The Family as the Primary Instance of Socialization

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Basics and General, grade: 1,3, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, language: English, abstract: The family life form - as can be observed again and again in the media, but also in the closer or more distant social environment - currently no longer necessarily consists of a natural father, a natural mother and a child or several children. This traditional form of family is nowadays partly replaced by other family forms. As a result, some children grow up with only one parent due to divorce and separation, for example, or are confronted with a new (marriage) partner of the mother or a new (marriage) partner of the father and possibly also with new siblings in their cohabitation. Single-parent families as well as step- and patchwork families have not been uncommon in our society for several years. All in all, since the mid-1960s, there has been a change in the family, which - to put it bluntly - has led to a crisis of the normal family. This is reflected in particular in a pluralization of family forms of life. But how does the change of the family affect the smallest members of our society and what effects does it have on the socialization process of children? And what new socialization problems arise as a result? Facing this question is so important because the family is the primary instance of socialization for children.