IJFS - Interdisciplinary Journal of Family Studies

The fragmentation and individualisation that pervaded the evolutionary process of society in the course of the past century have led to a reality which appears enormously discontinuous and complex today. As in the case of many other contemporary aspects of society, it has been debated whether or not the family, too, has been facing a crisis period in the institution itself. The present study has therefore chosen to conduct research from the point of view of a group of university students so as to link up the different theoretical concepts to everyday experience. The purpose of the study was, in particular, to cause the sense models pertaining to the family sphere in today’s society to emerge, so as to understand how and in what way this concept has been transformed and the future prospects according to which it may be conceived and, consequently, must be studied. What results from the findings confirms the importance of this institution despite the fact that it has been wholly redefined: the rights of individuals emerge, along with new modalities of being and becoming families and parents. At the same time, however, the findings reveal the difficulty individuals encounter in defining their identities in a context in which more “traditional” elements coexist with “modern” ones, in an ambiguous connexion that impedes a clear outlook for the future.