INTERPRETATIONS OF FAMILY CRISIS IN SOCIOLOGY. BETWEEN FAMILISM AND THE GLOBAL REVOLUTION OF LIFESTYLE

Since the end of the nineteen sixties, there has been a public debate on family crisis in Euro-American culture. The scholars involved in the ideological dispute on family crisis can be classified into four categories: functionalist family-centrists, conservatives, liberals or supporters of feminist-liberal interpretation. The article presents the ideological stands in the argument and proposes an approach which allows to analyze family changes without excessive emotionality and ideological involvement. The author persuades that the transformations of family should not be viewed as a symptom of its decline but as an effect of adjustment to new environmental circumstances being the result of both social and economic developments.