Definitions of the Family: Professional and Personal Issues

• Published in: Marriage & family review 1999-07, Vol.28 (3-4), p.209-224
• Main Author: Settles, Barbara H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Definitions; Dictionaries; Education; Families; Family; Family Research; Family Therapy; Home Economics; Language; Marriage and Family Education; Social Science Education; Social Science Research
• ISSN: 0149-4929; 1540-9635
• DOI: 10.1300/J002v28n03_16

INTRODUCTION In the field of family studies, many useful definitions of the family have been developed to meet the scholarly, professional, and policy needs of the past (Settles, 1987). Usually textbooks have begun with a review of such definitions and the authors often pick the definition they will support in their analysis of families. In research, the reports often specify how families were identified for the study or whether a stand-in for family such as household or house address was used. While it has been argued that households are functionally equivalent to families for the purposes of governmental data, this assumption is difficult to test as the data are not delineated to do this task. Many of our research reports on family are limited to family as seen by one member of the family or at most the perception of a dyad or two within the group. If there ever was a consensus on the definition of the family, it is not to be found in today's research and policy analysis. Whether the operational definitions, which have served us well for specific projects, should be or could be integrated or abstracted to produce a clear conceptual definition for the field at a theoretical level is under debate. The political and social consequences of conceptualizations of family are potent. For a complete reprint of this article contact Haworth Press by telephone (1-800-HAWORTH) or EMail ([e-mail]). Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center, The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. Article copyright The Haworth Press, Inc.