What Kind of Gender Socialization? Growing Up Within The Family: Paths of Social Construction of Female and Male Identities

Abstract

The modernization process that involved our society starting from the ’70s contributed to redefine gender roles and identities toward a greater similarity between women and men. Gender does not seem to be such relevant anymore in defining girls’ and boys’ carriers and experiences. In such context, does the family still play an important role in the gender socialization process? The paper aims to investigate the rules, values, and know-how thought by parents and how, and to what extent, they are accepted by sons and daughters. In so doing, we would like to understand some of the mechanisms through which gender socialization operates and in which direction the educational process goes: does it contribute to maintain traditional gender roles or to promote innovative ideas of femininity and masculinity and forms of undoing gender?

Keywords: gender, socialization, identity, family.