Family, alcohol, and culture

During the 1970s and 1980s a small but rich tradition of anthropological and sociological studies of family culture, cultural context, and alcohol has developed. Ideally, ethnographic analysis of a cultural group and in-depth holistic examination of family process are incorporated in such research. In conducting family, culture, and alcohol investigations, researchers are encouraged to reexamine some conceptual assumptions: (1) their working definition of culture; (2) their relative emphasis on family culture or cultural context; (3) their attention to socialization as an active process in the transmission of culture within and across generations; and (4) their adoption of a holistic and cross-generational perspective. To apply this line of research to preventive and intervention strategies, two questions are especially relevant: Why are particular alcohol traditions established and maintained within families? What incentives and constraints from the family's cultural context help create, preserve, and/or terminate particular drinking practices?