Personal understandings and cultural conceptions of family in European societies

Abstract

Family lives in Europe have undergone considerable changes during the past decades. These changes have made it difficult or even impossible to grasp what people mean by 'a family' in their everyday life by an objective, predefined set of criteria. Marriage, a couple relationship, parent-child relationships based on shared bio-genetic substance, a shared household or functions such as reproduction or primary socialisation remain important characteristics of some of the most frequent family forms. However, against the background of an increasing destandardisation of family trajectories, growing importance of family ties across households, complex stepfamily constellations, advanced reproductive technology and negotiated gender relations, they do not hold up as definitions for the family as such.

Perceptions of the 'Proper Family' in Palestinian-Arab Society in Israel as Reflected in Family Members' Drawings

“…Another interesting finding is related to the particular images indicating "proper families," as seen in the drawings: family members are depicted smiling, holding hands, and surrounded by consumer symbols (e.g., hearts and balloons). According to Lück and Castrén (2018), these objects symbolize the quality of relationships. In addition, following Illouz (2002), the secularization process of love, which Western society had undergone at the beginning of the 20 th century, has been influential in connecting consumerism to emotions.…”

“…"Images are inextricably tied up with our daily life, personal identities, narratives, lifestyles, cultures and societies" (Dipesh, 2015, p. 147), as the drawings of our study richly reflect. Our study contributes to the sociology of the family by identifying the images that people recognize as those of "proper families" (e.g., Lück & Castrén, 2018).…”

“…In their previous study about families in Germany, Lück and Castrén (2018) claimed that in the drawings, the quality of relationships is very often symbolized by family members holding each other's hands as well as by smiling faces, a sun symbolizing happiness or a heart representing love. Similarly, in the present study, in most of the drawings, family members were smiling, and in many of them, they were holding hands.…”

“…Analyzing the change in the Palestinian-Arab family in comparison to other European societies has made it difficult and even impossible to grasp what 'family' means in their everyday life by an objective, pre-defined set of criteria (Lück & Castrén, 2018). The aim of the present study is to examine the various voices of the 'proper family' perceptions as they are expressed through drawings done by Palestinian-Arab women and men in Israel.…”

Family resilience in stressful situations of disability in foreign studies

“…В зарубежной литературе разворачиваются дискуссии относительно смысла, значимости и даже целесообразности использования самого термина «семья» [2; 27; 40]. Так, Д. Люк, А-М Кастрен считают, что в настоящее время семью следует понимать как «размытое» социальное явление, которое включает в себя широкий спектр вариаций, как на межличностном, так и на межкультурном уровнях [27], а Б.М. Алекс Бейкер, ссылаясь на данные переписи 2014 года в Америке, отметил, что большинство американских семей не идентифицируют себя с традиционным семейным архетипом [2].…”