Abstract
We can recognize that a big change in these several decades in the structure and the size of the Japanese families and their economic conditions have greatly affected the function of socialization of the family. By using the result of 1970 National Census Data, we first have considered the features of the families that have children aged below six and below eighteen in order to know surroundings of the families in which Japanese children grow.
It was found out that two-thirds of all the families that have children are nuclear families, and the rest one-third stem families. The proportion of nuclear family is extremely large in urban areas, but in rural areas stem family constitutes more than 50 percent. Nuclear family is a small family with four members on the average. Stem family, on the other hand, has a little more than six members. As high as about 80 percent of the families that have children are engaged in the non-agricultural jobs.
The fact that one-third of all the children live in the stem families, or living with their grand-parents, shows the necessity to make clear the mechanism of the child socialization processes in this type of family. When we consider the structural features of Japanese society and the features of the structural principles which lie in the groups in Japan, we notice that even in the contemporary Japanese society, there still remains the human relations and its behavioral patterns which are characteristics of the stem family. Therefore, to reconsider the socialization function in the traditional family is usefull to investigate the problems of socialization of the Japanese.
We analysed the socialization processes of the Japanese based on the concept of “Amae”, which Dr. Doi has pointed out. As the behavioral patterns of the Japanese largely depend on psychological “Amae”, Japanese children learn how to express and control “Amae” in their socialization processes. “Amae”is most frequently observed in mother-child relationships at infant stage. That is the reason why Japanese people regard mother-child relationships important. Nuclear families which are increasing in number in modern Japan, have suitable structure for learning “Amae”, but they don't have the structure to control over“Amae” after infant stage.
