Originally published in 1987, this book presented for the first time a unified treatment of English kinship of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This system, far from being a patchwork of historical accidents, has a remarkably logical overall structure, permeating both law and custom. To understand it one must study a wide variety of sources ranging from Parliamentary debates through accounts of contemporary events, cases and incidents to fiction of the day. The work is pertinent to current studies in a number of fields: in history it represents a systematic overview, highlighting new sources of material, while for lawyers it gives a historical context and explanation of 'family law', particularly topical for impending English legislation in this area at the time. It collects two centuries of sociological data, and presents social anthropologists with the English system for comparison with systems conventionally studied in the field and with kinship theory. Finally, it provides philosophers with a new arena in which to discuss the nature of explanations of human activities, besides raising fresh questions.

Originally published in 1986, reissued here with a new preface, this study of the origins and early development of family conciliation services in Britain outlines their philosophy, methods of work and reported results, illustrated with case examples. The examples demonstrate that disputes between separating and divorcing couples involve complex personal and family problems as well as legal ones, and that the practice of conciliation needed to be set in the context of current changes in family law and court procedures. At the time many solicitors and courts were adopting a settlement-seeking approach in matrimonial cases rather than a sharply adversarial one, and the complementary roles of solicitors and conciliators gave rise to dilemmas in practice, as well as offering potential advantages. This book draws a parallel between the work of ACAS in industrial disputes and the similar approach of family conciliation services, but points out that there are also major differences. It also shows how the experience of conciliation practice gained in other countries throws some useful light on the questions being raised in Britain. Research findings from Australia, Canada and the United States are used in discussing the future of conciliation in the short and longer term, and in looking at the possible development of alternative methods of resolving disputes.

Few Americans escape the experience of divorce, either first-hand or through the dissolutions of marriages of friends or relatives. According to the author, mediation offers a good alternative to the strictly adversarial divorce process that was so prevalent before such programs began to emerge. Originally published in 1991, this book was unique at the time in that it not only explores the role of communication in divorce mediation, but it also presents original research to support its claims. A series of empirical studies, it points readers to a more focused set of recommendations about communication than the typical practitioner's "How-to" books. A simulation exercise is also included, so that readers can apply the concepts described and see the results. The main goal of this text is to provide mediators with a language for understanding their own and their disputants' communication patterns, strategies, and tactics - a shortcoming of most other books on this topic when first published.

In the 1960s divorce was increasing around the world and marriage conciliation services were a necessary development to deal with those who wanted to seek help for their problems. Originally published in 1968, the purpose of this title was to give some account of the widely differing types of marital conciliation services operating in Britain and also some other parts of the world at the time. The author, who was based at the National Marriage Guidance Council of Great Britain, first outlines the British services, then presents comparative studies of the services overseas in Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia and Finland and the United States and Canada. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

In the early 1980s the subject of violence in marriage was in danger of being overlooked once again, as new social problems dominated the political scene, and the Government pursued policies of retrenchment that were likely to deprive refuges of the necessary central government support. Yet improvements in the services for victims of marital violence were still urgently needed, as this study shows. Originally published in 1983, this book is based on research into the way practitioners in the medical, legal, and social services viewed marriage and violence at the time. It examines marital violence from a number of perspectives. Taking samples from groups of doctors, solicitors, social workers, health visitors, and women's aid refuges, the authors have investigated the ways in which different agencies and practitioners respond to the problem of marital violence. They use a combination of statistical evidence and interviews with practitioners and the victims themselves to build up a picture of the extent of the problem - how it is defined, how much comes to the attention of the public services - and of the ways in which the attitudes and professional status of the practitioners form a response that is in varying degrees adequate or otherwise to deal with the problems that exist. The authors produce evidence to show that marital violence is still widespread, though largely hidden because of the way privacy determines family relationships. They show how present provisions are inadequate to deal with the problem, and make recommendations about ways of improving the services available to help battered women.

The divorce rate in England and Wales increased nearly four-fold between 1950 and 1976; in the five years following the implementation of the 1969 Divorce Reform Act in January 1971, it more than doubled. Despite the plethora of public comment about the rising divorce rates, there was at the time very little objective data in our society about either those who chose to resolve their marital unhappiness by divorce, or the possible causes and consequences of such divorce. Originally published in 1979, this book, the first published study from the Marriage Research Centre, represented an important landmark in a relatively unexplored field. Who Divorces? Presents the findings of a large-scale study into the characteristics of those who divorce. Certain childhood, adolescent, pre-marital and marital characteristics and experiences of a random sample of men and women who divorced are considered and compared with the characteristics and experiences of a random sample of men and women whose marriages were still intact. Additionally, research findings relating to the causes and consequences of divorce, both for the individual and for society, are discussed with particular reference to the wide range of prevailing opinion on these matters.

Originally published in 1988, the author of the classic Family and Marriage in Britain (1962), Professor Ronald Fletcher here makes a new appraisal of the family in society today. Comprehensive in its range of material and straightforward in style, the book represents his thoughts on the family and marriage in Britain in the 1980s. Since the 1969 Divorce Reform Act, many anxieties had been felt and voiced about the trends of divorce, marital breakdown, the growing instability of the family and so on. The changes, however, were hard to discern and assess, statistical records difficult to interpret reliably. Ronald Fletcher discusses these continuing anxieties and presents a thorough-going critical review of these changes and statistics. In his conclusions he emphasises the continuing importance in modern society of the family and marriage. Professor Fletcher examines the family as both an agent and symptom of change. He explores in detail the relation between family life and the deeper long-term changes which had been at work throughout the twentieth century - the disrupting experience of world wars; the rapidity of technological and social change; the many-sided changes in communications; the spread of secularisation; and changes in education - seeking a profound and satisfactory causal explanation. He ends with a consideration of the future of the family and society alike, and what our social and educational policies ought to be if certain values and qualities of life are to be sustained. The Shaking of the Foundations is the companion volume to The Abolitionists (1989), in which Ronald Fletcher critically examines the anti-family arguments of the previous thirty years.

Originally published in 1984, Making a Go of It presents findings from a study of remarried couples in Sheffield between 1976 and 1979. Including case studies from the families involved, it also discusses marriage as a social institution and some of the main theoretical and methodological issues which bear upon the study of family and domestic life. It was hoped that the book would be interesting and accessible to remarried couples themselves as well as to members of those occupations who have a 'professional' interest in families of all kinds. Still a useful resource, today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

Despite handicaps of low mental ability, deprived backgrounds or psychiatric and physical disability, most married couples with disabilities manage to give and receive much personal satisfaction and pleasure in their marriages. This is of special interest to professionals and social workers, who in the course of their jobs are called upon to give support and service to people with mental disabilities. Originally published in 1979 Ann and Michael Craft had spent four years researching a sample of 45 marriages with at least one spouse with a mental disability. In three-quarters of the partnerships both spouses have a mental disability. This was the largest group of married subjects with a mental disability studied in this country at the time, and the Crafts' conclusions were of considerable importance, for, with the recent trend towards normalization, marriage was becoming a viable possibility for more and more people with mental disabilities. The purposes of the study, therefore, were to give an account of the authors' research concerning married couples with mental disabilities, to suggest some ways in which service to such couples might be improved, and to provide material for teaching purposes. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1979. The language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.

In the 1950s sexual instruction was still a considerable problem despite the very great freedom of discussion that was common. The high level of so-called sexual neurosis among women, the problems of sexual compatibility and birth control, and the spread of venereal disease all bore witness to the need for responsible information. Originally published in 1954, Dr Henry Olsen, in this comprehensive survey of the problems of sexual adjustment, draws fully from a very wide and thoroughly grounded experience. Since 1937, he had been closely connected with the instruction in sexual hygiene in Denmark, where the majority of public schools and high schools included it as part of the syllabus. Of the 1,232 public libraries at the time all but three had copies of his Textbook on Sexual Hygiene. Sexual Adjustment in Marriage is admirably clear in style and arrangement. It is divided into subjects of particular importance such as The Sex Organs; Living Together; Disturbances in a Couple's Sex Life; Sex Life of the Unmarried; Fertilization, Pregnancy and Childbirth; Sexual Abnormalities; Diseases of Sex Life. Each of the sixteen main sections is divided into chapters, within which every topic discussed is numbered. Reference to any part of the book is thus extremely simple. Knowledge alone cannot prevent all disasters in the difficult field of sexual life. But this book aimed to give all that one needed for a basic understanding of the elementary laws - from the genes and chromosomes of one's own make-up to the sex education of one's children. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1954. The language used and views portrayed are a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.

Originally published in 1974, the conclusions of the book are based on intensive field-work during 1963-66 in a village in south-east Rajasthan, India. Although the marriages of 158 boys and 163 girls were studied, the relevance of the conclusions drawn extends far beyond the village and its region since it reveals the changing themes and values in Indian society at the time. The perceptive analysis of rites and ceremonies of marriage further illuminates the central problem of the book - how the themes of the Dharmasastras are interpreted and acted upon in village life and what kinds of reinforcements and incentives to change they provide to the various units of social structure. The author contends that the series of marriage rites manifest the continuity of tradition, a ritual epitomisation of caste interdependence and means of systematic social advancement. At the time ritual idioms and patterns of social exchange were beginning to change, more often in observance than in content. Traditional sources of status aggrandisement continued to provide new pathways to the forces of modernisation and unveil several clues to the innovative strategies of change. This scholarly study filled the need for a realistic appraisal of the relationship between marriage practices, religious values and the changing social structure.

In the 1970s among peoples of the third world migration, paid employment, and urban living had caused changes in domestic economies, in decision making in households, and in the sexual division of labour and power. This was particularly so in areas formerly subjected to colonial domination and therefore the influence of European mores and institutions. This book, previously published in 1974 as Marriage Among a Matrilineal Elite, this edition in 1981, provides one of the few detailed accounts of such changes, by a writer who has lived the kind of life she describes, that of the urban educated Akan of Southern Ghana - people who have migrated from farming and fishing villages to Accra the capital to find employment in government institutions after protracted higher education, often overseas. The study is particularly interesting because it focuses upon people from an ethnic area practicing matrilineal descent and inheritance, in which women and men have traditionally both worked in agriculture: in which husbands and wives have customarily resided in separate houses, affording both sexes considerable autonomy as spouses and in which women have held important political offices, as well as sharing responsibilities for maintenance of dependent children. Akan women provide an important model of responsible energetic females, who have in the past and to some extent in the present, avoided the domestic trap of wifely dependence. But, as we read, the trap is open to those who forsake traditional patterns of economic endeavour or whose resources vis a vis their men folk are reduced. The book was also a significant contribution to the comparative sociology of the family at the time, providing an exercise in methodology in which the aim has been to evolve ways of documenting and comparing two major aspects of change in conjugal family relationships. On one hand, the division of labour, resources and power between spouses - the 'jointness or segregation' of the conjugal role relationship - and on the other, the extent to which the conjugal family is a functionally discrete unit in a number of domestic activity areas: in popular and ambiguous terms whether the family is 'extended' or 'nuclear'. The use of sociological concepts developed in other areas of the world gives this book a significant position in the development of a cross culturally valid sociology of the family. The subject matter and conceptual frameworks used here will thus be of interest to sociologists, economists and anthropologists in general and to specialists in African and Black studies, Women's Studies and Sex Roles in particular, as well as to the male and female feminists around the world.

Understanding of welfare states has been much enriched by comparative work on welfare regimes and gender. This book uses these debates to illuminate the changing gender regimes in countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It has particular significance as countries in the region make the transition from communism and into a European Union that has issues of women's employment, work-life balance, and gender equality at the heart of its social policy. The analysis draws on quantitative comparative data, and on rich qualitative data from a new study of mothers in Polish households, illuminating the effects of changing welfare and gender relations from the perspective of those most directly affected - mothers of young children. This book is an important addition to the literature and is recommended to academics and students interested in the study of gender relations, welfare states, and international and comparative European social policy. The insights gained will also be of value to those engaged in welfare policy and practice.

Intimacy between blacks and whites in the United States is a crucial point of inquiry because this color line has historically been the most rigorously surveilled and restricted. Because of this history, social scientists use interracial intimacy as a barometer of the social distance between racial groups, and view growing numbers of interracial couples as evidence of racial progress. But are interracial couples really able to carve out a 'raceless' intimate sphere? Or are interracial relationships microcosms of broader-level racial hierarchies? In this book, Amy Steinbugler challenges the widespread assumption that interracial intimacy represents the ultimate erasure of racial differences. She finds that while interracial partners may be more racially progressive, they are not necessarily enlightened subjects who have managed to get beyond race. Instead, for many partners interracial intimacy represents not the end, but the beginning of a sustained process of negotiating racial differences. Using qualitative interviews and ethnographic case studies with both heterosexual and same-sex black/white couples, Steinbugler explores the social practices through which interracial partners respond to and negotiate racial difference in their relationship, what she calls "racework." Even though these processes unfolded in very similar ways for every interracial partner she interviewed, racial identities and attitudes remained generally stable and issues of power and privilege crept into even the most ordinary situations. Intimacy, Steinbugler finds, does not necessarily erode racial differences. In addition, the interviews with same-sex interracial couples-a topic on which there is very little research-allow Steinbulger to examine for the first time how everyday racial practices are shaped by sexuality and gender. Our racial present is a complex mix of enduring inequalities and new cultural messages. Beyond Loving adeptly examines how interracial couples experience race in their everyday lives and how they engage one another to address fundamental questions about the significance of race in contemporary life.

This book is about the impact of austerity in and on everyday life, based on a two-year ethnography with families and communities in 'Argleton', Greater Manchester, UK. Focused on family, friends and intimate relations, and their intersections, the book develops a relational approach to everyday austerity. It reveals how austerity is a deeply personal and social condition, with impacts that spread across and between everyday relationships, spaces and temporal perspectives. It demonstrates how austerity is lived and felt on the ground, with distinctly uneven socio-economic consequences. Furthermore, everyday relationships are subject to change and continuity in times of austerity. Austerity also has lasting impacts on personal and shared experiences, both in terms of day-to-day practices and the lifecourses people imagine themselves living.

This book provides cutting-edge, evidence-based strategies and interventions that target students' engagement at school and with learning. Coverage begins with the background and 29-year history of the Check & Connect Model and describes the model and assessment of student engagement that served as the backdrop for conceptualizing the engagement interventions described in the book. Subsequent chapters are organized around the subtypes of student engagement - academic, behavioral, affective, cognitive - that were developed based on work with the Check & Connect Model. Principles and formal interventions are presented at both the universal and more intensive levels, consistent with the Response-to-Intervention/Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework. The book concludes with a summary on the lessons learned from Check & Connect and the importance of a system that is oriented toward enhancing engagement and school completion for all students. Interventions featured in this book include: Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS). The Homework, Organization, and Planning Skills (HOPS) Intervention. The Good Behavior Game in the classroom. Check-in, Check-out (CICO). Banking Time, a dyadic intervention to improve teacher-student relationships The Self-Regulation Empowerment Program (SREP). Student Engagement is a must-have resource for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in child and school psychology, educational policy and politics, and family studies.

This book brings together international research from scholars and activists on the forms of violence that older women experience into a unique, comprehensive two-volume set. This volume is concerned with understanding the consequences and impacts of violence against older women. The majority of policy and practice has been developed to reflect the dynamics and contexts of violence affecting young women, and most of the available support services had focused on the needs of those of child-bearing age. This volume sheds light on the specific needs and effectiveness of responses to violence against older women, and identifies both challenges and opportunities for developing services that meet older survivor's needs. It will be of interest to researchers in social and health care, gerontology, sociology and social policy, feminist research and criminology.

An up-close look at the education arms race of after-school learning, academic competitions, and the perceived failure of even our best schools to educate children Beyond soccer leagues, music camps, and drama lessons, today's youth are in an education arms race that begins in elementary school. In Hyper Education, Pawan Dhingra uncovers the growing world of high-achievement education and the after-school learning centers, spelling bees, and math competitions that it has spawned. It is a world where immigrant families vie with other Americans to be at the head of the class, putting in hours of studying and testing in order to gain a foothold in the supposed meritocracy of American public education. A world where enrichment centers, like Kumon, have seen 194 percent growth since 2002 and target children as young as three. Even families and teachers who avoid after-school academics are getting swept up. Drawing on over 100 in-depth interviews with teachers, tutors, principals, children, and parents, Dhingra delves into the why people participate in this phenomenon and examines how schools, families, and communities play their part. Moving past "Tiger Mom" stereotypes, he addresses why Asian American and white families practice what he calls "hyper education" and whether or not it makes sense. By taking a behind-the-scenes look at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, other national competitions, and learning centers, Dhingra shows why good schools, good grades, and good behavior are seen as not enough for high-achieving students and their parents and why the education arms race is likely to continue to expand.

This book draws together research on posthumanism and studies of kinship to elaborate an account of western human kinship practices. Studies of kinship have increasingly sought to critique the normative assumptions that often underpin how caring relationships between humans are understood. The categorisation of 'human' and 'kinship' is brought into question and this book examines who might be excluded through adherence to accepted categories and how a critical lens may broaden our understanding of caring relationships. Bringing together a diverse array of analytic foci and theoretical lenses, Critical Kinship Studies opens up new avenues for understanding what it means to be in relationships with others, and in so doing challenges the human exceptionalism that has often limited how we think about family, loss, love and subjectivity.

As the uproar over the recent New York State law demonstrates, same-sex marriage is a perennial hot-button issue, certain to impact the 2012 election. Debating Same-Sex Marriage provides a useful roadmap to both sides of this contentious matter. Taking a "point/counterpoint" approach, John Corvino (a philosopher and a prominent gay advocate) and Maggie Gallagher (a nationally syndicated columnist and co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage) consider key questions about the institution itself: What is marriage for? Is marriage meant to be a gendered institution? Why is the state in the business of sanctioning marriage? Where do the needs of children fit in? Will legalization of same-sex marriage lead to legalization of polygamy? Corvino argues that society should support same-sex marriage because of its interest in supporting stable households for all its members, gay and straight alike. Gallagher argues that government recognition of same-sex unions as marriages will disconnect marriage from its key public mission furthering responsible procreation, while stigmatizing traditional views of sex, marriage and family as bigotry. Both agree that the issue deserves thoughtful, rigorous engagement.

This volume provides an international perspective on parental leave policies in different countries, goes beyond this to examine a range of issues in depth, and aims to stimulate thinking about possible futures and how policy might underpin them.

Even in secular and civil contexts, marriage retains sacramental connotations. Yet what moral significance does it have? This book examines its morally salient features - promise, commitment, care, and contract - with surprising results. In Part One, "De-Moralizing Marriage," essays on promise and commitment argue that we cannot promise to love and so wedding vows are (mostly) failed promises, and that marriage may be a poor commitment strategy. The book contends with the most influential philosophical accounts of the moral value of marriage to argue that marriage has no inherent moral significance. Further, the special value accorded marriage sustains amatonormative discrimination - discrimination against non-amorous or non-exclusive caring relationships such as friendships, adult care networks, polyamorous groups, or urban tribes. The discussion raises issues of independent interest for the moral philosopher such as the possibilities and bounds of interpersonal moral obligations and the nature of commitment. The central argument of Part Two, "Democratizing Marriage," is that liberal reasons for recognizing same-sex marriage also require recognition of groups, polyamorists, polygamists, friends, urban tribes, and adult care networks. Political liberalism requires the disestablishment of monogamous amatonormative marriage. Under the constraints of public reason, a liberal state must refrain from basing law solely on moral or religious doctrines; but only such doctrines could furnish reason for restricting marriage to male-female couples or romantic love dyads. Restrictions on marriage should thus be minimized. But public reason can provide a strong rationale for minimal marriage: care, and social supports for care, are a matter of fundamental justice. Part Two also responds to challenges posed by property division on divorce, polygyny, and supporting parenting, and builds on critiques of marriage drawn from feminism, queer theory, and race theory. It argues, using the example of minimal marriage, for the compatibility of liberalism and feminism.

This timely volume explores the impact of dramatic social change that has disrupted established patterns of family life and human development in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It addresses several major deficits in knowledge regarding family issues in the Gulf countries, bringing a critical perspective to the emerging challenges facing families in this region. Lansford, Ben Brik, and Badahdah examine the role of urbanization, educational progress, emigration, globalization, and changes in the status of women on social change, as well as tackling issues related to marriage, fertility and parenthood, and family well-being. This book explores how family relationships and social policies can promote physical health, psychological well-being, social relationships, safety, cognitive development, and economic security in the Gulf countries, placing a unique emphasis on contemporary families in this region. Families and Social Change in the Gulf Region is essential reading for scholars from psychology, sociology, education, law, and public policy. It will also be of interest to graduate students in these disciplines.

Growing up with social and economic upheaval in the peripheries of global neoliberalism, children in rural Zambia are presented with diverging social and moral protocols across homes, classrooms, church halls, and the streets. Mostly unmonitored by adults, they explore the ambiguities of adult life in playful interactions with their siblings and kin across gender and age. Drawing on rich linguistic-ethnographic details of such interactions combined with observations of school and household procedures, the author provides a rare insight into the lives, voices, and learning paths of children in a rural African setting.