Working Class Families: Consciousness and Ideology

Progressive & Marxist scholars have neglected the family, leaving its analysis to bourgeois social scientists & positivists. Family life is of enormous importance to the Brazilian worker, but it is based on traditional values, with the woman kept in the home & children expected to be obedient to the father. It is proposed that the Wc family be studied as a unit for the reproduction of the LF, as an income producing unit, as a manpower allocation unit, & as a unit that produces goods for family consumption. The sexual DofL in the family must be seen in this context. The family should also be studied as a nucleus for the reproduction of images & representations of society. It is within the family that the worker expresses his anxieties & frustrations. It is through family life that the worker determines his position in society by reflecting on his access to consumer goods in relation to his participation in the structure of economic production. Family life histories & family aspirations for offspring are basic references for the interpretation of the historical process as workers experience it. Modified HA.