CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS OF THE FAMILY IN PRE-SCHOOL AGE

This paper is focused on understanding both the way in which preschool children conceptualize their immediate social environment and the contents and formal aspects of their family preconceptions. The theoretical framework of the paper define key concepts of developmental and cognitive psychology as well as an overview of the state and the most important results of current exploration of this issue. The empirical part of the paper is a qualitative study of children's concepts of family. The data were collected using semi-structured individual (fenomenographical) interview, for data analysis we used the open coding and subsequent categorization of in vivo codes. The results are interpreted according to the identified categories and there are specified main criteria which children apply when defining the concept of family in the studied developmental stages. Research findings are related to the particularities of developmental period.