside the home, compared to just 16 percent in 1950. Half of all marriages end in divorce--twice the rate in 1966 and three times the rate in 1950. Three children in ten are born out of wedlock. Over a quarter of all children now live with only one parent and fewer than half of live with both their biological mother and father. Meanwhile, the proportion of women who remain unmarried and childless has reached a record high; fully twenty percent of women between the ages of 30 and 34 have not married and over a quarter have had no children, compared to six and eight percent, respectively, in 1970.
These changes have produced alarm, anxiety, and apprehension. They have inspired family values crusaders to condemn careerist mothers, absent fathers, single parents, and unwed parents as the root cause of many of society's ills: persistent poverty, drug abuse, academic failure, and juvenile crime. This is a situation that begs for historical perspective.
Recent scholarship has demonstrated that diversity and change have been the only constants in the history of the American family. Far from signaling the family's imminent demise or an erosion of commitment to children, recent changes in family life are only the latest in a series of disjunctive transformations in family roles, functions, and dynamics that have occurred over the past three centuries.
Few subjects are more shrouded in myths, misconceptions, and misleading generalizations than the history of the family. Students will find the history of the family an eye-opening window on the past. They will discover that:
- It was only in the 1920s that, for the first time, a majority of American families consisted of a breadwinner-husband, a home-maker wife, and children attending school.
- The most rapid increase in unwed pregnancies took place between 1940 and 1958, not in the libertine sixties.
- The defining characteristics of the 1950s family--a rising birth rate, a stable divorce rate, and declining age of marriage--were historical aberrations, out of line with long term historical trends.
- Throughout American history, most families have needed more than one breadwinner to support themselves.
In recent years, families have gone through many disconcerting and disruptive changes. But if family life today seems unsettled, so, too, was family life in the past. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States had the highest divorce rate in the western world, and one child in ten lived in a single-parent home. Hundreds of thousands of children spent part of their childhood in orphanages, not because their parents were dead, but because their mother and father could not support them. Infant mortality, orphan-hood, and early widowhood affected a distressingly high proportion of families. Between 35 and 40 percent of all children lost a parent or a sibling before they reached their twenties.
Americans are prone to romanticizing the past and confusing historical fantasy and reality. This is especially true when Americans ponder our society's "bedrock" institution, the family. Among the most potent myths that pervade contemporary society are that divorce, domestic violence, and single parenthood are recent phenomena; that throughout American history, most families consisted of a breadwinner-husband and a homemaker-wife; and that in the past strong, stable families provided effective care for the elderly and other dependents. Only careful historical analysis can correct such myths.
In few areas has susceptibility to myth making been more detrimental than with the family. Highly romanticized images of the past have contributed to unrealistic expectations about family life. A historical thinking has also led Americans to downplay the genuine improvements that have taken place in family well-being: especially the fact that smaller families mean that parents can devote more time and resources to each child. Even worse, a lack of historical perspective has encouraged scapegoating of families that diverge from the dominant norms; and it has blinded Americans to the social, economic, demographic, and ideological pressures that have contributed to familial change--and made transformations in gender roles and family structures irreversible.
Families in Colonial America
Far from being a stable, unchanging institution, the family is as enmeshed in the historical process as any other social institution. The family's roles and functions, size and composition, and emotional and power dynamics have all changed dramatically over time.
In colonial America, the family was, first and foremost, a unit of production. It also performed a variety of educational, religious and welfare functions that were later assumed by other private and public institutions. The family educated children in basic literacy and the rudiments of religion; it transmitted occupational skills; and it cared for the elderly and infirm.
Family composition was far more elastic and porous than in later American families. Even in the most healthful regions during the seventeenth century, three children in ten died before reaching adulthood; children were likely to lose at least one parent by the time they married. As a result, a majority of colonial Americans probably spent some time in a step-family. Family size and composition also varied according to the household's economic needs. Many children left their parents homes before puberty to work as servants or apprentices in other households.
Perhaps the biggest difference between families then and now is that colonial society placed relatively little emphasis on familial privacy. Community authorities and neighbors supervised and intervened in family life. In New England, selectmen oversaw ten or twelve families, removed children from "unfit" parents, and ensured that fathers exercised proper family government.
In theory, the seventeenth-century family was a hierarchical unit, in which the father was invested with patriarchal authority. He alone sat in an armed chair, his symbolic throne, while other household members sat on benches or stools. He taught children to write, led household prayers, and carried on the bulk of correspondence with family members. Domestic conduct manuals were addressed to him, not to his wife. Legally, the father was the primary parent. Fathers, not mothers, received custody of children after divorce or separation. In colonial New England, a father was authorized to correct and punish insubordinate wives, disruptive children, and unruly servants. He was also responsible for placing his children in a lawful calling and for consenting to his children's marriages. His control over inheritance kept his grown sons dependent upon him for years, while they waited for the landed property they needed to establish an independent household.
In actuality, the ideology of patriarchy co-existed with a high degree of blurring of gender boundaries. Colonial women shouldered many duties that would later be monopolized by men. The colonial goodwife engaged in trade and home manufacturing, supervised planting, and sometimes administered estates. Women's productive responsibilities limited the amount of time that they could devote to childcare. Many childrearing tasks were delegated to servants or older daughters. Ironically, the decline of patriarchal ideology was accompanied by the emergence of a much more rigid domestic division of labor.
Themes and Variations
There were profound differences in the family patterns in New England, the Middle colonies, and the Chesapeake and southern-most colonies. In New England, a patriarchal conception of family life began to breakdown as early as the 1670s. In the Chesapeake and the Carolinas, a more stable patriarchal structure of relationships did not truly emerge until the mid-eighteenth century.
Demography partly explains these regional differences. After an initial period of high mortality, life expectancy in New England rose to levels comparable to our own. A healthful environment contributed to a very high birthrate (over half of New England children had nine or more siblings) and the first society in history in which grandparents were common. In the Chesapeake, in contrast, a high death rate and an unbalanced sex ratio made it impossible to establish the kind of stable, patriarchal families found in New England. During the seventeenth century, half of all marriages were broken within eight years, and most families consisted of a complicated assortment of step-parents, step-children, wards, and half-brothers and half-sisters. Not until the late-eighteenth century could a father be confident about his ability to pass property directly to his sons.
Religious differences also contributed to divergent family patterns. Not nearly as anxious as the Puritans about infant depravity, Quaker families in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey placed a far greater stress on maternal nurture than did Puritan families. Quakers also emphasized early autonomy for children. They provided daughters with an early dowry and sons with sufficient land to provide a basis for early independence.
The Emergence of the "Republican" Family
During the eighteenth century, New England fathers found themselves less able to influence their sons' choice of occupation, when or whom their children would marry, and their offsprings' sexual behavior. By mid-century, sons were moving further away from the parental home, fewer daughters were marrying in birth order, and rates or illegitimacy and pregnancy prior to marriage were rising markedly.
One force for change was ideological. The mid- and late-eighteenth century saw repeated attacks upon patriarchal authority by such popular writers as Samuel Richardson, Oliver Goldsmith, and Henry Fielding, who rejected the idea that a father should dictate a child's career or choice of a marriage partner and who argued that love and affection were superior to physical force in rearing children and that women were more effective than men in inducing children's obedience. Economic shifts further contributed to an erosion of paternal authority. Rapid population growth, which resulted in plots too small to be farmed viably, weakened paternal control over inheritance. New opportunities for nonagricultural work allowed many children to marry earlier than in the past.
By the early nineteenth century, a new kind of urban middle class family had begun to emerge as the workplace moved some distance from the household and as many of married women's productive tasks were assumed by unmarried women working in factories. A new pattern of marriage arose, based primarily on companionship and affection; a new division of domestic roles appeared, which assigned the wife to care full-time for her children and to maintain the home; a new conception of childhood arose that looked at children not as little adults, but as special creatures who needed attention, love, and time to mature. Spouses began to display affection more openly, calling each other "honey" or "dear." Parents began to keep their children home longer than in the past. By the mid-nineteenth century, a new emphasis on family privacy could be seen in the expulsion of apprentices from the middle-class home, the increasing separation of servants from the family, and the rise of the family vacation had appeared as well as such family-oriented celebrations as the birthday party and decorating the Christmas tree.
The new urban middle-class was based on a strict segregation of sexual spheres, on intense mother-child bonds, and on the idea that children needed to be protected from the corruptions of the outside world. Even at its inception, however, this new family form was beset by certain latent tensions. One source of tension involved the paternal role, which was becoming more psychologically separate from his family. Although fathers thought of themselves as breadwinners and household heads, and their wives and children as their dependents, in fact men's connection to their family was becoming essentially economic. They might serve as disciplinarian of last resort, but mothers replaced fathers as primary parent.
Another contradiction involved women's domestic roles. In their youth, women received an unprecedented degree of freedom; increasing numbers attended school and worked, at least temporarily, outside a family unit. After marriage, however, women were expected to sacrifice their individuality for their family' sake. In a society that attached increasing value to individualism and equality, the expectation that women should subordinate themselves to their husbands and children was a source of latent tension. Women's subordinate status might be cloaked with an ideology of separate spheres and true womanhood, but the contradiction with the ideal of equality remained. A third contradiction involved the status of children, who remained home far longer than in the past, often into their late teens and twenties. The emerging ideal was a protected childhood, shielding children from knowledge of death, sex, and violence. While in theory families were training children for independence, in reality, children received fewer opportunities than in the past to express their growing maturity. The result was that the transition from childhood and youth to adulthood became more disjunctive and conflict-riven.
These latent contradictions were apparent in three striking developments: a sharp fall in the birth rate, a marked and steady rise in the divorce rate, and a heightened cultural awareness of domestic violence. The early nineteenth century saw the beginnings of a sharp fall in the birth rate. Instead of giving birth to seven to ten children, middle class mothers, by the end of the century, gave birth to only three. The reduction in birthrates did not depend on new technologies; rather, it reflected the view that women were not childbearing chattel and that children were no longer economic assets. An emerging ideology deemed children to be priceless, but the fact remained that the young now required greater parental investments in the form of education and other inputs.
During the early and mid-nineteenth century, the divorce rate also began to rise, as judicial divorce replaced legislative divorce and many states adopted permissive divorce statutes. If marriages were to rest on mutual affection, then it divorce had to serve as a safety valve from loveless and abusive marriages. In 1867, the country had 10,000 divorces, and the rate rose steadily: from per thousand marriages in 1870, to per thousand in 1880, to per thousand in 1890.
A growing awareness of wife beating and child abuse also occurred in the early nineteenth century, which may have reflected an actual increase in assaults and murders committed against blood relatives. As families became less subject to communal oversight, as traditional assumptions about patriarchal authority were challenged, and as an expanding market economy produced new kinds of stresses, the family could become an arena of explosive tension, conflict, and violence.
Slave and Working-Class Families
Various groups have developed different family strategies in response to their social and economic circumstances. No group faced graver threats to family life than enslaved African Americans. Debt, an owner's death, or the prospects of profit could break up slave families. Between 1790 and 1860, a million slaves were sold from the upper to the lower South and another two million slaves were sold within states. As a result, about a third of all slave marriages were broken by sale and half of all slave children were sold from their parents. Even in the absence of sale, slave spouses often resided on separate plantations or on separate units of a single plantation. On larger plantations, one father in three had a different owner than his wife; on smaller plantations and farms, the figure was two in three.
In spite of the refusal of southern law to provide legal protection to slave marriages, most slaves married and lived with the same spouse until death. Ties to the immediate family stretched outward to an involved network of extended kin. Whenever children were sold to neighboring plantations, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins took on the function of parents. When blood relatives were not present, "fictive" kin cared for and protected children. Godparenting, ritual co-parenting, and informal adoption of orphans were common on slave plantations. To sustain a sense of family identity over time, slaves named children after grandparents and other kin; slaves also passed down family names, usually the name of an ancestor's owner rather than the current owner's.
While the urban middle-class family emphasized a sole male breadwinner, a rigid division of sexual roles, and a protected childhood, urban working-class families emphasized a cooperative family economy. Older children were expected to defer marriage, remain at home, and contribute to the family's income. It was not until the 1920s that the cooperative family economy gave way to the family wage economy, which allowed a male breadwinner to sport his family on his wages alone. Contributing to this new family formation were the establishment of the first seniority systems; compulsory school attendance laws; and increased real wages as a result of World War I. The New Deal further solidified the male breadwinner family by prohibiting child labor, expanding workmen's compensation, and targeting jobs programs at male workers.
Twentieth-Century Families
Over the past three centuries, Americans have gone through recurrent waves of moral panic over the family. During the late nineteenth century, panic gripped the country over family violence and child neglect, declining middle-class birthrates, divorce, and infant mortality. Eleven states made desertion and non-support of families a felony and three states instituted the whipping post where wife-beaters were punished with floggings. To combat the decline in middle-class birth rates, the Comstock Act restricted the interstate distribution of birth control information and contraceptive devices, while state laws criminalized abortion. In a failed attempt to reduce the divorce rate, many states reduced the grounds for divorce and extended waiting periods.
Mounting public anxiety led to increased government involvement in the family and the emergence of distinct groups offering expert advice about childrearing, parenting, and social policy. To combat the exploitation and improve the well-being of children, reformers pressed for compulsory school attendance laws, child labor restrictions, playgrounds, pure milk laws, and "widow's" pensions to permit poor children to remain with their mothers. There were also concerted efforts to eliminate male-only forms of recreation, campaigns that achieved success with the destruction of red-light districts during the 1910s and of saloons following adoption of Prohibition in 1918.
To strengthen and stabilize families, marriage counselors promoted a new ideal: the companionate family. It held that husbands and wives were to be "friends and lovers" and that parents and children should be "pals." This new ideal stressed the couple relationship and family togetherness as the primary source of emotional satisfaction and personal happiness. Privacy was a hallmark of the new family ideal. Unlike the nineteenth century family, which took in boarders, lodgers, or aging and unmarried relatives, the companionate family was envisioned as a more isolated, and more important, unit, the primary focus of emotional life.
During the Depression, unemployment, lower wages, and the demands of needy relatives tore at the fabric of family life. Many Americans were forced to share living quarter with relatives, delay marriage, and postpone having children. The divorce rate fell, since fewer people could afford one, but desertions soared. By 1940, 1.5 million married couples were living apart. Many families coped by returning to a cooperative family economy. Many children took part time jobs and many wives supplemented the family income by taking in sewing or laundry, setting up parlor groceries, or housing lodgers.
World War II also subjected families to severe strain. During the war, families faced a severe shortage of housing, a lack of schools and child-care facilities, and prolonged separation from loved ones. Five million "war widows" ran their homes and cared for children alone, while millions of older, married women went to work in war industries. The stresses of wartime contribute to an upsurge in the divorce rate. Tens of thousands of young people became latchkey children, and rates of juvenile delinquency, unwed pregnancy, and truancy all rose.
The late 1940s and 1950s witnessed a sharp reaction to the stresses of the Depression and war. If any decade has come to symbolize the traditional family, it is the 1950s. The average age of marriage for women dropped to twenty; divorce rates stabilized; and the birthrate doubled. Yet the images of family life that appeared on television were misleading; only sixty percent of children spent their childhood in a male-breadwinner, female homemaker household. The democratization of the family ideals reflected social and economic circumstances that are unlikely to be duplicated: a reaction against Depression hardships and the upheavals of World War II; the affordability of single-family track homes in the booming suburbs; and rapidly rising real incomes.
The post-war family was envisioned not simply a haven in a heartless world, like the Victorian family, but as an alternative world of satisfaction and intimacy. But this family, like its Victorian counterpart, had its own contradictions and latent tensions. Youthful marriages, especially among women who cut short their education, contributed to a rising divorce rate in the 1960s. The compression of childbearing into the first years of marriage meant that many wives were free of the most intense childrearing responsibilities by their early or mid-thirties. Combined with the ever rising costs of maintaining a middle-class standard of living, this encouraged a growing number of married women to enter the workplace; as early as 1960, a third of married middle-class women were working part- or full-time. The expansion of schooling, combined with growing affluence, contributed to the emergence of a separate youth culture, separate and apart from the family. The seeds of radical familial changes were planted in the 1950s.
Contemporary Families
Since the 1960s, families have grown smaller, less stable, and more diverse. At the same time, more adults live outside a family, as single young adults, divorced singles, or as older people who have lost a spouse. As recently as 1960, seventy percent of the households in the United States consisted of a breadwinner father, a homemaker mother, and two or more kids. Today, the male breadwinner, female homemaker family makes up only a small proportion of American households. More common are two-earner families, where both the husband and wife work; single-parent families, usually headed by a mother; reconstituted families, formed after a divorce; and empty-nest families, created after a children have left home. Declining birth and marriage rates, the rapid entry of married women into the work force, a rising divorce rate, and an aging population all contributed to this domestic revolution.
Despite the changes that have taken place, the family is not a dying institution. About ninety percent of Americans marry and bear children, and most Americans who divorce eventually remarry. In many respects, family life is actually stronger today than it was in the past. While divorce rates are higher than in the past, fewer families suffer from the death of a parent or a child. Infants were four times more likely to die in the 1950s than today and older children were three times more likely. Because of declining death rates, couples are more likely to grow into old age together than in the past and children are more likely to have living grandparents. Meanwhile, parents are making greater emotional and economic investment their children. Lower birth rates mean that parents can devote more attention and greater financial resources to each child. Fathers have become more actively involved in their childrearing.
Nevertheless, the profound changes--such as the integration of married women into the paid labor force--have taken place in the late twentieth century resulted in a "crisis of caregiving." As the proportion of single parent and two-worker families has increased, many parents have found it increasingly difficult to balance the demands of work and family life. Working parents not only had to care for their young children, but, because of increasing life spans, aging parents as well. In an attempt to deal with these needs, the United States adopted the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, entitling eligible employees to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a twelve-month period for specified family and medical reasons. Yet despite widespread rhetoric about promoting family values, many "reforms," such as welfare reform, weakened social supports for families. Whether the early twenty-first century will witness a wave of family-related reforms comparable to the Progressive Era remains to be seen.
http://hsc.csu.edu.au/pta/scansw/vietnam2.html
Khái quát về lịch sử:
“…chúng ta nên gắn kết sự phát triển của dân tộc Việt Nam với sự phát triển của đất nước và xã hội Việt Nam. Những yêu cầu nội tại của xã hội Việt Nam và chính bản thân những người Viêt Nam trong mỗi giai đoạn lịch sử được đánh giá một cách khoa học như là nền tảng cho sự hiểu biết và phân tích gia đình người Việt Nam.”
“Những thay đổi đối với gia đình, tế bào hay đơn vị cơ bản cấu thành xã hội, không thể được tách rời khỏi những thay đổi của dân tộc và đất nước.”
--Le Thi, Vai trò của gia đình trong sự hình thành nhân cách con nguời Việt Nam
Gia đình trong phạm vi nền văn minh Việt Nam:
Có hai thời kỳ chính của ‘nền văn minh’ trong lịch sử Việt Nam
- Nông nghiệp
- Công nghiệp và Hậu công nghiệp
Nông Nghiệp
Trong thời kỳ này gia đình có một số đặc điểm:
- Hôn nhân do cha mẹ áp đặt
- Sở thích cá nhân phải phục tùng sở thích của gia đình
- Con trai được đề cao
- Thờ cúng ông bà được chú trọng
- Con cái phải làm việc sớm
- Gia đình phải cung cấp sự quan tâm giáo dục đến người bệnh và người già
- Gia đình thường đông người
- Tỷ lệ trẻ sơ sinh tử vong cao và tuổi thọ trung bình thấp
Công nghiệp - hậu công nghiệp
- Quá trình đô thị hóa phát triển
- Phụ nữ tham gia sản xuất
- Hôn nhân do cá nhân tự quyết định tăng
- Hạnh phúc và sở thích cá nhân được quan tâm nhiều hơn
- Xã hội có vai trò tích cực hơn trong những vấn đề về gia đình
- Gia đình một thế hệ trở nên phổ biến hơn
- Ly dị tăng
- Các dạng gia đình không theo truyền thống tăng
- Tầng lớp trí thức phát triển
Cả hai hình thức chủ yếu của nền văn minh này hiện vẫn còn tồn tại ở Việt Nam. Tuy vẫn còn là một nước nông nghiệp (85%), nhưng từ khi có chính sách Đổi Mới (đổi mới kinh tế), công nghiệp hóa và đô thị hóa đã tiến triển. Việt Nam hiện đang đối đầu với tình trạng nhập cư khổng lồ và không kiểm soát được vào thành thị, cho dù chính phủ đã có những cố gắng nhằm hạn chế luồng nhập cư. Mức sống ở thành phố và những tác động văn hoá khác nhau đang đưa đến và làm gia tăng sự phân cực của đất nước thành hai khu vực thành thị và nông thôn.
Sự phát triển của gia đình Việt Nam trong bối cảnh lịch sử:
Có năm giai đoạn lịch sử chính đáng quan tâm:
- Gia đình trước thời kỳ Pháp thuộc
- Gia đình trong thời kỳ Pháp thuộc
- Gia đình trong thời kỳ 30 năm đấu tranh Giải Phóng Dân Tộc
- Gia đình trong giai đoạn cải tổ xã hội chủ nghĩa
- Gia đình trong thời kỳ Đổi Mới
Sự Cải Tiến Đất Nước hay Đổi Mới
… Đảng đã đề ra một loạt những cải tiến với tên gọi Đổi mới hoặc cải cách kinh tế. Những cải tổ này nhằm vào việc giới thiệu chủ nghĩa xã hội thị trường. Thuật ngữ này ngụ ý sự tiếp tục kiểm soát của Đảng Cộng Sản đối với đất nước Việt Nam đi đôi với sự phát triển của nền kinh tế thị trường kiểu phương Tây.
Sự chấp nhận chính sách Đổi mới đã dẫn tới xã hội Việt Nam phải chịu hàng loạt tác động mới. Đó là: công nghiệp hóa, Tây phương hoá, hiện đại hóa, chủ nghĩa cá nhân, và chủ nghĩa tư bản. Tất cả những yếu tố này tạo nên ảnh hưởng sâu sắc đến bản chất gia đình Việt Nam.
Hôn nhân: Những biến đổi trong giai đoạn này dẫn đến một số thay đổi về cấu trúc và bản chất truyền thống của hôn nhân. Hôn nhân vẫn được xem là thành tố quan trọng cấu thành nên xã hội Việt Nam, mặc dù có những ảnh hưởng của sự Tây phương hoá và những ý kiến có vẻ Tây hóa, một số người ở Việt Nam vẫn sống chung như vợ chồng trước khi kết hôn. Giới trẻ Việt Nam ngày nay có quyền lựa chọn bạn đời cho mình nhưng việc này hiếm khi xảy ra nếu không có sự đồng ý của cha mẹ. Sự đồng ý của cha mẹ đặc biệt quan trọng vì cha mẹ phải chịu gánh nặng lo chi phí cưới xin cho con cái. Trong nhiều trường hợp, sự xuất hiện của chủ nghĩa tư bản đã dẫn tới sự gia tăng về mức sống và bản chất phức tạp của những nghi lễ cưới xin của người Việt.
“Giới trẻ Việt Nam ngày nay tỏ ra rất trưởng giả. Họ luôn tiêu tốn nhiều tiền cho đám cưới của họ.” --Phuong Ha
“…ngày nay người ta có nhiều tiền hơn trước và họ chi nhiều hơn cho việc cưới xin” --Nguyen Trung Kien
Sự đô thị hóa dẫn đến sự gia tăng về tỷ lệ ly dị và ngoại tình, nhân tố gây nên những mâu thuẫn trong gia đình. Song song đó, một nghiên cứu gần đây đã đưa ra bằng chứng rõ ràng về sự gia tăng bạo hành trong gia đình ở Việt Nam. Đây không phải là một hiện tượng mới đối với xã hội Việt Nam, cũng không phải là kết quả của những ảnh hưởng có tính chất biến đổi ở Việt Nam. Tuy nhiên, từ khi có chính sách Đổi Mới sự công khai điều tra và giải quyết những vấn đề xã hội ngày càng tăng.
Những thay đổi trong quan niệm hôn nhân không dẫn đến sự gia tăng đáng kể về số người chung sống với nhau như vợ chồng, tuy nhiên cũng có sự gia tăng đáng lưu tâm về
số người vừa mới kết hôn nhưng họ chọn cuộc sống riêng tách khỏi gia đình. 77,3% những cặp vợ chồng mới cưới thích ra riêng hơn trong khi 89,1% phụ nữ độc thân thích sống độc lập hơn là sống chung với gia đình chồng.
Chủ nghĩa tư bản cũng làm thay đổi nhận thức của nhiều cặp vợ chồng trẻ. Một cuộc thăm dò ý kiến gần đây trong phóng sự Nhìn Lại Đầu tư Việt Nam do báo Thanh Niên thực hiện cho biết 33,7% của những cặp vợ chồng được thăm dò ý kiến cho rằng sự gắn kết gia đình là nhân tố quan trọng của hạnh phúc gia đình, trong khi đó tình dục chỉ chiếm 27%. Ở những khu vực thành thị, nghiên cứu cho thấy giới trẻ Việt Nam
kéo dài thời gian chờ đợi trước khi kết hôn và có xu hướng quan hệ tình dục trước hôn nhân. Tuy nhiên bản chất gia trưởng của gia đình vẫn còn tồn tại. Ngoại trừ những trường hợp cả hai vợ chồng đều đi làm, đàn ông dành trung bình 48 phút một ngày để làm công việc nhà, trong khi đó thời gian làm những công việc này của phụ nữ là 3 giờ 9 phút.
Cấu trúc của gia đình: Trong những năm gần đây Việt Nam đã gặp phải những trở ngại với luồng dân di cư không kiểm soát được từ nông thôn ra thành thị. Sự thành thị hóa ngày càng tăng này của Việt Nam đã dẫn đến sự thay đổi trong cấu trúc gia đình. Kiểu gia đình một thế hệ của phương Tây đang trở nên ngày càng phổ biến hơn ở Việt Nam. Một cuộc điều tra ở Hà Nội năm 1995 cho thấy những gia đình một thế hệ chiếm 66% tổng số tất cả các kiểu gia đình trong khi kiểu gia đình ba thế hệ như truyền thống chỉ chiếm 33%.
Luồng di cư ra thành thị cũng dẫn đến sự phân tán của gia đình ở những vùng nông thôn khi những thanh niên trẻ rời bỏ cha mẹ, ông bà của họ và chuyển đến thành phố. Mối quan hệ cha mẹ - con cái cũng bị tác động. Sự phát triển của gia đình có hai nguồn thu nhập tăng gấp đôi thường đi kèm với sự di chuyển đến thành phố. Điều này đã đặt ra những sức ép mới lên vai trò và giá trị của gia đình truyền thống. Sự thành thị hóa cũng đưa đến việcvào những thành viên trong đại gia đình ít phụ thuộc lẫn nhau và các gia đình không còn trông đợi vào sự hỗ trợ của cộng đồng. Câu cách ngôn “nhiều con nhiều của” đang bị đe dọa không những từ sự gia tăng đô thị hoá mà còn trong những nỗ lực của chính phủ nhằm hạn chế dân số đang tăng của Việt Nam bằng chính sách hai con.
Một hậu quả khác của chủ nghĩa tư bản và sự chênh lệch giữa nông thôn và thành thị dẫn đến sự phân tán của nhiều gia đình ở nông thôn khi mà họ gởi con cái của họ lên thành phố tìm việc làm để phụ thêm cho thu nhập gia đình. Điều này đưa đến những vấn đề nghiêm trọng ở những thành phố lớn về trẻ em đường phố và tình trạng vô gia cư. Tuy nhiên, nhiều kiểu gia đình không truyền thống đã phát triển ở thành phố. Nhiều thanh niên cùng thuộc một giáo phái ở những thành phố thiết lập gia đình theo cùng một tôn giáo, sống chung với nhau, chú ý đến lợi ích của nhau và thường thể hiện vai trò truyền thống của gia đình còn sót lại ở nông thôn.
Sư thay đổi về vai trò của giới tính: Mặcdùchính sách Đổi Mới đã mở ra nhiều cơ hội cho người Việt Nam, những cơ hội này vẫn chưa được phân bố đều giữa hai giới. Việt Nam là quốc gia mà vai trò của giới tính đang trải qua những chuyển đổi to lớn. Tuy vậy những cơ hội mới dành cho phụ nữ đã tạo mâu thuẫn với những vai trò truyền thống mà chúng có thể thường là nguyên nhân gây ra những mối lo âu và áp lực lớn. Nam giới vẫn giữ nguyên ý kiến cho rằng họ hơn hẳn phụ nữ và vai trò của phụ nữ là “phục tùng”.
Vai trò truyền thống trông nom nhà cửa hoàn toàn mâu thuẫn với việc một bộ phận lớn phụ nữ đang làm việc 8 tiếng một ngày ngoài xã hội. Phụ nữ thường làm cùng một công việc với cùng một mức lương như nam giới và họ sẽ có nhiều quyết định không phụ thuộc vào gia đình, nhưng khi ở nhà họ được kỳ vọng là không được quyết định điều gì và tiếp tục vai trò truyền thống của họ. Phụ nữ ngày càng lên tiếng nhiều hơn cho những yêu cầu của họ nhằm đạt được sự bình đẳng. Những ý kiến này đang được phản ảnh bằng sự tham gia của phụ nữ trong Quốc Hội. Cuối năm 1997, 26,7% thành viên của Quốc Hội là phụ nữ.
Chapter 6 – Adding another Dimension with Pictures :
Borrow a digital camera again. As a class, take a tour of your community. Take some more representative pictures of all that informs your lifelong learning experience. On and around the EMU campus, students might well take pictures of both agricultural and industrial occupations, historical and cultural aspects of the Shenandoah Valley, or typical parts of campus life – athletics, dorm life, theater, chapel, musical performances, art exhibits, and ultimate Frisbee on the front lawn. On and around the AGU campus, students could explore the river life of catfish houses, the history of Tiger Island, the local and city market, the paddies of rice farmers, as well as typical aspects of campus life – football, dorm life, performances and exhibits, and sipping café sua da along the streets. On and around the Iranian campuses that are just beginning to sample the possibilities of IC3 learning. Qom is a rich, historical, and holy city. In the same way, follow your imagination (and our IC3 web template) to capture with the digital camera some images that could begin to open up your world for Vietnamese and American students.
Edit to the 200 x 200 pixel limit. Edit the IC3 Profiles to include this increasingly “three-dimensional” portrait of others participating in this learning platform.
Use “Spell and Grammar Check” to edit your writing.
Searching the Internet
When searching the Internet for information, it is important to remember that not everything that appears in the search results is completely accurate. Even though the Internet is an amazing resource, there is still a lot of false information and junk out there as well. Be very critical when reading websites until you know exactly who is responsible for publishing the website. It is generally acceptable to assume that universities, international organizations, newspapers, governments, businesses will all be accurate sources of information. Personal websites should be regarded with a bit more caution. This exercise will show you some of the differences between trustworthy websites and those that are not as accurate.
- Open the Internet.
- In the web-address bar at the top of the page enter www.google.com . This should bring up Google, one of the world’s most used search engines.
Search engines are websites that allow you to search the entire World Wide Web quickly by entering a few key words or phrases. - In the search box enter the words “dihydrogen monoxide” and click on the “Google Search” button below the box.
- A page full of links to other websites should have appeared on the screen. We want to look at the second one on the page titled “Facts About Dihdrogen Monoxide” so click on that link and take a moment to skim over the new page.
- Notice that this page is all about the dangers of a substance called dihydrogen monoxide. It sounds like an awful substance if it is so dangerous to people and so commonly used. And if it is so bad for us why haven’t we been told about it before?
This website is actually very inaccurate. It was created as a joke. The substance known as dihydrogen monoxide is actually water. Even though it looks professional, the information is twisted. This is an example of why we should be very critical of websites that we read.
- Go back to www.google.com and this time type “UN” in the search box and press the “Google Search” button.
- Click on the first link on the list and you will be taken to the United Nations’ website. Click on the word “Welcome” and you will be taken to another page with more links to UN sponsored websites.
- Click on the words “About the United Nations” on the left-hand side of the page and then take a moment to explore some of the links there that will let you find out more about the United Nations. Try clicking on “UN History” or “Basic Facts About the UN.” These websites are very trustworthy. The UN is a respectable source of information. Notice some of the differences between this website and the website about dihydrogen monoxide.
- Other websites that are commonly used for searching the Internet include www.yahoo.com and www.askjeeves.com . Visit these websites and practice searching for topics that interest you.
Taking It Further (Journal Writing, Extra Assignments, Special Explorations, Creative Endeavors):
I These exercises draw upon an article from “Good touring; Vietnam,”
U.S. News and World Report, February 14, 2005 by Vicky Hallett.
Example: It is important to look _________ the future while trying to make the most of the present.
- A. within
- B. behind
- C. toward
- D across
The best answer is C
Now begin the work on the questions
1. More than 270,000 Americans tourists ________ to Vietnam in 2004.
- A. traveling
- B. traveled
- C. to travel
- D. for travel
2. Let’s Go, the backpacker-friendly travel series, just _______ its first Vietnam guide to help out tourists seeding a good time on inexpensively.
- A. publish
- B. publishes
- C. published
- D. to publish
3. Vietnamese tourists _________ to see that Vietnam, like the United States, has moved on.
- A. may be surprised
- B. to be surprised
- C. surprising
- D. may be surprise
4. Still, some of the most popular spots ___________ the conflict.
- A. to connect to
- B. connecting
- C. is connected
- D. are connected to
5. About an hour from HCMC, the Cu Chi tunnels, part of the vast underground network ________ the Viet Cong to infiltrate enemy lines, are now a tourist attraction.
- A. developing
- B. developed by
- C. to develop
- D. develop by
6. The main draw is the subterranean complex of kitchens, medical operating rooms, and other nooks the Viet Cong ______ for years.
- A. will live in
- B. to live in
- C. lived in
- D. to living
7. American tourists ______ too bulky to fit through the openings, so a few of the passages have been widened to allow them to experience the claustrophobia for themselves.
- A. can be
- B. being
- C. been
- D. to be
8. The real allure of Vietnam, though, ________ culture, which had been shielded from western influence until quite recently.
- A. is it’s
- B. is an
- C. they are by
- D. the
9. Early mornings in Hanoi, the nation’s capital, the entire city seems to flock to the banks of serene Hoan Kiem Lake ________ tai chi before a breakfast of pho, a noodle soup.
- A. which practicing
- B. practiced
- C. for practice
- D. to practice
10. Vietnam has exquisite landscapes with endless green rice paddies, rural agrarian people _______ welcome visitors as exotic beings, beaches that are quaint without being overdeveloped into resorts.
- A. to whom
- B. who
- C. of which
- D. which
Directions: In questions 11-15 each sentence has four bold type words or phrases. Consider the first bold type word to be A, the second one B, the third one C, and the fourth one D. Choose the one word or phrase that must be changed in order for the sentence to be correct.
Example:Watching the children scampered over the rocks reminded me of my own childhood.
The sentence should read, “Watching the children scampering over the rocks reminded me of my own childhood.” Therefore, you should choose B.
11. It is hard for tourists to master the Vietnamese art form of street crossing, which requires them to believe there be no need for crosswalks or traffic signals.
12. The road may look like an unending rivers of bicycles, motorbikes , cars, and pedicabs.
13. But when pedestrian step off the curb and walk at a steady pace, the objects in the road magically swirl around them in an impromptu ballet.
14. The best way to relax after experiencing the sights and sounds of Vietnamare a full-body massage for about $10.
Best Answers to Guiding Questions: After you have completed the Reading, Listening/Speaking, and Writing chapters 6, how would you answer the following question?
Guiding Question:
What are the priorities of a developing country in its course of renovation?
Câu hỏi hướng dẫn:
Các nước đang phát triển phải ưu tiên những gì trong công cuộc đổi mới của mình?