SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION OF GENDER SOCIALIZATION AT ADOLESCENT AGE

Family is the first social group where a child is integrated when he/she comes to this world. Disruption of traditional family structure, i.e. the absence of one of the parents (more frequently, the father is a missing parent) is supposed to cause severe social and psychological consequences. This article contains the results of an empirical study focused on the specifics of gender socialization in a single-parent family. A general hypothesis about the specificity of a single-parent family as an important factor for gender socialization is confirmed. A number of concrete specific features of boys' and girls' identities brought up in a single-parent family is presented. Boys from single-parent families demonstrate a lower level of emotional self-attitude. As far as girls growing up in similar families are concerned, if we examine their declaration of their own femininity, we can assume the existence of an intrapersonal role conflict, because in their self-conception traditionally male and neutral characteristics come to the forefront, when feminine features are denied. Gender socialization in single-parent families follows the route of acquisition and acceptance of traditional male and female roles by adolescents. In the present-day world, that cannot be viewed as an adaptable strategy and often becomes a source for intra-and interpersonal role conflicts, discontent with themselves, problems in the field of self-actualization and self-fulfillment. We have also discovered that both boys and girls from single-parent families feature inadequate and contradictive ideas about female role, and general and vague representations of male qualities (C) 2018 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.UK