El efecto del cambio social en la familia y en el desarrollo de los adolescentes

Abstract

This work studies some important social changes, which are related to the family. Furthermore, it describes in what way these changes have an effect on the development of teen-agers, and the result in their social behavior. In order to meet this goal, the contributions of selected studies latel y carried out in Chile, the United States and some European countries, have been reviewed. From the y point of view of the family, as well as the ecological and human development approaches -that state the narrow relationship between these process and the events taking place in this context— it is clear that poverty and its consequences are the decisive condioting for low socioeconomic strata families. In the case of families belonging to higher strata, the main changes are demographic ones: a decrease on its average size, the changing in the mother- woman role, and the rise of legal separation. The importance of the lacks concerning poor families, sifts out the influence of the demographic variables on the development of teen-agers and children of different ages. However, it has not been proved yet that reduced families are less protected than larger ones, in similar poverty conditions. Evidences documented by the described studies, allow us to lay the foundations of the careful planning and development of specific preventive interventions addressed, for instance, to teen-agers coming from families with problems such as alcoholic parents, divorced or with psychopahological background. They point out, as well, the need to create a family protective policy, arised from the public and private sector, in order to promote their sound development.