Adolescents and socialization to sexuality in same-sex families. Theoretical and methodological challenges

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the ways in which parents relate to the emotional and sexual lives of their adolescent children, considering the changes that occurred in the configuration of current families, at both the relational and structural level. Of these two levels, the former considers the quality of relations among family members, while the latter refers to the new family forms currently appearing within the social scenario, disarranging the traditional way of thinking about the family and originating new ways of conceiving the roles of male and female, being together, the idea of couple and – last but not least – sexuality and the various ways of living and experiencing it. The idea is to test whether the new family configurations show different ways, compared to the traditional family, in considering children’s education and managing aspects related to this stage of life. We focus here on same-sex families, with the aim of understanding the complexities determined in this specific family environment – which in many respects is still not fully recognized in Italy. The article in the end points out the theoretical and methodological challenges that will have to be tackled in future; and relatively, it points out a research, which aims to explore the socialisation process of adolescents, and their consequent sexual approach, in the homosexual families contest.

Keywords

• same-sex family/families; parenting; adolescents and sexuality; educational practices