ABSTRACT
In the Introduction to this volume, I said that one of the main things I attempt to do in this volume is to link the self, family, and society. Up to now, I have been trying to form some links mainly by examining human development in context and the culture-self interface. Societal conceptualizations of childhood, of competence, and of the self emerged as important; so did the corresponding parental construals of competence and of the self, mediating between societal conceptions and childrearing patterns. In this discussion, though the family was often invoked, this was not explicit. In this chapter, I want to focus on the family as the central component of the self-family-society interface. I propose a theory of family and family change, through socioeconomic development, entailing a causal/functional analysis of the development of the self. This theory should help throw light on some of the antecedents of the separate and the relational selves.
