Family and socialization in cross-cultural perspective: a model of change

Abstract

I have attempted to cover some aspects of the rather disjointed interdisciplinary field of family and socialization from a cross-cultural perspective. The coverage has necessarily been incomplete and selective, focusing mainly on intergenerational family interactions along the dependence/independence dimension, working toward a model of family change. I started out with an observation that psychology has not concerned itself much with holistic study of the family or the complex socialization process, especially within a cross-cultural perspective, even though some of the main models of person-environment relations at its disposal are appropriate for such study. With the recently increasing acceptance and use of the ecological and contextual models in coverging interdisciplinary approaches, the time may be ripe for cross-cultural theorizing on the family and socialization. The contextual approach to socially defined meaning is a key in such an endeavor to develop a thorough understanding of family diversity. Such an approach goes beyond simple description of cross-cultural differences and explains what meanings are attributed to events and how similar behaviors may be given different meanings in different contexts or how apparently contrasting behaviors may carry common meanings and lead to common outcomes. Family diversity in parental beliefs and values, parent-child interactions, and social class and family types can be better understood with such a contextual approach, where structural-functional links between underlying causes and behavioral outcomes are sought. Macro-level explanations such as industrialization, economic development models, and political/religious ideologies are often proposed to explain human diversity. What seem to be lacking are psychological models with cross-cultural validity that can tackle both human diversity and commonality. The (inter)dependence/independence dimension of human (family) relations is proposed as a psychological parameter that is independent of socioeconomic development levels and such and that has the potential to be the basis of a psychological explanation. There appears to be systematic cross-cultural variation along this dimension, and a number of assumptions prevail about shifts on this dimension through both time and space. The main assumption of unidirectional change toward the Western ideal-typical model of human (family) independence is challenged by much conflicting evidence including that on the American family. Some of the findings of the cross-cultural Value of Children Study also throw light on this issue, so that material and emotional interdependencies can be differentiated. I next proposed a heuristic model of family change comprising three ideal-typical patterns.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)