Prototypical and Categorical Analysis of the Representation of the Family Recomposed by Kassapards

Today, the concept of representation is relevant to many disciplines, including psychology, and is applied to many phenomena and institutions including the family. The latter generates a diversity of structures. Of all the structures, this article focuses particular attention on the stepfamily, for many reasons. One of them is related to the extent that this social reality takes overnight in our environment, the province of Upper Katanga and the various issues it raises that are ethical, social and psychological. The dual objective that it pursues is firstly to identify and present in a quantitative way the different representations that students of UNILU produced with regard to the concept of stepfamily, during a survey carried out on the basis of the 2013 - 2014 academic year. Next, identify the central core as well as the peripheral elements of these purely individual representations elaborated by these students, who daily live the realities of the stepfamily, knowing that the links that an individual has with his family is a limit to his full individuation (Delage, 2008), because we say we are the fruit of our environment. The prototypical and categorical analysis of Vergs (1992) was implemented in the treatment of the collected data. The result of this research is that living on new foundations is the central core of a blended family, whose peripheral elements are linked to four essential conditions historical, emotional, social and ideological.