The Construction of the Notion of Family in Preschool Children

Abstract

This work began to take shape in early 1992, arising from an interest in investigating social ideas among preschool-aged children. Based on the theory of genetic psychology, an exploratory study was undertaken on the notion of family in these children.

In kindergarten, the family is presented as a unit, but we do not know what explanation this concept has for the child. We therefore set out to explore the child’s way of thinking about the family, analyzing the process through which this notion is formed.

The study was carried out as an integrative task between the courses General and Developmental Psychology and General Didactics, with the aim of creating spaces for student participation in research related to topics significant for their teaching practices. Thus, we acted as research coordinators, while our students from the teacher-training program at a private institute located in El Carmen served as observers.

Methodologically, we adopted the clinical-critical method. This method assumes that the experimenter formulates hypotheses about the reasons underlying the child’s thinking, posing questions and creating situations in order to test those hypotheses. It involves a “clinical subject”, that is, a subject determined by their own cognitive history and also conditioned by a sociocultural context.

Finally, this work concludes with a series of observations on the following issues: a) the use of a set of criteria for establishing kinship relations, such as sharing a roof, games, gatherings, physical characteristics, belonging, and other original criteria, which may appear simultaneously in relation to both conjugal and blood ties; b) authority relations within the family group are equitable; and c) the most prominent social function is that of support.

It remains to be asked whether these issues are linked to the historical moment of the family.