The Children of Hobbes: Education, Family Structure and the Problem of Social Order

This article suggests that the problem of social order remains a basic theoretical and practical issue for sociologists. It maintains that Dennis Wrong's discussion of this problem can help us conceptualize degrees of social order or disorder as emerging from patterns of social interactions. Given the increasing prevalence of single-parent families as an American social pattern, the article investigates the possibility that family structure may influence school outcomes by producing varying levels of social order in schools. Specifically, it looks at whether concentrations of students from single-parent families may lead to conflictual environments that can influence the school performance of all students, regardless of individual family backgrounds.