Reach for the Star | Does capitalism need the family?

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Connect & Check → Share → Present → Apply → Recall & Review

Explain the key concepts, apply them accurately to the supplied case and answer the enquiry with a qualified, evidence-led judgement. Use fictional examples. You do not need to disclose personal experiences.

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Recall and connect

Retrieve the previous lesson, then record a view you can revisit.

Missed the preparation? Read the recap

Why does a useful contribution not prove necessity? Alternative arrangements may make the same contribution. What is an unequal family burden? A cost, such as unpaid care or forgone work, that is not shared evenly. Why should we ask who benefits from an institution? An arrangement can serve some interests more strongly than others.

R1 Why does a useful contribution not prove necessity?

Check an explanation after your attempt

Alternative arrangements may make the same contribution.

R2 What is an unequal family burden?

Check an explanation after your attempt

A cost, such as unpaid care or forgone work, that is not shared evenly.

R3 Starting judgement: “Anything that benefits capitalism must have been deliberately designed by capitalists.” Explain your view.

Engels: property and inheritance

Engels linked the development of particular family arrangements to private property and the transmission of wealth through male lines. This is a historical Marxist argument about ownership and class relations. It should not be presented as a proven universal account of all family origins. Its analytical question remains useful: how can transfers within families help preserve the advantages of property owners?

Open the vocabulary reference

Capitalism: An economic system centred on private ownership and production for profit.
Bourgeoisie: In Marxist theory, the class owning major means of production.
Proletariat: In Marxist theory, the class dependent on selling its labour power.
Means of production: Resources and equipment used to produce goods and services.
Private property: Assets controlled by particular owners rather than held in common.
Inheritance: Transfer of property or wealth after an owner’s death.
Labour power: A person’s capacity to work, sold for wages in Marxist analysis.
Social reproduction: Processes that sustain people, relationships and social arrangements over time.
Ideology: Ideas that may present a social arrangement as natural or legitimate.
Legitimation: Making an arrangement appear justified or acceptable.
Consumption: Use or purchase of goods and services.
Commodity: A good or service produced for exchange.
Class reproduction: Processes through which class advantages and disadvantages persist.
Economic dependence: Reliance on another person or institution for material resources.
Emotional support: Care that may help someone handle feelings and tensions.
Determinism: An explanation treating outcomes as fixed by one set of forces.

D1 Explain how inheritance may reproduce a property-owning advantage.

Check an explanation after your attempt

Assets passed to children give them access to resources others may lack. Ownership can persist across generations even when heirs did not create the original wealth.

D2 Why is Engels’s account an argument to evaluate rather than a universal fact?

Check an explanation after your attempt

Its claims concern historical development across societies and depend on evidence and assumptions. Different histories or counterexamples can challenge its scope.

Zaretsky: private life and capitalism

Zaretsky examines the relationship between capitalist production and apparently private family life. Families may offer emotional relief from pressures experienced in paid work, while unpaid domestic activity helps sustain workers. This can support the continuation of wage labour. The argument does not require all family members to intend to serve employers, and it does not mean affection is unreal.

Open the vocabulary reference

Capitalism: An economic system centred on private ownership and production for profit.
Bourgeoisie: In Marxist theory, the class owning major means of production.
Proletariat: In Marxist theory, the class dependent on selling its labour power.
Means of production: Resources and equipment used to produce goods and services.
Private property: Assets controlled by particular owners rather than held in common.
Inheritance: Transfer of property or wealth after an owner’s death.
Labour power: A person’s capacity to work, sold for wages in Marxist analysis.
Social reproduction: Processes that sustain people, relationships and social arrangements over time.
Ideology: Ideas that may present a social arrangement as natural or legitimate.
Legitimation: Making an arrangement appear justified or acceptable.
Consumption: Use or purchase of goods and services.
Commodity: A good or service produced for exchange.
Class reproduction: Processes through which class advantages and disadvantages persist.
Economic dependence: Reliance on another person or institution for material resources.
Emotional support: Care that may help someone handle feelings and tensions.
Determinism: An explanation treating outcomes as fixed by one set of forces.

D3 Explain how unpaid domestic activity could sustain wage labour.

Check an explanation after your attempt

Preparing food and organising care can help workers recover and attend employment. The activity supports labour power without the employer providing all of that support directly.

D4 Why does emotional support not have to be deliberately pro-capitalist?

Check an explanation after your attempt

People may act from affection. An activity can have wider economic effects that its participants neither intend nor consciously endorse.

Consumption and ideology

Family households are important sites of purchasing and consumption. Advertising may connect goods with ideas about successful care or family life, encouraging spending. A Marxist analysis also asks how everyday expectations can make hierarchy or unequal ownership appear normal. These are possible mechanisms, not proof that every purchase or act of socialisation reproduces capitalism. Resistance and alternative values remain possible.

Open the vocabulary reference

Capitalism: An economic system centred on private ownership and production for profit.
Bourgeoisie: In Marxist theory, the class owning major means of production.
Proletariat: In Marxist theory, the class dependent on selling its labour power.
Means of production: Resources and equipment used to produce goods and services.
Private property: Assets controlled by particular owners rather than held in common.
Inheritance: Transfer of property or wealth after an owner’s death.
Labour power: A person’s capacity to work, sold for wages in Marxist analysis.
Social reproduction: Processes that sustain people, relationships and social arrangements over time.
Ideology: Ideas that may present a social arrangement as natural or legitimate.
Legitimation: Making an arrangement appear justified or acceptable.
Consumption: Use or purchase of goods and services.
Commodity: A good or service produced for exchange.
Class reproduction: Processes through which class advantages and disadvantages persist.
Economic dependence: Reliance on another person or institution for material resources.
Emotional support: Care that may help someone handle feelings and tensions.
Determinism: An explanation treating outcomes as fixed by one set of forces.

D5 Explain a consumption mechanism using an original example.

Check an explanation after your attempt

An advert equating an expensive device with good parenting may encourage household purchases. Sales can benefit producers; families can also question the message or choose differently.

D6 Distinguish ideology from a neutral list of beliefs.

Check an explanation after your attempt

The Marxist question concerns how ideas may legitimise unequal arrangements, for example presenting inherited advantage as wholly deserved. Not every belief necessarily serves that role.

Apply the evidence

Fictional case: In the Rowan household, a parent transfers shares to an adult child through inheritance. Another adult prepares meals and coordinates care around a worker’s shifts. A company advertises a costly device as essential for a successful family. The child questions whether inherited wealth is entirely earned. These details are invented to compare Marxist mechanisms and possible resistance.

Adults examining materials together; their relationships and reasons are not established. — Identify what is visible and what needs further evidence.

A1 Describe what is visible in the photograph. What further evidence would be needed to apply this lesson’s concepts?

Check an explanation after your attempt

Adults are examining materials together. The image does not establish family ties, beliefs, gender identity or the reasons for their actions. Use participant accounts or relevant contextual evidence before applying the theory.

A2 Explain inheritance and social reproduction using different Rowan details.

Optional scaffold

Name the concept → select a precise case detail → explain the connection → state what the detail cannot establish. Rehearse aloud, then write independently.

Check an explanation after your attempt

Passing shares can preserve ownership advantages. Meals and care may sustain a worker’s capacity to sell labour. These are distinct property and labour-power mechanisms.

A3 Apply consumption or ideology, then identify a limit in the case.

Optional scaffold

Name the concept → select a precise case detail → explain the connection → state what the detail cannot establish. Rehearse aloud, then write independently.

Check an explanation after your attempt

The advert may encourage spending by defining successful family life through goods. The child’s questioning shows that people need not simply accept ideas legitimising inherited wealth.

Challenge and judge

Make a precise claim, connect it to evidence and state its limits.

C1 Does showing a benefit to capitalism prove that only families can provide it?

Check an explanation after your attempt

No. Other arrangements can provide meals, care or emotional support. Establishing necessity requires evidence that alternatives cannot perform the contribution.

C2 Improve: “All families deliberately train children to accept capitalism.”

Optional scaffold

Name the concept → select a precise case detail → explain the connection → state what the detail cannot establish. Rehearse aloud, then write independently.

Check an explanation after your attempt

Some family practices may normalise hierarchy or property relations, but intention and acceptance must be investigated. Families can teach critical or cooperative values as well.

Prove: retrieval check

Answer without notes, then check explanations. Retry after correcting insecure ideas. This is separate from the 15-mark mini-test.

Q1. Which meaning best fits capitalism? Transfer of property or wealth after an owner’s death. An economic system centred on private ownership and production for profit. Making an arrangement appear justified or acceptable.

Q2. Which meaning best fits private property? Making an arrangement appear justified or acceptable. Reliance on another person or institution for material resources. Assets controlled by particular owners rather than held in common.

Q3. Which meaning best fits social reproduction? Processes that sustain people, relationships and social arrangements over time. Processes through which class advantages and disadvantages persist. An economic system centred on private ownership and production for profit.

Q4. Which meaning best fits consumption? An explanation treating outcomes as fixed by one set of forces. Use or purchase of goods and services. Resources and equipment used to produce goods and services.

Q5. If family support helps a worker return to work, must the carer intend to protect capitalism? Yes: every social effect must be intended. No: purposes and wider effects can differ. The question can be answered from a person’s appearance alone.

Q6. What can the supplied fictional case establish? It proves what all UK families do. It establishes a causal law without further evidence. It illustrates a mechanism to examine with further evidence.

Not marked.

Prove and improve

Complete retrieval, then write independently for eight minutes.

P1 Explain two ways families may support capitalism. [6 marks]

Success criteria

Develop two distinct points. For each, identify the concept, explain how it works and use an accurate example or comparison relevant to the question. Extended writing needs teacher review. No automatic mark is given.

P2 Identify the two points in your response. Improve one missing explanation or example.

P3 Return to R3. Give a qualified judgement and identify one piece of evidence still needed.

Prepare for Lesson 11

Read the three short passages and answer the preparation questions.

Follow the mechanism

Class reproduction requires an explanation of how resources affect opportunities. A gift can pay a housing deposit, reduce immediate insecurity or fund training. An inheritance may add assets that generate further returns. Wealth is a stock and income is a flow; they are not interchangeable. A family’s support can matter even when two young adults have similar current wages.

Two connected concepts

Economic resources: Income, savings, property and other material assets. Wealth: The value of assets owned, allowing for relevant debts.

A question to bring

Distinguish wealth from income with an original example. A person can earn a monthly wage but own few assets; another may have modest current income but substantial property or savings. The first is a flow, the second a stock.

F1 Summarise the main idea in the first passage in one or two sentences.

Check an explanation after your attempt

A person can earn a monthly wage but own few assets; another may have modest current income but substantial property or savings. The first is a flow, the second a stock.

F2 Define economic resources and give an original fictional example.

F3 What evidence would you need to test the opening claim? Retrieve two current-lesson concepts tomorrow and next week.

Your progress summary

Completion records attempts, not correctness. Review your extended response with a teacher and use the feedback to choose your next practice.

Restore a backup

Choose a previously exported L010 JSON file. You will be asked before it replaces current answers.

Resource: RFTS-AQA-AL-SOC-7192-FAM-L010 · v1.0. Original Reach for the Star learning resource. The six-mark task is a classroom bridge assessment, not an official AQA Paper 2 format. Teacher mark guidance is supplied separately.