socialization and the family revisited

7 • SOCIALIZATION AND THE

FAMILY REVISITED

Norella M. Putney and Vern L. Bengtson

Family socialization has changed, and it has to be reconceptualized to reflect our changing society. Traditional perspectives on socialization hold that families are the primary socialization agents of children, teaching them what they need to know in order to function in their society or social group. Another tenet is that childhood socialization has crucial, lifelong effects on individual functioning and well-being. Hence the socialization of children is seen as one of the basic functions of the family along with the provision of sustenance, nurturance and security. In the traditional socialization approach, emphasis is on the conscious teaching of culturally prescribed roles, attitudes and behaviors through social learning mechanisms. Psychoanalytic perspectives emphasize the unconscious dimensions of socialization whereby children internalize the lessons conveyed by parents through modeling or exhortation. Indeed, there are certain attitudes that seem to emanate from a socialization that is both deep and enduring. This perspective acknowledges the tenacity of some habits and worldviews acquired in childhood and how difficult it is to change them.

We suggest that family socialization is more complex than the traditional approach - with its heavy debt to structural-functionalism - allows. In a postin- dustrial society characterized by rapid social change and marital instability, and where the employment of mothers of young children has become normative, the traditional approach to socialization with its central concern for normatively prescribed social roles is no longer adequate. We need to better understand the underlying mechanisms of intergenerational socialization, where influence and transmission flows between generations may be reciprocal, and where socialization occurs across the adult years. We suggest this contemporary

Advances in Life Course Research, Volume 7, pages 165-194. Copyright © 2002 by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 0-7623-0863-X

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166 NORELLA M. PUTNEY AND VERN L. BENGTSON

approach to socialization already is evident in the literature even though at present it lacks theoretical coherence. A contemporary perspective sees family socialization as a dynamic, interactive process between parents and children across generations, one that occurs in social and historical contexts. We look beyond the traditional understanding of socialization and its almost exclusive reliance on social learning by including such socialization processes as intergenerational status inheritance, defining influences, cognitive schemas, and the socialization effects that inhere in intergenerational affectual solidarity. Affectual solidarity between generations seems to be a largely unacknowledged but necessary condition for positive socialization to occur.

As a theoretical concept, socialization is not value neutral. Socialization was a core element of the reigning theoretical perspective of mid-century American sociology, but it was later attacked for its functional ideology and normative biases. Recently, however, socialization seems to be enjoying a sort of renais- sance in family research, whether as a field of study or an explanatory concept. Uncoupled from functionalist presuppositions, we suggest socialization has considerable theoretical utility in the field of family research, especially in the study of multigenerational family influence and transmission patterns and their mechanisms.

In this chapter we consider first the various theoretical perspectives that have informed our understanding of family socialization, their usefulness, and indeed their validity, in a changing social environment. We trace how family socialization research has evolved over the past several decades. Second, we elaborate on our call for a broader conceptualization of family socialization. In support of this proposal, we present research investigating a variety of socialization processes in different content areas.

Third, to examine family socialization is to confront several debates in the family and sociological literatures as well as in the policy arena. Are families still important as the primary socialization agent of children? Are peers more influential than families in affecting life course trajectories and outcomes? Has the employment of mothers damaged socialization processes and harmed children? In the third section we examine these debates and the socialization research that addresses these issues. Fourth, we consider the long term influence and potency of childhood socialization. A related question concerns the relative influence of childhood as compared to adult socialization. There are divergent responses to these questions. We suggest that the research findings pertaining to these issues may vary by the socialization content area being investigated. Fifth, we present new research on intergenerational family influence and transmission processes using data from the University of Southern California's 30-year Longitudinal Study of Generations. This research focuses

Socialization and the Family Revisited 167

on the intergenerational transmission of educational aspirations, self-esteem, and value orientations, and their effects on adult well-being across three decades of rapid social change. We discuss the implications of this research for multigenerational family continuity across generations.

T H E O R E T I C A L P E R S P E C T I V E S O N F A M I L Y S O C I A L I Z A T I O N

What Do We Mean by Socialization ?

In its classical formulation, socialization refers to the preparation of a child for participation in adult society - the basic social process through which an individual becomes integrated into a social group. This occurs by way of the individual learning the group's culture and his or her role in the group. (LeVine, 1969; see also Brim & Wheeler, 1966; Parsons, 1955). The family of origin is regarded as the primary site of socialization. During the growing up years children internalize the values, attitudes, skills and roles that shape their person- alities and result in their integration into the larger society. Drawing from symbolic interactionist and identity theories, this process is deemed essential to the formation of the child's self. By learning to play various social roles, the child's social self emerges. The idea of "role" preparation and performance is central to this sociological definition of socialization.

Socialization theorists have recognized that socialization is not limited to just childhood, but applies to the learning of any new social role and its attendant values, attitudes and customs (Goslin, 1969). By this definition, socialization - the learning of new social roles - can be seen as a lifelong process. Theorists also have recognized that socialization can be reciprocal, as between parents and children; its direction may reverse, with children teaching their parents or grandparents (Glass, Bengtson & Dunham, 1986). For example, teenagers may have to socialize their parents to the facts of their own maturation and changed status and hence their parents' changed status in society.

In the first (and only) Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research, Goslin (1969) described three different perspectives on socialization (in itself reflecting the giant shadow of Parsonian thought): A psychological view of socialization as the acquisition of impulse control, where identification and internalization are considered important processes; an anthropological view of socialization as enculturation or the intergenerational transmission of culture; and a sociological perspective which views socialization as role-training. According to this third perspective on socialization - which at the time was closely aligned with structural functionalist assumptions about the nature of society and the


individual's place in the social system - the needs of individuals are secondary to the needs of the social system (Brim, 1966). Bluntly stated, this view of socialization assumed that the purpose of child training is social conformity and the content of training is set by social norms - the glue, which allows the social system to cohere. Brim (1966) notes that more complex conceptualizations emphasized the socialization process itself as well as adaptation mechanisms, but again for the good of society.

Drawing on psychoanalytic and symbolic interactionism precepts regarding motivation and behavior, Parsons (1951) saw primary socialization, which occurs in the early years and shapes the basic structure of the personality, as differentiated from secondary socialization, which is more specialized role- training orientated to the institutional needs of the social system. From this perspective, early experiences in the family of origin are seen as having enduring and consequential effects on individuals and their lives. As we will discuss later, this is an empirical question around which there is considerable debate.

Although Parsons (1951) emphasized psychoanalytic and symbolic interactionist processes in his conceptualization of socialization, it was social learning theory which proved most compatible with the functionalist priorities given to social roles and their enactment (LeVine, 1969). According to social learning theory, much of human behavior is acquired through instruction, modeling, and the imitation of other people's behavior (Bandura, 1969). Parsons (1951) theorized that social norms not only regulate human behavior, they are consti- tutive of human nature. Through modeling, the role demands of society are internalized and the normative structure of society becomes self-imposed.

The Evolution of Family Socialization Research: The Life Course Perspective

It is not surprising that there is congruence between the historical periods of a given society and the development of particular sociological perspectives. It can now be seen that the postwar period in American society was an unusually stable and optimistic time, a fertile context for the development of a theory premised on societal equilibrium and normative consensus. Parson's (1951) structural functionalism emerged as the dominant sociological paradigm. Its hegemonic status lasted until the 1960s, coincident with a marked acceleration of social change and conflict. Parson's theory of the social system and the structural functionalist assumptions on which it was constructed were not able to accommodate the new conditions and uncertainties. The theory's presuppositions no longer held; its empirical validity became questionable. Against this backdrop, other theoretical perspectives such as conflict, social exchange, social constructionist, phenomenology, critical theory and feminist theories grew in importance.


The study of human development began to shift from its earlier focus on developmental stages and the socialization of children for successful role enactment, to one that recognized family socialization as a constellation of dynamic, intergenerational influence and transmission processes - beyond the restrictive normative structures of "the social system," or mechanistic models of social learning. The earlier stage perspectives came to be regarded by many researchers as over determined views of human development that could not accommodate the heterogeneity of adult development (not to mention women's lives), diversity, agency or structural and historical change (Elder, 1994). Similar critiques embroiled traditional socialization theory, which Parsons (1951) theorized as the central mechanism of structural functionalism. Functionalism and traditional socialization theory could not be reconciled to the society-wide weakening of normative prescriptions and the erosion of gender role stereotypes and behaviors. Ultimately, Parson's formulation of sex role typing - the assignment of instrumental roles to men and expres- sive roles to women - may have been the most controversial of traditional socialization tenets, galvanizing a generation of feminist scholars (Osmond & Thorne, 1993). One result of this critique was that the socialization approach became more transactional in focus with greater emphasis on human agency (Elder, 1994). Nevertheless, by the 1970s, a growing interest in the life course paradigm supplanted the traditional structural-functionalist socialization model as a research framework. Soon after the publication of their Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research (Goslin, 1969), socialization researchers lost interest in traditional socialization theory, and soon thereafter it was absorbed by other, more useful theoretical perspectives, especially the life course perspective (Elder, 1994).

Increasingly, developmental scientists are employing a life course perspective that acknowledges the complex interplay of individual development, family influences and environmental forces (Elder & O'Rand, 1995). This shift in emphasis, however, has not negated a continuing interest on the part of family researchers in socialization processes. In the study of intergenerational relationships and generational continuity and change over time, family socialization is an essential linking explanation. At the same time, the life course perspective is just that, a paradigmatic framework that guides research but by itself does not generate testable hypotheses. Socialization, incorporated into the life course perspective as well as other theoretical approaches such as interpretive and interactionist perspectives, remains a useful theory for generating research hypotheses about the complex processes of human development. Shorn of its functionalist presuppositions, socialization is a fruitful approach for the examination of intergenerational influence and transmission processes.


CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO FAMILY SOCIALIZATION RESEARCH

Family socialization refers to more than the social learning processes of instruction, modeling and imitation (Bandura, 1969). Under the rubric of family socialization, researchers have investigated other mechanisms of intergenerational transmission and influence, such as: status inheritance (Biblarz & Raftery, 1993), which some investigations treat is distinct from socialization; the direct and indirect effects of parent-child affective solidarity (Bengtson, Biblarz & Roberts, 2002); "defining" influences, an aspect of symbolic interactionism (Starrels & Holm, 2000); and cognitive schemas, as informed by attribution theory (Benson, Arditti, DeAtiles & Smith, 1992; Putallaz, Castanzo, Grims & Sherman, 1998). Socialization processes can operate consciously and unconsciously, at multiple levels - individual, family, and structural - in adulthood as well as early childhood and adolescence (although their content will vary). Socialization influences can be bi-directional; there may be lagged effects. Part of the analytic task is to specify the underlying mechanisms and the conditions under which transmission mechanisms are more or less likely to operate or have an effect.

Current literature suggests that the concept of intergenerational family socialization has wide application in a variety of domains or content areas in family research. Researchers have examined the intergenerational transmission of social psychological traits such as self-esteem and self-efficacy, social interaction patterns and parenting styles, marital happiness and the propensity to divorce. The socialization model has been used to investigate spousal or dating abuse, career aspirations and achievement, attitudes such as gender ideology or political ideology, religiosity, value orientations such as individualism or materialism, drug and alcohol abuse, and delinquent and criminal behavior. Researchers have identified the intergenerational transmission of vulnerability factors - or resiliency factors - which become activated under certain conditions or stresses (Caspi, Wright, Moffitt & Silva, 1998). In the following section, we elaborate on some of this contemporary socialization research. We do not attempt to cover all the topics that are included in socialization studies, for example, the effect of birth order on outcomes. In family socialization research, parent-child similarity or congruence on a given outcome measure, such as values or aspirations, is a common analytic method for empirically ascertaining socialization effects.

Status Inheritance as a Socialization Mechanism

Status inheritance - the transmission of parental socioeconomic status which also carries with it parental attitudes and values - is an under appreciated


mechanism of intergenerational socialization. The mechanism of status inheritance links structural factors, such as the family's socioeconomic location, with social psychological processes, such as the transmission of attitudes and aspirations, to affect socialization outcomes. Status inheritance can operate through multiple pathways. Parents situate their children in a socioeconomic context relative to income and wealth, residential location and a network of kin and potential peer relations, with related structural opportunities and constraints. This affects children's perceptions and expectations of what is possible and what they can aspire to. Parents' statuses affect their ability to invest in their children's human capital, primarily education, which has significant implications for children's aspirations and achievements, values and psychological well being (Bengtson, Biblarz & Roberts, 2002; Biblarz & Raftery, 1993; Coleman, 1988). Parents' statuses are strong predictors of the aspirations, values and self images they seek to cultivate in their children.

As a socialization mechanism, status inheritance relies on Kohn's (1969) widely applicable theory linking the characteristics of occupations, as differentiated by education and class, with parental child rearing values. Kohn and his associates (Kohn & Schooler, 1983) demonstrated that workers in white-collar jobs that reward self-reliance and creativity generalize these values to the socialization of their children. Similarly, workers in blue-collar jobs that reward conformity and obedience then apply these values in their child socialization practices. Parents' norms and values compatible with their parenting goals in turn are transmitted to their children. Status inheritance benefits are not limited to tangible resources. For example, parents who have succeeded in their own work careers may transmit positive attitudes about employment to their children who in turn may develop high aspirations for themselves. McLeod and Kessler (1990) found that parents' socioeconomic status can operate as a developmental factor as well as an indicator of financial resources for children. This may occur through the prior socialization of resilient personality characteristics, as Elder (1974) found in his investigation of children who grew up during the Depression.

lntergenerational Affective Bonds as Mechanisms of Socialization

Several studies have examined the relationship between bonds of emotional closeness in multigenerational families and socialization outcomes, such as self- esteem, attitudes and values, and the propensity to provide assistance to family members in times of need (Bengtson, 2001; Rossi & Rossi, 1990; Roberts & Bengtson, 1996; Silverstein, Parrott & Bengtson, 1995). The affective quality of parent-child relations works in two ways. It acts directly on intergenerational


transmission through its influence on youths' psychological well being and adjustment. It also acts as a mediator for the effects of other socialization mechanisms (Bengtson, Biblarz & Roberts, 2002). The following research, in different content areas, illustrates how affectional solidarity between parents and children serves as a mechanism of intergenerational socialization.

The intergenerational transmission of self-esteem. In an examination of the long term effects of parent-child affective relations, Roberts and Bengtson (1996) demonstrated that self-esteem in adulthood has its roots in the affective climate of the parental home. Close parent-child relations in the family of origin were found to enhance a youth's self-esteem, which in turn became a psychological resource brought forward into adulthood. They demonstrated that it is the stability of earlier self-esteem that is the conduit through which parent-child relations in the family of origin shape self-esteem in adulthood.

Parent-child affective bonds and the propensity to provide social support. Silverstein, Parrot and Bengtson (1995) investigated how the quality of the parent-child relationship years earlier predicted the propensity of adult children to provide support for elderly parents, and how that varies by gender. Intergenerational relationships in the older family are viewed as the culmina- tion of lifelong patterns of family experiences and influence. This study demonstrated that intergenerational affection between parents and children measured years earlier plays a direct role in motivating support from daughters, while for sons affective bonds influence support only indirectly by increasing social contact. The authors suggest that the different causal mechanisms found for sons and daughters reflect a traditional division of social support labor, gender role patterns learned in the family of origin.

Whitbeck, Hoyt and Huck (1994) focused on the influence of family history and the family interaction patterns learned in the parental home. They demonstrated that interaction patterns and role expectations established in early childhood family processes remain remarkably stable, in turn affecting the propensity of multigenerational family members to provide elder support several years later. Perceptions of early family relationships influenced both contemporary relationships and felt concern about parents' well being. Parent-child affective bonds had their most consistent effects on the provision of emotional support to elderly parents.

Parental support and the inheritance of violence in intimate relations. The intergenerational inheritance of abusive behavior is a frequent topic of family and deviance research. Simons, Lin and Gordon's (1998) panel study of dating


violence exemplifies how the early parent-child affective relationship - as distinct from parental control and monitoring - can serve as an explanatory variable in the intergenerational transmission of violence in intimate relations. The authors examined transmission processes in the causal relationship between corporal punishment in childhood and delinquent behavior in adolescence. Two socialization mechanisms were tested: imitation, and direct experience. They found that a negative parent-child affective relationship did attenuate the asso- ciation between corporal punishment and the child's risk for this antisocial behavior. Referencing Bandura's (1977) later writings on social learning, the authors observed that adolescents don't just imitate their parents' violent behavior toward each other. They first evaluate the likely outcome of this kind of behavior and then adopt behaviors that seem to have positive consequences. Simons et al. (1998) suggested that children are unlikely to construe violence between parents as having a positive outcome for either one. Yet corporal punishment by parents was shown to affect the likelihood of dating violence among adolescents. This is because years earlier the child learned from first-hand experience that violence toward an intimate other does change behavior, at least for the short term. Results such as these add complexity to models of intergenerational transmission processes and are consistent with the conclusion that preexisting parent-child affective relationships are important determinants or conduits of socialization outcomes.

Conditions and Mechanisms of Socialization Processes

The literature suggests that the focus in contemporary socialization research has moved beyond direct examination of modeling or transmission effects to explicating their underlying mechanisms - to specifying the conditions, timing and context of family socialization processes. This is a departure from earlier socialization research which was centrally concerned with societal needs and preparing children for successful role occupancy. Although in different content areas, the following studies reflect this trend.

Cognitive schemas as mechanisms of socialization. Benson, Arditti, De Atiles and Smith (1992) used attribution theory to examine causal schemas as mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of interaction patterns in intimate relationships. They tested the proposition that the attributions that emerge in the intimate relationships of young adults reflect the images they constructed in childhood about intimate relationships and their causal explana- tions based on the perceived quality of their parents' marital relationship. Such causal schemas about intimate relationships are thought to be the mechanism


for parental influence on children's attributions and interaction patterns in intimate relationship years later. To show how powerful causal constructions can be, Acock and Bengtson (1980) demonstrated that children's attributions about parents' attitudes were stronger predictors of children's attitudes than were the actual attitudes of parents. The experience that young adults have in their relationships with their mothers and fathers and the attributions they make contribute to their causal schemas about intimate relationships. Benson et al. suggest this formulation of causal schemas may represent a more subtle socialization mechanism than modeling, one which explains how the scripts for intimacy that are written during childhood become activated later in intimate relationships, especially marriage.

Defining influences. Drawing from symbolic interactionist theory, Starrels and Holm (2000) examined "defining" influence as a distinct socialization mechanism. Two mechanisms were compared: mothers' defining influence, and mothers' modeling influence, on their adolescent children's plans for marriage and parenthood. "Defining" is construed as one aspect of symbolic interactionism. Through symbolic interaction, agents of socialization, such as parents, define their expectations for their children who in turn perceive and internalize these expectations. Alternatively, social learning focuses on observational learning or instruction from parents as well as from extrafamilial sources. The authors asked: Were mothers' expectations concerning their children's plans to marry and have children consistent with their children's plans - seen as defining influences? Or were mothers' actual behaviors more consistent with children's family formation plans - seen as modeling influences? The authors also examined the conditions under which intergenerational similarity is more or less likely to exist, and the relative importance of parents, siblings, and non-familial influences on adolescent daughters' and sons' intentions to marry and become parents.

Starrels and Holm (2000) found that "defining" influences were stronger over time than modeling influences for both sons and daughter. Why would this be the case? The authors speculate that perhaps the verbal communication of parents' desires and expectations for children is a more proximate and direct form of socialization, making it more influential than behavior that occurred years earlier. In general, family influences were found to be greater than nonfamily influences.

Socialization for youth unemployment. There are early childhood antecedents of young adult unemployment, but to what extent do they represent socialization mechanisms? Caspi, Wright, Moffitt and Silva (1998) examined precursors to youth unemployment using prospective data collected from early childhood


to young adulthood. They focused on whether poverty and welfare dependency are transmitted intergenerationally, and whether the transmission mechanisms are direct. They found that young adults did not simply model their parents' unemployment. Personal characteristics such as low self-esteem or problem behaviors, and family characteristics such as poverty or family structure, began to shape employment prospects years before young adults entered the labor force. The authors concluded that unemployment per se is not directly transmitted across generations through modeling processes. What does seem to be occurring is the family transmission of vulnerability factors that increase the risk of unemployment. This suggests that what is transmitted across generations are the mechanisms that may produce unemployment.

ARE FAMILIES STILL IMPORTANT? DEBATES AND CHALLENGES ABOUT SOCIALIZATION

The socialization of children has long been regarded as one of the most important functions of the family. Have social changes over the last several decades, such as economic restructuring and the disappearance of the family wage, alternative family structures, and rising maternal employment, rendered the nuclear family a less adequate vehicle for providing children with essential skills for adult functioning? Have families lost their functions - their importance?

In recent years heated debates have surfaced in public discourse and among family researchers about the well being of American families and children, and indeed about marriage itself as a social institution. We focus on three such debates. All bear on the socialization functions of families and the changes that have occurred in family well being over the past several decades. (1) Are families still important in American society, or has increased divorce and the decline of marriage so weakened families that they can no longer effectively socialize their children? (2) Do peers matter more than parents in terms of their influence on developing children? Are peers the true primary socialization agents? (3) Has the increase in the employment of mothers, especially mothers of young children, been detrimental to the development and socialization of their children? Fueling these debates have been the dramatic increase in divorce, high rates of cohabitation and out of wedlock child bearing, and revolutionary changes in gender relations and women's employment patterns.

The Decline of Marriage and the Family

A decade ago, Popenoe (1993) issued a challenge to conventional wisdom about the strength and well being of American families. His thesis is that there has


been a decline in the family's structure and functions since the 19th century, changes that have accelerated greatly in the past twenty years. Popenoe and other proponents of the "family decline" hypothesis focus on the negative consequences of the changing family structure - resulting from divorce and single parenthood - on the psychological, social and economic well being of children (Popenoe, 1993). They lament the declining respect marriage now receives (occurring not only in the U.S. but also in most Western nations [Cherlin, 1999]), and have wrung their hands over the disappearance of the traditional (read 1950s) nuclear family. They are particularly worried about the employment of mothers. These scholars argue that the social norms legitimating the pursuit of individualism and materialistic values, and the increase in alternative social groups and living arrangements for the satisfaction of basic human needs, have fatally weakened the family as a social institution and as an agent of socialization. The studies below shed light on these assumptions.

The inheritance of marital instability. There has been considerable research exploring the intergenerational transmission of marital unhappiness and divorce and their effects on children's socialization outcomes. While it is clear that the marital instability of one generation is often carried forward to the next (Amato, 1996; McLanahan & Bumpass, 1988; Webster, Orbuch & House, 1995), the mechanisms by which this occurs are less well understood. It has been even more difficult to tease out family transmission processes from context, such as the influence of peers and schools, or the effects of economic and normative structures in a given historical period.

In a longitudinal study of the intergenerational transmission of divorce, Amato (1996) identified offsprings' problematic interpersonal behavior as the primary mediator of parental divorce effects. Findings supported a socialization thesis. Parents model poor interpersonal behaviors, such that their children do not learn the skills and attitudes conducive to success in their own marriages.

Webster, Orbuch and House (1995) examined the pathways by which different childhood family structures affect the next generation's marital quality and success. They applied two theoretical perspectives. The first is socialization, defined here as inadequate parental supervision and the lack of role models, typically found in single parent homes. This leads to dysfunctional learning, which then negatively affects the adult child's marital quality and stability years later. The second perspective, conceptualized by Caspi and Elder (1988), focuses on parental conflict and negative interaction styles which are passed on to children and later enacted in their marital relationships. Webster et al. (1995) found that although adult children's family history was unrelated to their marital happiness, there were significant differences by family history in their


perceptions of marital stability. Compared to those with other family histories, adults from divorced families were the most likely to perceive their marriages as unstable and to see a greater likelihood of divorce. Further, among those in less than happy marriages, children of divorce were more likely to engage in negative interactions which then strained the marital relationship. Webster et al. concluded that the results best supported the parental conflict and interaction style perspective rather than the socialization perspective.

The Webster et al. (1995) study is an important piece of family research that has made a significant contribution to our understanding of how parental divorce affects children's marital outcomes. We wonder, however, about its theoretical conclusion. In our view, one of the interesting things about this study is how socialization was defined. It seems to us that the hypothesized parental conflict and interaction style perspective, which posits that children learn interaction styles from their parents that are maintained across time and carried into their own marital relationships, is in fact a socialization process. This study identified the mechanisms and conditions whereby divorce is transmitted from parents to children. Through social learning, or perhaps through the more subtle mechanism of cognitive schemas (Benson, Arditti, De Atiles & Smith, 1992), children inherited their parents' negative interaction styles which then adversely affected their marital stability.

In another study using longitudinal data, Feng, Giarrusso, Bengtson and Frye (1999) investigated how marital stability and quality is transmitted from middle age parents to their young adult children and how this varies by gender. The authors were guided by social learning theory which specifies that because of modeling effects, children are likely to repeat their parents' styles of interpersonal and marital behavior. Findings indicated there was a transmission of divorce from parents to daughters but not from parents to sons. However, the intergenerational transmission of parental marital quality was not found. The authors suggest that because the intergenerational transmission of marital quality may be due to modeling, which is most likely to occur when children observe their parents' marital behavior more frequently, transmission may be better tested with children who were living with their parents in the base year.

Attributions about divorce and its effects. Much of family research emphasizes the negative influence of parental divorce on child outcomes, with many studies focusing specifically on the disruption of socialization processes which can result from divorce. For example, the stresses resulting from divorce have been shown to diminish parenting effectiveness and disturb the primary socialization environment, making children more susceptible to problems (Ge, Conger, Lorenz & Simons, 1994; Ross & Mirowsky, 1999). At the same time, studies


have shown that a majority of children are not seriously affected by divorce in the long run and have outcomes similar to children from intact families (Ahrons, 1994; Anseltine, 1996; Emery 1999).

But some researchers, notably those of the "family decline" contingent, have been almost shrill in their condemnation of divorce and what they see as the demise of the nuclear family. Their focus has been on the "disastrous" consequences of changing family structures on the psychological and economic well-being of children (Popenoe, 1993; Whitehead, 1996; Wallerstein, Lewis & Blakeslee, 2000). They see divorce, the diversity of family structures, and the employment of mothers as having seriously weakened the family as the site for guidance and influence. There is another perspective, however, that focuses on the strengths of multigenerational families. This view recognizes that divorce can create new difficulties for individuals in the short term, but suggests that families are adaptive and resilient. Empirical evidence indicates that despite changes to family structures and functions, intergenerational family members tend to remain connected, mutually influential and important to each other (Bengtson, 2001).

It is possible, then, that parental divorce and its effects on children's socialization may not be entirely negative. For example, in an investigation of how parental divorce links to adolescent depression, Anseltine (1996) found that youths in single parent homes were relatively resilient to the emotional effects of family turmoil and parental conflict, whereas these stresses caused youths from intact families to become depressed. Although youths in single parent families were significantly vulnerable to financial distress, the divorce experience seemed to have promoted their positive emotional adaptation.

This leads to another issue concerning divorce and socialization - researcher agendas. Does the research on marital instability transmission include an evaluative element - the positive assessment of intact nuclear families and the "wrongness" of divorce? We suggest it does, to the extent that family socialization is understood as preparing children for successful participation in the stable society we have known. But social changes have overtaken us. Now as we evaluate the effectiveness of family socialization in a society where marital instability and a plurality of family forms have become common, it may be useful to avoid pathologizing divorce and to focus instead on how family transmission processes in the context of divorce may or may not be adaptive to changing social conditions.

Are Peers more Important than Families?

The second debate revolves around Judith Harris' (1998) controversial book, The Nurture Assumption, which claims that parents are not really that


important in shaping the lives and destinations of their children. Harris (1998) debunks the widespread belief that people' s adult lives are determined in large part by their childhood experiences. It 's not parents who socialize children, but other children who do the socializing. With an unacknowledged nod to sociobiologists (Troost & Filsinger, 1993), Harris suggests that about half of the personality differences between individuals are attributable to genes, with the other half attributable to the non-family environment. She questions the nurture assumption that culture is something parents teach their children and that this is how culture is passed down from one generation to the next. Instead, she believes that a child may acquire a trait such as aggressiveness from other, slightly older children. The influence of an adult society is indirect.

One of the basic premises of child and family development research over the past several decades has been that parents, in what they do in interaction with their children, provide a primary basis for their offsprings' later behavior. But Harris (1998) presents an alternative hypothesis that parental influences do not matter, except in the contribution of genetic predispositions. Whatever a child's parents or families do to them, it is overshadowed in the long run by what their peers do to them.

Our review of the family socialization literature suggests that a more measured approach to the parent versus peer controversy would be useful. Socialization in families is a complex phenomenon encompassing multiple and interacting processes and mechanisms that are manifested in a number of domains with different effects. In some domains, such as delinquency, the influence of peers is indeed consequential. In other domains, however, parents are the primary agents of socialization.

Deviance: The role of family, peers and agency. Perhaps anticipating Harris' (1998) assertion that peers matter more than parents in child outcomes, Aseltine (1995) examined the relative influences of parents and peers on adolescent deviance. He notes that in the domain of deviance, the role of peers in fostering deviant behavior in adolescents is well documented, while support for parental influence or "control" theories of deviance is more equivocal. In this study, Aseltine (1995) provides empirical evidence of reciprocal influence among parents, peer groups and deviant behavior. He identified a mutually-reinforcing social process through which problem behaviors are fostered and maintained. Adolescents are introduced to drugs and associate with groups who use drugs, while at the same time shielding these activities from parents' control efforts

- monitoring. This sets in motion a pattern of interaction between parents and adolescents, which in turn facilitates persistent drug use.


Aseltine (1995) suggests these findings may provide a corrective to the tendency in recent research to depict socialization as a potent one-way process where socialization forces, whether by parents or by peers, simply act upon youths. Rather, those who are being socialized play a necessary role in directing and influencing the socialization process.

Socialization for adolescent drug and alcohol abuse. In another study of adolescent deviance, Barnes, Reifman, Farrell and Dintcheff (2000) investigated the relative influence of parents and peers on adolescent alcohol abuse, and came to a somewhat different conclusion than Aseltine (1995), and certainly counter to Harris' (1998) hypothesis. Using growth curve analyses, the authors analyzed separately (rather than in combination) the effects of parental support and parental monitoring on adolescent drug abuse outcomes. They found that supportive and nurturing parents changed how receptive adolescents were to the limits associated with parental monitoring. As we discussed, parental affection and support can serve as a socialization mechanism, in this case to facilitate parental monitoring of adolescent problem behaviors. Barnes et al. (2000) see parental socialization as particularly powerful because it occurs early in the child's development and continues through adolescence. Specifically referencing Harris' (1998) claim that parents matter little in childhood outcomes, Barnes et al. emphasize that their results affirm that the socialization of children is a critical function of the family.

The Employment of Mothers

Has the employment of mothers damaged socialization processes and harmed children? At the beginning of the 21st century, the employment of mothers of young children has become normative. Marital instability and the impact this has on women, who are usually the custodial parent, has been a major factor in the dramatic increase of mothers of young children who now must enter the work force. How harmful, or beneficial, is this for children's development and socialization? Research findings have been equivocal. Moreover, family researchers have not always been neutral on this subject. Some theorists' discourses on motherhood have warned women of the ill effects of full-time employment - because theorists themselves felt mothers should not work (Turner & Troll, 1994). Early studies tended to examine the effects of mothers working as a social problem, without considering the family's socioeconomic status, the mother's occupational status, or the impact of her working on the quality and quantity of family interaction (Acock, Barker & Bengtson, 1982).


A common hypothesis is that changing gender roles and increased matemal employment have decreased the influence mothers have on their children. The purported negative impact of maternal employment is based on the assumption that the time a mother spends in the labor force is inversely related to the time she spends with her children. Yet, psychological studies have found little evidence that mothers in dual-earner households interact with their children less frequently, and even if they do, they may compensate for the time away from home by providing more intensive socialization at home (Kalmijn, 1994).

The effect of maternal employment on young children varies by the mothers' education and occupational status (Kalmijn, 1994; Moen, 1992; Parcel & Menaghan, 1994). Parcel and Menaghan (1994) documented that the working conditions mothers experience on the job can be an asset to the socialization environment that children experience in the home. Moreover, it is the paid working conditions of both parents that influence the content of child socialization in the home. Wolfer and Moen (1996) found that in addition to the mothers' job characteristics, the effects of maternal employment on daughters' life paths varies by race and daughters' life stage when mothers worked. For Black daughters, mothers' employment was positively associated with daughters' outcomes. On the other hand, Coleman (1988) has argued that matemal labor force participation may limit the social capital needed to effectively transmit norms and behavior pattems across generations. Here, social capital refers the quality of the parent-child relationship that requires both the physical presence of parents and their attention and involvement.

Kalmijn (1994) examined the influence of mother's occupational status on children's educational attainment, and found that it had a strong effect on their schooling, independent of father's education and occupation. Results demonstrated the positive effects of maternal labor force participation on child outcomes through the high-status jobs many married women now hold. This was not always the case. Kalmijn (1994) indicates that the relative influence of mother's education and occupation on child outcomes has changed over time. In the context of traditional gender roles (as prevailed only 30 years ago), mothers who worked, generally in lower level positions, had less influence on their children's educational and socioeconomic outcomes than did mothers who stayed at home.

As theorized by Kohn (1977), the socialization practices of employed mothers depend on the kind of work she does. Mothers employed in the professions are likely to focus more strongly on the value of education and transmit this value to their children than are mothers employed in clerical positions. Because of changing roles for women, mothers have become increasingly important role models of socioeconomic achievement for their children. Evidence suggests that


the economic resources and occupational role models that mothers provide are now as important as those traditionally provided by fathers. Such findings on the changing influence patterns of employed mothers on their children demonstrate the importance of historical context on socialization processes and outcomes.

D O E S C H I L D H O O D S O C I A L I Z A T I O N L E A V E A N E N D U R I N G L E G A C Y ?

A continuing research agenda concerns the long-term effects of childhood socialization, whether it persists over the life course, and if so under what conditions. A related issue concerns the relative potency of childhood socialization as compared to adult socialization. Such questions are central to the family's role as the primary agent of socialization, and to issues of continuity and change in multigenerational family relationships across time.

Early Socialization

Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, many social scientists have suggested that early childhood socialization is primary and endures across the adult years (Brim, 1966; LeVine, 1969; Penrod, 1983). It is during early socialization that the bulk of the unconscious material of the personality is laid down and defense systems develop. These unconscious personality components are seen as relatively inaccessible to change through simple socialization methods. It is the stability of the unconscious component of the individual personality that accounts for their resistance to change. Many personality traits fall into this category. Recent longitudinal studies have demonstrated the stability of a number of dimensions of personality across the life course (Giarrusso & Bengtson, 1996). Whether traits of "masculinity" or "femininity" fall into this category has generated some of the most heated debates in socialization research (Osmond & Thorne, 1993).

Behaviorists, on the other hand, suggest that the potency and durability of learning that occurs in early childhood is a consequence of the frequency of contact with primary socializers and learning situations, their primacy in the child's life, and the intensity of rewards and punishments that these socializers administer (Bandura, 1969; Brim, 1966). Parents and the expectations they have for their child' s behavior are of high salience to the child over extended periods of the child's life. It is difficult to change what was learned in childhood because


much of it was learned under conditions of reinforcement. All this, of course, has implications for adult socialization.

Other researchers take a structuralist position on socialization. The life course perspective directs our attention to how structures and social change influence individuals' life paths, their interaction, and the importance of timing. This yields an understanding of socialization as more than a proximal or distal process, but one that is also contingent and historically embedded (Moen, Erickson & Dempster-McClain, 1997). Theorists who take a structuralist position on life path trajectories and events (e.g. Kanter, 1977; O'Rand & Campbell, 1999; Umberson, Chen, House, Hopkins & Slaten, 1996) would regard the childhood socialization perspective as an over socialized view of attitude and behavior pattern acquisition, overestimating early childhood effects on outcomes and neglecting or underestimating the effects of structures and sociohistorical conditions.

The effectiveness of childhood socialization also is related to the pace of social change. Even in relatively unchanging societies, socialization in childhood cannot prepare a person for all the situations and roles he will confront in adulthood. Rapid social change can bring cultural discontinuities where successive roles to be learned do not build upon each other, or may conflict with what was learned earlier, rendering much of childhood learning inadequate. In this case, the long term stability of early childhood socialization may be maladaptive. Examples are where one's occupational skills become obsolete, and changes in the gendered division of labor which have variously undermined different cohorts' role expectations in adulthood, particularly as they have related to women's move to full participation in the labor force. Another theoretical issue to consider in evaluating the strength and duration of childhood socialization concerns volition, the extent to which the messages of early socialization are subject to the choices individuals make in adulthood as they respond to changing environmental conditions (Gerson, 1985).

We suggest there is validity to all of these perspectives on the lasting influence of early socialization. Much depends on the socialization domain we are talking about, and historical context. To demonstrate this point, we consider two domains of socialization: religiosity and gender role beliefs.

Early Childhood Socialization or Adult Experience?

In times of rapid social change, the relative effects of childhood socialization on individuals' attitudes may be reduced or even nullified while individuals' adult experiences become more important (Moen, Erickson & Dampster- McClain, 1997). During such periods, some socialization domains are more


salient in people's lives than others. In the last half century, gender role norms and behaviors have changed in almost revolutionary ways, as have women's lives (Moen, 1992; Parcel & Menaghan, 1994; Stacey, 1991). In this case, we might expect childhood gender role socialization to exert a weaker influence on women's adult decisions and behaviors than more proximal events or opportunity structures. Religiosity is another domain of socialization, but in the present historical context has been less central to the currents of social change. In this situation, we might expect childhood religiosity socialization to have more enduring effects. The following studies illustrate this complex interplay of childhood socialization influences and social change on individuals' life paths.

Parental influence and religiosity. Myers (1996) examined factors that condi- tioned the ability of parents to transmit their religiosity to their offspring, and how the experiences of adult offspring modified earlier family influences on religiosity. Three hypotheses were tested: family socialization, which emphasizes family of origin influences on attitudes and behaviors; the cultural broadening theory, which states that as youth enter college or leave home, adult contexts are more influential with time; and the channeling hypothesis, which states that friendship networks have the strongest direct effect on the church commitment of adults. Results showed that parents' religiosity is the primary influence on the religiosity of their adult offspring. A high level of father's education, a low level of mother's education, and parents' traditional family structure enhanced this transmission effect. Although the recent experiences of adult offspring did affect their religiosity, these experiences did not reduce the influence of parents and family context. Myers (1996) concludes that, " . . . parental influences have considerable staying power even as offspring move out of the home and form independent households" (p. 864). In the area of religiosity, there seems to be an enduring effect of childhood socialization. We must remember, however, that this effect is historically contingent.

Gender role beliefs and childhood socialization. In a widely cited qualitative study of parental influences on women's occupational and family choices, Gerson (1985) found that gender role socialization was a poor predictor of behaviors in adulthood, especially in times of rapid social change. In a departure from traditional socialization approaches, she emphasized that women make choices. They do not simply respond to early childhood messages, nor are they totally subject to structural conditions. In Gerson's (1985) view, gender socialization theories tend to adopt an over socialized conceptualization of women's lives because they ignore volition, and they do not distinguish feelings from behavior. Women's early attitudes do not determine in any simple


way how they will behave in adulthood. There are qualifications to Gerson's findings, however, primarily because her sample was limited to one "excep- tional" cohort of women - baby boomers - and she relied on retrospective reports. It would have been instructive had she included in her study women of other age groups who grew up in different historical periods. As a result, her conclusion that the gender role socialization messages of childhood have little effect on women's family and occupational outcomes is questionable.

Moen, Erickson and Dempster-McClain (1997) took up the issue of gender role socialization in a more complex longitudinal analysis. They examined the transmission of two gender attitudes from mothers to daughters: gender role beliefs, and work role identities. A key research objective was to untangle the relative effects of early childhood socialization and adult experiences on daughters' gender role attitudes. In view of the broad societal shifts in gender norms and expectations that had occurred over the last few decades, the authors wondered if mothers still influenced their adult daughters' gender role attitudes and work role identities; or if mothers and daughters had both been affected by the changes in women's opportunities and expectations, a period effect. The authors found evidence of the effects of socialization as well as life course experiences on gender role beliefs. In terms of daughters' work role identities, only their own life course experiences and status were relevant, not their mothers' work role identity or work status. Relative to socialization effects, the authors con- firmed that mothers' attitudes were more important than role modeling behavior in transmitting these attitudes. The study demonstrated the potential for attitudi- nal change in early adulthood and the importance of adult experience in shaping attitudes.

S O C I A L I Z A T I O N I N M U L T I G E N E R A T I O N A L FAMILIES: NEW RESEARCH

What we have tried to show in this review is that family socialization remains a useful theory in family research. We presented empirical findings from studies of family socialization in several content areas to demonstrate the theory's range of applicability. Although not always explicitly stated, this contemporary understanding of family socialization is evident in much of the family literature. Socialization research not only complements the life course approach, it can facilitate such research by generating testable hypotheses. To demonstrate this thesis, we present new research on intergenerational family socialization, based on the University of Southern California's 30-year Longitudinal Study of Generations.


Multigenerational families are important settings for studying socialization processes and their effects over time. A major issue in family socialization research relates to how demographic and sociohistorical change has affected intergenerational influences on children's life course trajectories and outcomes. This has been difficult to measure, primarily because of a lack of longitudinal data charting trends in socialization and career outcomes across multiple generations within families. The Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG) now allows us to empirically evaluate these questions.

The LSOG began in 197l with data from 2,044 individuals: 516 grandparents (randomly selected from a population of 840,000 individuals enrolled in a Southern California HMO), 701 of their middle-aged children, and 827 of their early-adult or late-adolescent grandchildren. Their great-grandchildren were added to the study as they turned age 16, beginning in 1991. The study became a longitudinal investigation in 1985, at which time we began repeated assessments at three-year intervals, yielding a total of seven waves of measure- ment between 1971 and the most recent 2000 survey. The LSOG enables us to investigate continuity and change in family intergenerational relationships over time and with the aging of each generation, and to explore the impact of these changes on the well being of individuals and their families.

In this research (Bengtson, Biblarz & Roberts, 2002) we focused on intergenerational inheritance and transmission and how these socialization processes operate in different historical contexts. Our objective was to analyze parent- child socialization processes and how they have changed over the past 30 years. We asked: Have intergenerational family influences weakened in recent generations as a result of changing occupational opportunity structures, increased parental divorce, and women's increased labor force participation, particularly among mothers of young children? Three intergenerational influence processes were examined: status inheritance; social learning; and parent-child affective solidarity. Data collected from four generation families over the last three decades allowed us to examine different generations at the same developmental age on a variety of individual, family and structural variables - a generational sequential design.

Using a life course perspective, our study was guided by the following assumptions. First, families continue to be the primary context of socialization despite their diverse forms and structures. Second, parents continue to link their children to life-shaping socioeconomic resources and systems of privilege or discrimination. Third, parents influence children's attitudes, values, desires and relationships with others through modeling, instruction, control, and warm and supportive relations. Fourth, self-esteem, career aspirations, and value orientations, our outcomes of interest, take form relatively early in life,


particularly from intergenerational influences within families. These personal attributes can be passed down from generation to generation in families, promoting continuity over multiple generational lines and many decades of history. We highlight some of our major findings.

Parental Influence on the Aspirations of Youth

Contrary to the fears of those who cry "family decline," we found that overall the influence of mothers' and fathers' status achievements on the educational and occupational aspirations of sons and daughters has not declined over generations, despite the increase in parental divorce and maternal employment. The influence of parent-child affective solidarity strongly affected children's educational aspirations, particularly when there was a close affective relationship with the mother. This effect was similar for both G3s and G4s. On the other hand, for G3s, solidarity with fathers was less important for children's aspirations than that of mothers; and for G4s, father-child affective bonds made no difference at all. Our data indicate that this weakening of the effects of children's affective solidarity with fathers from G3s to G4s was attributed to parental divorce. We also examined the effects of matemal employment on the transmission of aspirations. The effects of parents' statuses on their children's aspirations were somewhat stronger in mother-homemaker families than in mother-employed families.

Parental Influence on Youth's Self-Esteem

Among the three transmission processes examined, by far the most important determinant of self-esteem was the strength of parent-child emotional bonds, or parental affirmation, particularly that between mothers and their children. Further, the influence of mother's affirmation on children's self-esteem strength- ened over the generations. Again, parental divorce played a part. However, we found that this trend of the increasing influence of mother's affirmation on youth's self-esteem was actually being carried by the G4s from two-parent families. In these families, the influence of mother's affirmation on the self- esteem of G4s was significantly stronger than that observed among their G3 counterparts in two-parent families. One interpretation is that the two-parent families of the 1990s may be higher functioning than the two-parent families in prior decades, at least in terms of the socialization outcomes we investigated. Future research should explore how the roles of mothers in two-parent families have changed over time, allowing us to better understand why these mothers seem to be more important for the self-esteem of today's youth than


the mothers of earlier generations were for their children's self-esteem. In contrast to the heightened influence of mothers' affirmation on children's

self-esteem in two-parent families, for children of divorce, maternal affirmation had less influence on children's self-esteem across generations. It is not that these children feel less close to their mothers than those from two-parent families do. Rather, in the context of divorce, closeness to mothers ends up being a weaker determinant of the self-esteem that children ultimately develop.

The story of fathers' continued ability to influence their children's self-esteem across generations is less optimistic. Similar to the reduced influence of the father-child bond on children's achievement aspirations, the decline in the importance of fathers' affirmation for children' s self-esteem can be explained almost entirely by G4s' greater likelihood of experiencing parental divorce. This pattern of the declining influence of fathers compared to the influence of mothers suggests that parental influence patterns may have shifted over the generations, a shifting that can only be partly understood by rising divorce rates.

Parental Influence on Youth's Values

Do parents have less influence today compared to earlier generations on their children's value orientations? Have divorce and maternal employment weakened the processes of intergenerational transmission on children's values. We examined the predictive power of three socialization mechanisms - parental statuses, the modeling of values, and parental affirmation - for youths' values across generations, family structures and maternal employment statuses.

In general, we found that parental modeling of values and parental affirmation were much more important influences on youth's individualistic orientations than were parents' socioeconomic statuses. Further, the strength of parental modeling influences on children's individualism actually increased across generations. When parents divorced, however, there was a dramatic decline in the importance of parental modeling and affirmation for youths' values. When we considered maternal employment, we found that where the mother was a full-time homemaker, incremental increases in her education led to parallel increases in sons' and daughters' individualism. This effect did not occur when mothers were employed outside the home.

Patterns were different for the transmission of materialistic values. The strength of parental statuses and parental affirmation influences on children's materialism was higher where there was parental divorce and when mothers were employed. There was a decline in mothers' modeling influence in divorced families. Effects differed for sons and daughters. In contrast to divorced fathers' influence on children's career aspirations and self-esteem (which was reduced


to nil for G4s), divorce increased the importance of fathers' modeling and affirmation influences for materialistic values in their G4 sons.

These data did not reveal evidence of any truly deleterious effects of maternal employment on intergenerational transmission. Divorce does seem to weaken the family as a socialization agent in some areas. In particular, divorce weakened the influence that fathers have on their children's educational and occupational aspirations and self-esteem.

S U M M A R Y A N D C O N C L U S I O N

In the postwar years, family socialization was simply defined as the training of children for their expected role responsibilities in adult society, thereby serving the needs of the social system. But historical change intervened, and the assumptions underlying Parsonian grand theory eroded. Structural functionalism fell into academic disfavor and its core mechanism, socialization, became passe. Researchers in the socialization tradition turned to the emerging life course paradigm.

In this chapter we argued that a contemporary conceptualization of family socialization, more broadly defined than traditional conceptualizations, has considerable theoretical and empirical utility. We suggested that the use of socialization models has become more evident in the family literature. The terms "intergenerational transmission" and "influence" are frequently used to denote socialization processes. There is greater emphasis on identifying and explicating a range of socialization mechanisms, the conditions under which they operate, and their differential effects in various content areas of socialization. Guided by the life course perspective as well as other approaches such as interpretive and interactionist perspectives, contemporary socialization researchers pay attention to the interactive effects of social structures and historical context on socialization processes, as well as their meaning, and they acknowledge individual choice.

Socialization messages are often unintended. Parents convey styles of perceiving or behaving to their children who will interpret and later act upon these lessons in intergenerationally consistent ways. An example is the intergenerational transmission of marital instability. As we discussed, research points to the problematic interaction patterns learned from parents as an important underlying factor. Learned in early childhood through largely unconscious processes, such patterns may be resistant to change in adulthood.

In advancing this proposal for a broader conceptualization of family socialization, we first reviewed the history of socialization research and its theoretical bases. As social change revealed the limitations of a structural functionalist-defined socialization, researchers shifted their attention to the life


course perspective. There is now a renewed interest in family socialization processes. Contemporary approaches address a number of transmission mechanisms besides social learning. We showed how status inheritance and parent-child affective solidarity can operate as powerful mechanisms of family socialization whereby the attributes, values and behaviors of one generation are passed to another. We presented studies demonstrating how defining influences, cognitive schemas, or a constellation of personal and family structural characteristics in childhood can all serve as mechanisms of socialization.

Next, we focused on three debates in the family research literature and in public discourse that speak directly to the family's socialization function. First, in the context of divorce and the decline of the nuclear family form, can families still perform their socialization functions? Second, are peers more important than the family in socializing youth? Third, has the employment of mothers seriously jeopardized the family's ability to positively socialize its children? In addressing these questions, we presented research findings on the intergenerational transmission of marital instability, the influence of peers on adolescents' problem behaviors, a major topic in the deviance literature, and the effects of maternal employment on children's socialization outcomes. A recurring theme in this body of research concerns the impact of social change. We observed that the issue of how divorce affects children is not always approached in an impartial manner. Some family scholars seem to have taken a moral stance on divorce and non-nuclear family arrangements, notably those that see "family decline."

A central question in the family socialization literature concerns the long- term influence of childhood socialization and the relative effects of childhood versus adulthood socialization. Some researchers emphasize the powerful effects of early socialization. Others take a structuralist position, which emphasizes the influence of structural and historical conditions and the relevance of proximal experience. We suggested that some childhood socialization effects are enduring, leaving a residue of influence throughout adulthood. Personality traits or basic value orientations seem to be of this type. At the same time, the duration and potency of these influences varies by domain of socialization and seem to depend on structural and historic context as well as the pace of social change. We presented research findings to demonstrate this thesis. In the present historical period, the intergenerational inheritance of religiosity appears to have been less susceptible to recent social changes and therefore has more enduring effects. In the case of gender role attitudes and behaviors, which have been at the center of social change over recent decades, the effects of early socialization are relatively weak compared to adult experience and the effects of contemporary structural conditions.


Finally, we presented new research based on the Longitudinal Study of Generations. This study investigated the intergenerational transmission of education and career aspirations, self-esteem and values, and how these socialization outcomes have been affected by divorce and maternal employment. In these domains, divorce seems to have diminished the influence of fathers on their children's outcomes. Overall, maternal employment did not appear to have a negative effect. One implication of the continued high levels of divorce and maternal employment may be that grandparents will become more important as agents of socialization for their grandchildren. Results also suggest that the intact families of today's youth may be higher functioning than the intact families of a generation ago. This intriguing finding needs additional research. The study demonstrates the continued influence and importance of families across generations, despite the effects of divorce, alternative family forms and changing gender roles on family commitments and functions. In multigenerational families, socialization constitutes a principal mechanism through which continuity across generations is created and maintained.

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