Ivan De Carlo

Le ricomposizioni familiari in una prospettiva configurativa

This article offers a configurational insight on the issue of family recomposition after separation or divorce. Stepfamilies are often regarded as lacking social capital and therefore putting at risk their members, especially children. Results from a study based on 300 women with a biological child, half from a first-time family, and half from a stepfamily, reveals that a variety of family configurations characterize stepfamilies, with distinct consequences for social capital. Results are discussed in the light of the configurational perspective on families.

The Fabric of Trust in Families: Inherited or Achieved?

Families are often considered an example of thick and cohesive social capital. Scholars intuitively compare strong ties inside the family to weak ties outside the family. In this perspective, social capital benefits are supposed to be equally shared among family members. Because the family is defined as a cohesive and homogeneous group, a series of issues were raised concerning its contribution to social integration in late modern societies. In particular, individualization theorists believe families to be dead as instances of social integration.1 Others have strong doubts about their ability to maintain their function of socialization of children and adolescents, as well as to resist economic hardship when facing divorce. The complexity of contemporary families questions this set of assumptions and suggests that social capital is an individualized resource in families of late modernity.