Freedom and commitment: Families, youth, and social change.

Abstract

What are the prospects for the American family in the years ahead? To develop some perspective on this question, this article considers the ways in which the nature of the family and its functions in a changing society have evolved between 1800 and the present. Particular attention is paid to the development of individualistic patterns of family behavior and the rise of the nuclear family in the face of increased urbanization and geographic mobility, greater age segregation, lessened economic interdependence of family members, and increasingly depersonalized relations between the family and other social institutions. It can be seen that some of the challenges faced by today's families are longstanding; others have assumed prominence relatively recently, including the rise of the women's movement, women's fuller participation in the labor force, and the impact of "the 'me' decade." If families, particularly the poor, are to be successful in coping with social change, essential social, educational, health, and mental health programs will need to be salvaged. In addition, community support systems, including mutual self-help groups, will need to be created, expanded, or strengthened. As individuals, we need to be aware that self-realization and self-indulgence are not synonymous and that freedom and commitment are two sides of the same coin.As America entered the 1980s, "the future of the family" began to replace the obsessive concern of the 1960s and 1970s with "today's youth" as a primary focus of popular sociology and political rhetoric. A White House Conference on Families was held, and it became the subject of considerable unanticipated conflict and divisiveness. Magazine articles and television reports on "Saving the Family" and "The Family in Transition: A Challenge From Within" appeared in seemingly endless profusion. Social scientists argued about whether the family as a basic social unit could survive the pressures to which it was being subjected.Today's politicians-from beleaguered liberals to supporters of the self-styled Moral Majority-

We Know Some Things: Parent–Adolescent Relationships in Retrospect and Prospect

“…As with research that questioned the notion that family conflict was normative, however, research on attitudes and values questioned the notion that intergenerational conflict was pervasive. By the mid-1970s, the hyperbolic views of the generation gap promulgated by the mass media were dismissed by social scientists as overblown (Conger, 1981).…”

Culture and the Self: Uncovering the Cultural Grounding of Psychological Theory

“…Arguably, however, the most central reason for the broad interest generated by Gilligan's approach lies in neither of these contributions, but rather in the model's speaking to concerns with community, which are held by psychologists and the broader culture. As numerous commentators have observed, with the rise of modernity there appears to have been a loss of community that is reflected in personal feelings of isolation, the devaluation of relationships, and other related social stresses (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler & Tipton, 1985; Conger, 1981). It is argued that the solution to this problem cannot be found in a return to the forms of community found in the pre‐industrial West or in non‐Western collectivist cultures.…”

Hostages to fortune: Youth, values, and the public interest.

“…The problem is that, without love and concern for others or for some transcendental purpose, it is not possible to realize one's self except in the most superficial sense (Conger, 1981a). But one thing appears certain.…”