2002 11-5 The Concept and Definition of Family: College Students' Perspective

Shuchu Chao

Su-Miao Tsai
National Changhua University of Education Chung Hua University
 

With the increasing divorce rate and single-parent families, the ideal of traditional families have been changed and challenged. In addition, the percentages ofpeople who live single, either after marriage or never-married, have been slowly increased. With all the changes, what does the meaning of the family today? The purpose of this study is to inquire the concept and definition of family for college students. Data were collected from 931 college students in Taiwan, including 39% male and 61% female students. The first part ofquestions asked the participants to sort the most important three facto時, among eleven items, which constituted a family. The resuits indicate that “emotional involvement”,“quality of interaction in family”, and“responsibility” were the most important factors to be a family. The second part of the question presented nineteen examples which were different types of families, such as families with or without children, cohabitation with or without children, extra-marriage affairs, gay and lesbian families, as well as singles lived along or with friends. The respondents were asked to indicate whether they agree or disagree the examples presented were a family. The results showed that most college students seemed to make the decision by whether the couple in the examples were legally married and with or without children. Sex, different level in college and majors were found significant difference in some examples. Discussions regarding the differences and future research were made, and implications for sex and family education were discussed.

Keywords
Concepts of Family, Definition of Family, Meaning of Family, Varities of Families

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