Abstract

DONATI, Pierpaolo. Old and new family policies: The perspective of relational sociology. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas [online]. 2007, n.54, pp.127-159. ISSN 0873-6529.

Family policy has recently become a new public issue in most countries, as a consequence of two main trends: on the one side the deep transformations of family forms, and on the other side the obsolescence of family policy models inherited from the 20th century (lib, lab, and corporate). Family policy needs a referent defined in relational terms. It cannot be effective and just if policy doesn’t confer a status of social subject to the family. The author proposes a new approach to family policy: a relational approach, based on two fundamental pillars: (1) the adoption of a principle of complex subsidiarity in the governance of family policies; (2) the recognition of the complex citizenship (political and civil) of the family, coherent with the subsidiarity principle.

Keywords : family policy; relational sociology; subsidiarity; family citizenship.

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