Understanding the Concept of Family Author(s): Irene Levin and Jan Trost Reviewed work(s): Source: Family Relations,

Vol. 41, No. 3 (Jul., 1992), pp. 348-351 Published by: National Council on Family Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/585202 . Accessed: 08/11/2011 03:48
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Understandingthe Concept of Family

Irene Levin and Jan Trost*

This articlepresents a programto help students, independentof level, understandthe complexityof the concept of family.The mean when they talkabout or thinkabout theirown family.The second section Whatindividuals firstsection deals with "myfamily". mean when they use the termfamilymore generally,not specifyingtheirown. The third deals withany family:Whatindividuals section deals withthe theoreticalway of conceptualizing family.Different the ways of teachingabout the idea or concept of familyare suggested and learningby doing is emphasized.

e all know what is family. Don't

we?

A young unmarried Sami woman was pregnant and went to her local midwife in northern Norway to deliver. (The Sami are the ethnic group previously called Lapps.) Among other things the midwife asked who the father-to-be was. The answer was: "My nephew." The midwife became upset. According to her perspective, a sexual relation between an aunt and a nephew was incest. The Sami woman noticed the confusion of the midwife, and she calmed her down by explaining that he was not really a nephew. One of her siblings was a godparent to the father-to-be and, according to Sami law, this defines a nephew. A godparent is a parent, and a sibling's male offspring is a nephew (Erke, 1986)-very simple. To be honest, aren't we all somewhat like the midwife when we relate to the concept of family? We all have our own conceptualization of our own family and at the same time we believe that we know what family is and even what the family is. Therefore, when teaching about family matters, it is essential to be aware of the apparent contradiction between personal perspectives and "scientific knowledge."

household?," the simple answer is that "it's up to you" and the original question is repeated without any reformulations. Often the students will become somewhat frustrated. They easily realize that what they knew that they knew, is now suddenly not as clear and simple. Therefore, it might be advisable to add that there are no right or wrong answers to the question. It would also be a mistake to say that they thought they knew; they simply knew. To say that they thought that they knew indicates lack of empathy. Usually it is enough to allow 5 minutes for the students to answer and write down the names or relationships on a list. The idea of this exercise is to show varieties in how we define and conceptualize our own family. After they have finished the family lists, the students could be asked to share their own lists in class. By writing some lists on the board it becomes clear that the concept of family is not just one thing. This way a miniresearch project will also have been conducted with the students. Our experience is that the definition of family varies with the number of students participating. list and the disThis exercise-the cussion-usually takes an hour or more. The discussion will probably deal with issues such as whether deceased persons are or can be family members, or whether stepparents, friends, pets, God, music, in-laws can be family members. Of course, the answer is that the concept of family varies depending upon the person, the context, and the timing. If a person perceives the members of the household to constitute his/her family, then this is correct for him/her. If someone else perceives a good friend as a member of his/her family, this is also correct and nothing to be disputed, but could be discussed. If you would ask the students the same question next year, the individual answers will probably differ, but the variation will remain. By starting with an exercise, the teaching will be "learning by doing." To start with a more theoretical or traditional overview easily narrows and locks the FAMILYRELATIONS

minds of the students. It is important that the students' own experiences and imaginations agree with more theoretical issues. In a way, the result of the exercise could be understood "only"as the following sentence: The concept of family differs from person to person. Our position is that learning by doing is much better than just being informed about the variation. The understanding one achieves by finding out who one includes in one's family and by later comparing this definition with others, is on a different level of learning. Learning through experience is very different from just listening or reading others' positions. We have used this exercise with great success. Even those students who might not be interested in the topic, but are there only to fulfill a requirement, usually become interested. The family list is the first step in a research method developed by Levin (1990). However, it can be used in therapy as well as in education, as shown. When used for educational purposes the family list might be sufficient to show variety and to make the students interested. This part of the method can be used as indicated, but it can also be used as originally intended (i. e., as the first step, called the family list, to be followed by the second and the third step). The family list is followed by the family map. The informants are asked to place each family member symbolized by pieces of paper, circular for females and triangular for males, on a large sheet. We have used sheets of the approximate size of 20 inches by 20 inches. The family map can also be easily used in a classroom situation. Each participant is given a sheet together with a number of triangular

What Is My Family?
When you think of your family, whom do you think of? Would you, please, make a list of those who are in your family? This question is the very start of a course or a lecture on the theme of the family. It is important that the aim of the course is neither discussed nor mentioned prior to this beginning. By opening with an exercise, you get the participants actively involved from the beginning. Furthermore, such a start challenges their curiosity. In order to get each student's unbiased answer, the question is asked withIf the out any further introduction. students have questions like "Shall I include my folks?" or "Do you mean 348

*Irene Levin is at the Department of Social Work, Trondheim University and the Center for Women Research, Oslo University, Oslo, Norway. Jan Trost is in the Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, Sweden. Key Words: concept, definition, family, teaching. (Family Relations, 1992, 41, 348-351.)

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and circular small pieces of paper. The subjects are asked to place the pieces of paper on the sheet showing an image of their own family as listed. Now one can, if one wants, start a discussion on what these maps or images might mean: What do the distances mean? Emotional distance? Geographical distance? Relational distance? Or combinations?; What boundaries or borders are there? Some include only the nuclear family. Some are limited to the household. Some include only relatives by blood (consanguinity) and legal relationship (conjugality). Others include friends. Some include pets and so forth. What do these differences mean? Some might include one brother and not another one. Is the other brother excluded or just not included? Actively excluded? One could discuss whether there is a difference between being excluded and being not included, between actively excluded or just omitted. What would the list and the map have looked like a month ago? What might they look like a year from now? The concepts, here labeled inclusion, exclusion, and omission, are valuable when discussing an individual's conceptualization. For example, a middle-aged man might classify brothers as not belonging to his family. If he has brothers and if not one of them is in his family, he has just omitted them, they are not there. If one of them would be in his family, he would have included that brother (e.g., connected to frequent interaction). On the other side, if the man means that brothers belong to the family and if one of his brothers is not within his family, then he has excluded that brother (e.g., connected to dislike or lack of interaction). The third part of the method, the verbal interview has already been initiated. If the group is fairly big the above-indicated procedure could be used. If the group is small, let's say just a handful of persons, one can easily start an informal interview with one of the participants, and then later another one. Before doing so, one has to take the ethical concerns under consideration. What type of group is this? What is the aim of the course? Can we trust the students that they will not abuse the information about another student? Could revealing information about one's own family be too emotional to be handled in such a group? Our experience is that the problem is not to get the participants to open up, but for the teacher to decide what is the aim and how the information should be used. If the teacher feels free to open up and share, then usually the

transmitted to the students. In order to demonstrate that one can be open without any shame, the leader can make a picture on the blackboard of his/her own family. In Figure 1 an example from a person in a stepfamily is diagramed. Here is a woman who includes both her former husband and her present husband. In a cluster in the middle she puts the "real family," which means "the real, real closest." Those are her husband, her children from two marriages, her stepdaughter, her parents, and a brother. Then comes her current husband's kin, his father and his two brothers. As a third level she thought of her former husband's kin: "Something I will not call family, but still there are family-like feelings." She includes her former husband, his cohabitant, her present husband's former wife, and her former parents-in-law here. As a fourth level she has uncles, aunts, and cousins; "you are playing a game because you happened to be in the family-you meet at family parties and so on."

Figure 1. The FamilyMap at the Time of the

Interview

K~~~~~~~1 ~1

What Is A Family?
The family list and map present a good picture and understanding of what the individual's family looks like. This gives an excellent start to courses where one wants to discuss the issue of family. A different issue is what the individual means by the concept of family more generally. To find this, a one-page questionnaire with only one question is distributed. The question deals with the concept of family more generally and gives the students a number of groups or constellations to evaluate whether they are families or not: Which of the groups listed below do you yourself mean to be a family? Check in the square under "yes"if you mean that it is a family, and check in the square under "no"if you mean that it is not a family. The idea of a list of this sort is inspired by Gilby and Pedersen (1982). They use a list of constellations with children as subjects. However, their aim is different from ours. Their aim is to check whether the children are mature enough to know what a family is. We use the idea in order to find how people define the concept of family, not their own family but the concept more generally. What conceptualizations can be labeled as family by the individual? Is there a variation in the class or group taught? The list used by us could come next; it is shown in Table 1.

1. Woman/wife 2. Husband 3. Daughterfromearliermarriage 4. Son 5. Stepdaughter 6 and 7. Parents 8. Brother 9. Ex-husband 10. Ex-husband'snew partner 11 and 12. Ex-parents-in-law 13. Husband'sex-wife 14, 15, and 16. Husband'ssiblingsand wife 17. Husband'sfather 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23. Uncles and aunts 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28. Uncles, aunts, and
cousins

tionnaire was distributed by mail to a randomly selected and statistically representative sample of 1,500 men and women aged 20-59 years in the Uppsala province in Sweden; the sample was drawn from the population register. After some reminders, 948 returned the questionnaires properly answered. Thus, a response rate of 63%. The age and gender distribution of the final sample is the same as for the population in the area. As we can see from Table 1, there is a wide variety in what constellations or groups are considered family. The nuclear family, that is, a man and a woman living together (married or not) with a child, is classified as a family by almost all. The same holds true for quite a few in the case of Eva and Edvin, where their son Erik is included although he is not living in the parental home (his sister does, which indicates that Erik is fairly young). Had the item included information that Erik was married or cohabiting, we guess that many fewer would have classified the constellation as a family. There are many more implications to

students willfeel free to do so too. If the teacher, for example, shows that being divorcedis no shame, this attitudewill be
July 1992

To illustrate what sorts of variationin answer one could get, let us look at the data collected in a "real" study. A quesFAMILYRELATIONS

be discussed in class. For example:What mechanisms cause some to set the limit to being legally married while others include cohabitation and still others
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include divorced or separated couples? What mechanisms make some exclude same gender couples, while others do not? What would the implications be in various social settings? What would be the perspective if the respondents were immigration officers? How would they consider who would be family members? As a supervisor at work, would you give an employee permission to take a couple of days leave of absence for the illness of a friend as well as for a mother?

What Is The Family?

As Gubrium and Holstein (1990) did, we distinguish between a family and the family. They raise the same question: What is family? We (and our students) have now gone through conceptualizing their own family and family more generally. The next step would be to discuss what is more theoretically meant by the concept of family. Sometimes what is labeled as theoretical is based upon theories or theorizing. Sometimes the label is used for conceptualizations that are not connected to social reality or theories but to normative ideas or are, for example, legal or demographical "reality." Even these could be looked upon within the setting of a class. As demonstrated, individuals could have a variety of conceptualizations of family, for example, one for their own family of today, one for their own family in the near past, one for their family in the more distant past. We can also have a variety of more or less different perspectives of family generally. The individual's identity can be strongly connected to the perception of family membership, as shown here. The individual's interpersonal contacts and behavior can also reflect the definition of one's own family; for example, a friend can be included and a sibling can be excluded.

As family scholars we know that there is no unity whatsoever in our definitions of family. Settles (1987) even claims that "it is not likely that the job of specifying what is meant by family will progress rapidly. Consensus would be ... improbable for scholars" (p. 161). A possible way of reaching at least some consensus on a set of basic units for the various definitions of the concept of family is to build upon dyadic units (Trost, 1988). Most plausible and more or less self-evident are the spousal unit or the cohabitation unit and the parent-child unit or the childparent unit. The spousal unit as a term would be comprehensible to anyone in the field. But in some countries this term would not be enough to cover the concept. Therefore, the term cohabitation unit might be better for some; whereas, some would like to distinguish between marital and nonmarital cohabitation. For example, in countries marital the Scandinavian cohabitation and nonmarital cohabitation together would cover the concept of the basic "spousal" unit. In some countries it might not be reasonable to bother about nonmarital cohabitation units at all, while in still other countries the two terms would certainly have to be distinguished from each other because they stand for two very different concepts, not only legally but even socially. Whether using the term parent-child unit or child-parent unit could be a matter of taste. But the terminology chosen might also indicate something about the basic value structure of the user or even the theoretical or practical purpose. If we were children's ombudsmen we might chose the term child-parent unit, indicating our stand on the rights of the children. Thus, the choice of term would and could be determined by our more individually based paradigm connected to the conceptualization.

With these two concepts family could be defined as a social group consisting of at least one parent-child unit or at least one spousal unit. Those stressing the importance of the nuclear family would probably prefer to define family as a social group consisting of at least one spousal unit and at least two parent-child units (one child with two parents who also are each others' spouses). The latter would of course not be any problem for those using the term nuclear family the way Murdock (1949) did when introducing it on the societal level and not on the small group level. He defined nuclear family as an anthropologist classifying societies based upon the sole nuclear family or combinations of these units to form polygamous and extended families. The idea of defining family through a number of dyadic units or pairs would mean that one could analyze any sort of family-like group. There could be nieceaunt dyads, friend dyads, cousin dyads, grandmother-grandson dyads, and so forth. Almost any sort of household or family could be easily defined this way. This would be independent of whether we take the position of theorists, practitioners, lawyers, or individuals who form social reality. The discussions and the data in class, whether on the issue of the own family or the family generally, can be more easily comprehended and understood with the dyadic approach by Trost (1988, 1990a). Our perspective indicates that individuals can conceptualize family in their own way. Even if it is preferable for scholars, as lay persons we do not need to agree on what is family generally or what is our own family. From outside we can never decide what is family for a certain person. It is relatively easy to know who are members of the household but not the family.

Table 1. Percent who Classified Example as Family (N = 948) Example Percent 75 99 83 34 8 23 84 42 60 97 13 34 50 30 38 8 Anna and Anders are a middle-aged married couple without children. Are they a family? Bodil and Bertil are a married couple in their 30s, they have a six-year-old son, Bengt. Are these three a family? Cecilia is divorced and has a ten-year-old daughter, named Carin, and she lives with Carin. Are these two a family? Carin's father, Curt, lives in the other end of the city. Are Carin and Curt a family? Are Cecilia and Curt a family? Doris and David are Daniel's grandmother and grandfather. They do not live together with Daniel. Are these three a family? Eva and Edvin are married and have a daughter, named Elisabeth. These three live together. Eva and Edvin have a son, Erik, who lives in another city. Are these four a family? Fanny and Fredrikare married and have a son in his teens, Frans, who has a pal, Sven. All these four live together. Are these four a family? Goran and Greta are in their 30s and have cohabited for 3 years. They have no children. Are they a family? Hanna and Hakan are in their 30s and cohabit, they have a 6-year-old daughter, Hedvig. Are these three a family? Ingemar and Inger have cohabited, they are now separated. They have a 10-year-old son, Isak, who lives with Ingemar. Are these three a family? Isak's mother, Inger, lives in the other end of the city. Are Inger and Isak a family? Jan, Johanna, and Jesper are siblings, and they are all three around 30 years old. The three live together. Are these three a family? Karland Kristerare in their 30s and cohabit. Neither of them has a child. Are these two a family? Lena and Lisa are both in their 30s and cohabit. Lisa has a 6-year-old daughter, Lotta. These three live together. Are the three a family? Mona and Martinare married and have a daughter, about 10 years old, Maria. Mona has a very good friend, with whom she can speak about everything. Are these four a family?

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Therefore,it is somewhat strange to go through the family literatureand find that so many colleagues "know"what family is. For example, Furstenberg "omit," (1987) used terms such as "fail," and "exclude"when the informants did not count as family members those that "knew" were members. SimiFurstenberg and Pasley (1987, larly, Ihinger-Tallman child pp. 67-68) said that a nonresidential not defined as a family member by the and intervieweewas "forgotten" "omitted." They even said that the "omission"indicates "ambiguous family boundaries." indicates "a weak sense The "omission" of family identity." How do they know and that? Evidentlythey "know" the informants do not. From our perspective this imposes too much. Gilby and Pedersen (1982) use a methodwitha list of examples of constellations "intended only as a check on whether the children understandwhat is meant by the term 'family' " (p. 112). Fromour perspective, it would be impossible to "check" whether the children understand the term and the concept denoted by the term. How could we as researchers "know"what would be the correctway of understandingthe term or the concept? Our perspective is that we do not know what is to be meant by the term family.That is one of the rationales forour studies. Some adults and some children includeanimals, toys, and other things, in their family. We find such an inclusion very reasonable. However, Vandvikand Odland (1988), for example, interpretan inclusion of animals as an indication of lacking family connections-a somewhat accordingto our prematureinterpretation, perspectives. Household is sometimes synonymous with family, and family is some-

times synonymous with household. If this is the case, moving out of the household in case of divorce would be to leave the family (Isaacs & Levin, 1984). The question of who are members of the family for those in a "step" family is of vital importance, and the structure might illuminate some important conceptualizations and perspectives of family. There is a risk that family is looked upon as a static and normative phenomenon and concept. Instead, our conof family should be a ceptualization source for understanding and empathy. For example, a therapist asks the client to bring her/his family to the next session. What is the client's family for the therapist? What is it for the client? If the therapist is open to various perspectives, the intervention will be more in accordance with the social reality of the client, which must be in the interest of both the client and the therapist.

In this articlewe have focused on the idea of presentingvariousways of looking at the term and concept of family.One of ways, to check what the more traditional scholars mean, comes last. When introducing the concept of family,one way is to immediately question the meaning of the term. Our suggestion is to stert by asking each person in the audience to make his/her own personal definitionof family to be discussed. The next issue could be how we, as individuals and members of society, define family more generally, as also demonstrated here. Finally,the definitionsand conceptualizations of scholars, policymakers,and others could come.
REFERENCES hva Erke,R.(1 986). Sosial organisasjon; er slektskap,hvordan dannes det, hva slags typer slektskapfinnes og hvordan ber0res vi av slektskap? In R. Erke & A. H0gmo (Eds.), Identitet livsutfoldelse 25-37). Oslo: Universitetsforog (pp. laget. F. The experiFurstenberg, (1987). The new extendedfamily: afterremarriage. K. Pasley In ence of parentsand children &M. Ihinger-Tallman and (Eds.), Remarriage stepparenting (pp.47-58). New York: Guilford. of Gilby,R. L., &Pedersen,D. R. (1982).The development the child'sconcept of the family.CanadianJournalof BehavioralSciences, 14, 110-121. Gubrium, F., &Holstein, A. (1990). Whatis family? J. J. MountainView,CA:Mayfield. Ihinger-Tallman, & Pasley, K. (1987). Remarriage. M., NewburyPark,CA:Sage Publications. Isaacs, M. B., & Levin,I. (1984). Who'sin my family? longiA tudinal of studyof children divorce.Joumalof Divorce, 17, 21. Levin, I. (1990). How to define family. Family Reports, 17, Uppsala:UppsalaUniversitet. G. Murdock, P. (1949). Social structure. New York: The Free Press. Settles, B. H. (1987). A perspectiveon tomorrow's families.In M. B. Sussman & S. K. Steinmetz (Eds.), Handbookof and the family(pp. 157-180). New York:Plenum marriage Press. the Trost,J. (1988). Conceptualizing family.International Sociology, 3, 301-308.

Conclusion
In this article we have problemized the concept of family, not accepting or taking for granted a technical definition. For example, marriage does not necessarily constitute a family, divorce does not necessarily mean the dissolution of a family (cf. Trost, 1990b). The presumption that family and household are synonymous would lead to conceptualizations not wanted. Many social groups would easily be classified as deviant instead of as families. It is essential to challenge the concept of family. At the same time it is equally important to distinguish what family is for one person and what it is for another person. The persons could be either professionals in the field or lay persons.

Trost, J. (1990a). Do we mean the same by the concept of family?Communication Research,17, 431-443. Trost,J. (1990b).On becominga family.FamilyReports,18, Uppsala:UppsalaUniversitet. Vandvik,I. H., & Odland, G. (1988). To-hus teknikken.En metode til vurderingav barns oppfatningav sin familie. Fokuspa familien, 193-200. 16,

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