Tetsuyuki SHIDA

The purpose of this paper is to present some aspects of the family recognition of the single dweller. Main streems of Japanese family sociology in the post World War II era, based on structural-functionalism, has focused on the family as small group and has analyzed mainly its changing processes from traditional stem-family system to modern conjugal-family system and its inner structure: family roles and family relationships. In these approaches, regardless of age and sex, the single dweller, never forming family group, has been excluded from study of family sociology, or placed in a marginal objects at best. But it is worth while to examine these subjects more closely. The single dweller may have those close family relationships as mutual supports and affections with someone who are now not living together. As the matter of fact, many family sociologist have refered to the existence and living conditions of the single dweller in various ways. Nevertheless, most of their perspectives have standardized the single dweller uniformly without considering the family recognition of single dweller concerned. In this paper, after summarizing the historical streems about the study of single dweller in Japanese family sociology, we present our research findings about the family recognition of the single dweller, and discuss the adaptation of theoretical framework of constructionist approach to the family study.