FAMILY, EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

Abstract

It can be considered that the educational function of family has declined considerably in the contemporary society - due to the women's action outside the domestic area, the increased professional requirements imposed on the labor market, the high level of competitiveness, the difficulties in finding and keeping a job etc., this function being largely taken over by specialized institutions. However, the empirical observations and specialized studies on school-family collaboration argue the opposite, namely that the evolution of society and, consequently, the education system has not led to a parenting resignation but, on the contrary, it has stimulated the family involvement in their children's education, requiring a redefinition of family-society relationship.

Headnote

Abstract: It can be considered that the educational function of family has declined considerably in the contemporary society - due to the women's action outside the domestic area, the increased professional requirements imposed on the labor market, the high level of competitiveness, the difficulties in finding and keeping a job etc., this function being largely taken over by specialized institutions. However, the empirical observations and specialized studies on school-family collaboration argue the opposite, namely that the evolution of society and, consequently, the education system has not led to a parenting resignation but, on the contrary, it has stimulated the family involvement in their children's education, requiring a redefinition of family-society relationship.

Keywords: family relationships, educational values, network, interpretative models

Introduction

Family as a well-defined social group based on the mutual choice of the marital partners, with precise roles and statuses associated with its members, having common aspirations, goals and habitudes and ensuring, at the same time, the upbringing and education of their children, plays an important role in the functioning of society. The multitude of relations established between family members and cultural values which are transmitted through them represent together the family. Education, from the family's perspective, appears to be a function of social integration, representing a set of social actions as to the organization and management of individual or collective learning, the conveyance of messages and cultural information towards the "subjects" included in this process.

From the perspective of education philosophy and constructivist sociology, family education does not fulfill only a function of social integration, but also a constitutive one of changing and rebalancing the lifestyle which ensures the process of building up the self and the social world.

Family - roles, relationships, responsibility and their impact on children's education

The specialized literature reveals that the role of the experience lived by the child in the family is decisive for the image he builds himself about life. Educational action is exercised directly by the family education agency intentionally, according to a goal, through a special set of instruments based on the actual situation. Educational influences come from every family member as an agent of family education, and represent a direct expression of the relationships established within the family and of the behavioral patterns that they offer. Therefore, the responsibility of supervising the educational process of the child lies with the family as the first educational factor, thus providing, to a decisive extent, the function of socialization and social integration. There is no aspect of shaping the young personality which should be strange to the family; it can bring, in normal circumstances, a precious contribution to the formation of all the personality sides. Moreover, even the family has a set of conditions conducive to education, which no other educational factor possesses: that spiritual climate based on the affection which is absolutely essential to human development in the first phase of his life.

After the research has demonstrated that "mother and child interaction is strongly influenced, even dependent on the nature of the relationships between the spouses"1, a whole orientation of interactionist sociology emphasizes the need to go beyond the particular level: motherchild, father-child, child-child relationship, highlighting the need to take into account the complexity of family interactions, which would enable the analysis of family as an open system towards the exterior, but also as one open to the interior, namely as a complex adaptive system. Family life instills in the child a set of moral, ethical and behavioral values that will show themselves in the next family that he/she will build up. According to the sociologists Terrisse B., Durning P. "the educational values are three-dimensional, entailing the cognitive dimension, since they involve a set of normative knowledge, including evaluation, affective dimension because they involve a differentiated attachment to one or another way of life, as well as the connotative dimension as the value directs and guides the action"2.

Knowledge is a central element, which can be cultivated within the intellectual education. It represents the cognitive dimension of shaping and developing the human personality. According to the above mentioned ideas and from the perspective of cognitive education (which requires learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together with the others and learning to be) the knowledge gained in the domestic environment underlies the formation of cognitive, practical, socio-emotional and behavioral competences concerning family life, essential to every individual, regardless of gender, profession, age and beliefs.

Philosophically speaking, the rule is a criterion or principle governing the conduct, or which is referred to in order to make a value judgment. Values represent a very important element of the family educational ethos because they trigger and stimulate human actions. The current meaning of value lies in the quality of things, people or behaviors, whose compliance with a rule or the proximity of an ideal make them particularly worthy of esteem. In this respect, the example of adults is of great importance: that of grandparents, parents, elder brothers / sisters and other older relatives. The way children are educated will locate, in fact, all the three elements discussed above.

It is obvious that in a family that respects a healthy and rational lifestyle there will be effective communication and appropriate leadership and, conversely, where the lifestyle is thoughtless, coercive or too liberal, serious difficulties can be noticed at all levels: in communication, interaction, family management and tolerance, the type and structure of relationships, openness to collaboration and partnership. Seen in the light of these constituents, the family is the most efficient and ideal microenvironment for social integration, molding and shaping the child's personality.

Education as a mechanism of social construction of reality

The rapid changes in the contemporary society have broadened the scope of education by asserting the active role of the individual and the constructed character of society. The social reality is no longer understood as a datum, but as a construction achieved in everyday inter-subjective activity. In terms of the contemporary evolutions of the family system - that defines more clearly its limits in relation to the social environment, but at the same time opening itself to the environment, increasing the material and information exchanges with it - family education can no longer be reduced to the intra-family processes, as it actually requires intense interactions with the outer world.

Margaret Mead3 considers that the fundamental principle of social interactions is that of communication through gestures/significant symbols, involving a co-participation of the Self with the Other. Self occurrence is related to the use of language that triggers in the subject the same set of reactions (attitudes) that he (the subject) triggers in the others. The development of Self, for the child, is a stage process of transition from assuming some isolated roles (attitudes), after the model offered by the significant Other (mother, father, teacher) to assuming some organized units roles (attitudes) by the internalization of a generalized Other (school, class, a group of children).4

The child's socialization / education is strongly influenced by the significant Other by the expectations that the child/youngster thinks he has from him parents, teachers, friends. Practically, the Self is updated as a tension between two components: the social Self, acquired through the internalization of the group attitude and the personal Self, as a personal, unlearned reaction. In this theoretical context, education can be defined as a systematic activity that follows the formation of the social dimension of Self-awareness through the internalization by the individual of the shared attitudes of the group, using the means of the community cultural transmission. Education is the internalization of some situations in which the educated, the educator, the contents conveyed and the act of transmission part act as useful constituents. The child is not only a receiver of the message sent, but he proceeds to a re-signification of experience and his response will be according to this new significance. The "significant" adult is not just a "transmission belt" between society and the individual, but a (re) creator of the message sent; the second consequence as to the social functions of education - concerns not only the mere reproduction of the social structures in the subject's structures, but also the simultaneous and continuous establishment of these social structures. In this way, the process of internalization/education participates itself in the "establishment" of society, the education process assuming not only the progressive acquisition of rules and knowledge, but also their interpretative models.

The social actors are considered capable of reflexivity and free to choose a behavior or another - being still required to undergo some structural or interactional constraints. This highlights the coherent, guided character of the action in which the social actors seem to pursue a goal, to choose the appropriate means to evaluate the results of their action. For a succesful socialization (education) it is essential to recognize the concrete way in which adults expose children to a rigorous order in everyday life (as the relating to rules and values in the current activity must be understood as indispensable to decide on the spheres of action by correlating concrete situations and general rules - in opposition to understanding the rules and values as general, idealized programs used post-facto to justify activities determined by the contingecies of a lived scheme of action).

In this theoretical context, it is considered that the family has an educational function not only in relation to a collective reference system and its benefit, but also in relation to the individuals who make up this society and their benefit. Educators and educated are considered, equally, social actors capable of reflexivity, free to choose one behavior or another.

Conclusions

In terms of the contemporary society family system - that defines more clearly its limits in relation to the social environment, but at the same time it opens to a greater extent towards the environment, the family education can no longer be reduced to domestic processes within the family, but it requires intense ties with the exterior. Kohn5, in the "network" theory, situates the child in the centre of a network made up of institutions and individuals. The term "network" implies the existence of some complex and varied relations among the "instances" involved in the child's educational process. Thus, the major components of family education environment include: networks of kinship, school, social networks of parents and children; neighborhood networks, various cultural institutions and/or sports ones, parental counseling services, etc. According to this view, the educational strategies of contemporary families arise at the intersection of these "poles" that work as assemblies of external constraints, but also as a resource. Therefore, it can be concluded that, far from having restricted itself, the "family educational function has multiplied and diversified"6.

Footnote

1 Clarke-Stewart, K.A., Popular Primers for Parent, American Psychologist, Vol 33(4), Apr 1978.

2 Terrisse B, Durning P. apud Elisabeta Stänciulescu, The Sociology of Family Education, 2002, 1st vol: Educational Strategies of Contemporary Families

3 Mead, M. , Mind, Self and Society, Chicago, Univ. Press, 1934

4 Ilut, P., The Self and Self-knowledge, Ia§i, Polirom Publishing House, 2001.

5 Kohn, apud Stanciulescu, E., The Sociology of Family Education, 1st vol., Polirom Publishing House, Ia§i, 1997.

6 Segalen, M., The Sociology of the Family, Armand Colin, Paris, 1996, apud, Stänciulescu, E. - The Sociology of Family Education, 1st vol., Polirom Publishing House, Iasi, 1997.

References

REFERENCES

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Clarke-Stewart, K.A., (1978), Popular Primers for Parent, American Psychologist, Vol. 33(4), Apr

Kohn, apud Stänciulescu, E., (1997), The Sociology of Family Education, 1st vol., Ia§i, Polirom Publishing House.

Ilut, P., (2001), Self and Self-knowledge, Ia§i, Polirom Publishing House.

Mead, M., (1934), Mind, Self and Society, Chicago, Univ. Press.

Negovan, V., (2003), Introduction to Educatioanl Psychology, Bucharest, Curtea Veche Publishing House.

Stänciulescu, E., (1996), Sociological Theories of Education. Ego Production and Sociological Construction, Ia§i, Polirom Publishing House,

Stänciulescu, E., (1997), The Sociology of Family Education, 1st vol., Ia§i, Polirom Publishing House.

Terrisse B, Durning P. apud E. Stänciulescu, (2002), The Sociology of Family Education, 1st vol.: Educational Strategies of Contemporary Families.