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Abstract Christina Radicke
Recently the family has become a topic of public interest. In particular focus are the questions of whether there are still processes of education within the family and what is passed on . This proves the timeliness of the topic. The aim of this research project is to explore if and which guidelines basically influencing individual actions or patterns of value orientation are passed on, modified or given up between different generations of a family. In connection to Bourdieu and complemented by Halbwachs' remarks of collective memory, which postulates individual memories to be influenced and formed by the individual's social surroundings, the key assumption is that families heavily influence the development of patterns of value orientation of its members. This does not imply that these patterns are passed on in extenso from generation to generation. In fact, the subsequent generation actively participates in this process. Guidelines basically influencing the individual actions are thus not only passed on, but can be changed or even interrupted. The topics of remembrance, education and transgenerational relationships are focused in order to establish lines of transgenerational transmission with their possible interruptions or modifications.
Memories and topics of the generations of the grandparents, the parents and the children are compared to each other in order to identify continuities and interruptions. The questions are how transgenerational relationships and education have developed, and whether certain lines of transmission are connected to certain ways of educating and certain ways of modeling transgenerational relationships.
A qualitative research design has been chosen in order to answer those questions. Open guided interviews with narrative passages will be conducted with three generations of nine families living in a rural region. Furthermore, a selection of the families' photographs will be analyzed.