Marriages across ethnic borders are increasing in frequency, yet little is known of how discourses of 'normal' families, ethnicity, race, migration, globalisation affect couples and children involved in these mixed marriages. This book explores mixed marriage though intimate stories drawn from the real lives of visibly different couples.

Why does sex and relationship education (SRE) continue to have mixed success? Why is teaching SRE difficult? And why do some adolescents practice safe sex according to the SRE messages while others still engage in risky sexual behaviour? To answer these questions, this book explores a cutting edge Youth Work-based SRE programme that examines how young people aged 15-21 engage with SRE, describing how a range of socioeconomic, cultural and sexual norms, values and attitudes differently shape their decision-making on sex, intimacy and future pathways. The empirical data presents young people's rich accounts from diverse socioeconomic contexts and relationships, as well as sex educators' views on the efficacy of SRE. Important key themes are family and friendship networks, education and employment expectations, and personal and romantic relationships. Uniquely theorising classed circumstances and expectations with gendered heterosexual practices, Understanding Sex and Relationship Education, Youth and Class reveals that understanding the contextual specifics of teens lives is crucial for the relevancy of SRE. Drawing on SRE and Youth Service practice, alongside policy debates in the UK and international context, means that this book will be useful for readers worldwide, and those interested in sociology, social policy, sexual and public health studies, as well as policymakers and youth practitioners.

Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement analyzes the psychological, social, and academic phenomena comprising engagement, framing it as critical to learning and development. Drawing on positive psychology, flow studies, and theories of motivation, the book conceptualizes engagement as a learning experience, explaining how it occurs (or not) and how schools can adapt to maximize it among adolescents. Examples of empirically supported environments promoting engagement are provided, representing alternative high schools, Montessori schools, and extracurricular programs. The book identifies key innovations including community-school partnerships, technology-supported learning, and the potential for engaging learning opportunities during an expanded school day. Among the topics covered: Engagement as a primary framework for understanding educational and motivational outcomes. Measuring the malleability, complexity, multidimensionality, and sources of engagement. The relationship between engagement and achievement. Supporting and challenging: the instructor's role in promoting engagement. Engagement within and beyond core academic subjects. Technological innovations on the engagement horizon. Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement is an essential resource for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in child and school psychology; social work; educational psychology; positive psychology; family studies; and teaching/teacher education.

Many people seem to be searching for answers to help explain their past, understand their current way of being, and create a happier, more satisfying future. It is the current trend to blame mothers for such emotional problems. "Poppa" Psychology calls into question this habit of blaming mothers, and focuses, instead, on the father-child relationship. Regardless of whether the father is present or absent, his actions will have a direct influence on the child's development. Fathers have received a great deal of media attention lately, but the main focus has been on their absence. "Poppa" Psychology deals with the psychological ramifications of the father-child relationship, regardless of whether the fathers are present or absent. Specifically, it highlights factors that are related to maladjustment in children and provides suggestions for raising psychologically healthy children.

Adoption in other cultures and other times provides a background to understanding the operation of adoption in the Roman worlds. This book considers the relationship of adoption to kinship structures in the Greek and Roman world. It considers the procedures for adoption followed by a separate analysis of testamentary cases, and the impact of adoption on nomenclature. The impact of adoption on inheritance arrangements is considered, including an account of how the families of freedmen were affected. Its use as a mode of succession at Rome is detailed, and this helps to understand the anxiety of childless Romans to procure a son through adoption, rather than simply to nominate heirs in their wills. The strategy also had political uses, and importantly it was used to rearrange natural succession in the imperial family. The book concludes with political adoptions, looking at the detailed case studies of Clodius and Octavian.

Family stories of the ties between mothers and daughters form the foundation of Mothers and Daughters: Complicated Connections Across Cultures. Nationally and internationally known feminist scholars frame, analyze, and explore mother-daughter bonds in this collection of essays. Cultures from around the world are mined for insights which reveal historical, generational, ethnic, political, religious, and social class differences. This book focuses on the tenacity of the connection between mothers and daughters, impediments to a strong connection, and practices of good communication. Mothers and Daughters will interest those studying communication, women s studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology, counseling, and cultural studies.

Based on open-ended interviews with adult children and children-in-law, this book documents how plain folk from the working and middle classes manage to provide care for their frail, elderly parents while simultaneously meeting the obligations of their jobs and their own immediate families.

Adult children who care for elderly parents are pressured daily trying to juggle the responsibilities of work, family, and caregiving. Deborah Merrill shows how plain folk (as one caregiver termed herself) from the working and lower middle classes manage to provide care for their frail, elderly parents while simultaneously meeting the obligations of their jobs and their own immediate families. The evidence is drawn from open-ended, in-depth interviews with adult children and children-in-law, all of whom have worked outside of the home at some point during caregiving.

Merrill examines the strategies that caregivers use to combine work and caregiving and the accommodations they make in their jobs. She also points to the pathways that lead family members to caregiving roles and how those pathways vary according to family history, gender, and in-law status. By focusing on class differences in caregiving and pointing to policy implications, Merrill has provided an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and policymakers in social work, gerontology, family studies, and social issues.

The United States Constitution has already been interpreted to provide a variety of family-related protections which, if applied consistently, also protect same-sex couples and their children. Only by radically reformulating and severely undermining existing protections can courts and commentators justify the claim that the Federal Constitution does not offer a wealth of family protections, including the right to marry a same-sex partner.

Discussing the constitutional implications of civil unions with a special focus on how they might be treated in the interstate context, Strasser explains how the courts and commentators have reworked and significantly weakened a variety of constitutional protections in their attempts to establish that same-sex couples are not afforded constitutional protections. He further suggests that the constitutional protections for religion support rather than undermine the constitutional protection of same-sex unions.

AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLINGUISTICS The new eighth edition of An Introduction to Sociolinguistics brings this valuable, bestselling textbook up to date with the latest in sociolinguistic research and pedagogy, providing a broad overview of the study of language in social context with accessible coverage of major concepts, theories, methods, issues, and debates within the field. This leading text helps students develop a critical perspective on language in society as they explore the complex connections between societal norms and language use. The eighth edition contains new and updated coverage of such topics as the societal aspects of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), multilingual societies and discourse, gender and sexuality, ideologies and language attitudes, and the social meanings of linguistic forms. Organized in four sections, this text first covers traditional language issues such as the distinction between languages and dialects, identification of regional and social variation within languages, and the role of context in language use and interpretation. Subsequent chapters cover approaches to research in sociolinguistics--variationist sociolinguistics, ethnography, and discourse analytic research--and address both macro- and micro-sociolinguistic aspects of multilingualism in national, transnational, global, and digital contexts. The concluding section of the text looks at language in relation to gender and sexuality, education, and language planning and policy issues. Featuring examples from a variety of languages and cultures that illustrate topics such as social and regional dialects, multilingualism, and the linguistic construction of identity, this text provides perspectives on both new and foundational research in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Eighth Edition, remains the ideal textbook for upper-level undergraduate and graduate course in sociolinguistics, language and society, linguistic anthropology, applied and theoretical linguistics, and education. The new edition has also been updated to support classroom application with a range of effective pedagogical tools, including end-of-chapter written exercises and an instructor website, as well as materials to support further learning such as reading suggestions, research ideas, and an updated companion student website containing a searchable glossary, a review guide, additional exercises and examples, and links to online resources.

The family remains a fundamental social, emotional, and economic unit, but it is undergoing change, especially in the European Union. Reimagining the Family explores contemporary films and literature about the effects of legal and illegal immigration on the structure and the stories of the contemporary 'European' family, with a focus on Germany. Multiple models, from nuclear to extended, local to transnational, encounter each other in statistics and in fictions. Narratives about work, love, generational difference, and conflicts among them alternately resist and embrace the influences of migration and immigration. Defining cosmopolitan identities in new and more inclusive ways, these stories of transnational families go beyond the demographic studies to expand the range of possibilities for understanding work, parenting, and citizenship in contemporary Europe.

With the recent media interest in celebrity childhood sexual abuse and rape cases, we think we know what sexual violence is and who 'rape victims' are. But this portrayal is limited. Drawing on in-depth accounts from women who have experienced rape, this book revisits issues of credibility, responsibility and feminism to provide missing details.

"This is a much needed and long-awaited book as the field of medical family therapy reaches its current level of maturity. The authors are respected clinicians and researchers in the area and they share their expertise and wisdom in this book with elegance. An impressively practical book that is likely to become a very useful resource for all those looking for a go to book in this area "
- Sy Saeed, MD, MS, FACPsych
Professor and Chairman
Department of Psychiatric Medicine
Brody School of Medicine
East Carolina University
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Psychiatric Administration and Management (JPAM)

"As we seek to implement a medical system that meets the needs of all families, it is critical that we delineate and understand the skills, tasks and opportunities at every level of the healthcare process. Medical Family Therapists are at the core of this endeavor with a unique blend of clinical, organizational and leadership talents. More and more, these professionals are being invited to the table where they remind us to consider the family, and attend to the relationships within and between all involved in the delivery of efficient and effective care. This book guides the Medical Family Therapist as they step into these roles of influencing the influencers. It is a must read to understand the further complexities of the healthcare puzzle and the roles played in shaping a healthcare system that can both financially and physically heal us."
- Tina Schermer Sellers, PhD, LMFT
Department of Marriage & Family Therapy
Seattle Pacific University
Seattle, Washington

"High praise to Hodgson, Lamson, Mendenhall, and Crane and in creating a seminal work for systemic researchers, educators, supervisors, policy makers and financial experts in health care. The comprehensiveness and innovation explored by every author reflects an in depth understanding that reveals true pioneers of integrated health care. Medical Family Therapy: Advances in Application will lead the way for Medical Family Therapists in areas just now being acknowledged and explored.
-" Tracy Todd, PhD, LMFT
Executive Director of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy

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"Medical Family Therapy is a growing area of practice that is reflective of healthcare s need for professionals who are trained to develop integrated models of care. It is becoming widely-recognized by family therapists and other mental and medical professionals that professionals need to connect the complex facets of biomedical care and mental health treatment with individuals and families. Medical Family Therapy: Advanced Applications is the first text to focus on the advanced practice of the emerging field of Medical Family Therapy. This text offers up-to-date and in-depth insights into training, research and policy making it a perfect resource for the growing number of graduate programs in the field."

This edited collection explores family relations in two types of 'migrant families' in Europe: mixed families and transnational families. Based on in-depth qualitative fieldwork and large surveys, the contributors analyse gender and intergenerational relations from a variety of standpoints and migratory flows. In their examination of family life in a migratory context, the authors develop theoretical approaches from the social sciences that go beyond migration studies, such as intersectionality, the solidarity paradigm, care circulation, reflexive modernization and gender convergence theory. Making Multicultural Families in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including migration and transnationalism studies, family studies, intergenerational studies, gender studies, cultural studies, development studies, globalization studies, ethnic studies, gerontology studies, social network analysis and social work.

Competing claims on time in work and family life have become inherent, unavoidable features of the Western world. As households increasingly juggle competing responsibilities, and as job expectations and parenting standards intensify, many people feel torn between work and family. This book aims to deepen our understanding of a variety of conditions that influence the successes and difficulties experienced in attempting to equally accommodate both work and private lives. The contributors argue that conditions which create competing claims on time can originate from the organization, from the household, or from both; a multi-level and multi-actor approach is thus applied to the problem. Paying detailed attention to time use and time pressures, the contributors focus not only on the causes of disturbed balances between work and care, but also on solutions to these competing claims. The conclusions reached provide policymakers and implementers with evidence that certain elements of the organization and the household can be seen as parameters that are susceptible to directed policy-based intervention. This comprehensive, multinational and multi-disciplinary study encompasses sociology, economics, geography and urban science perspectives from across Europe, US, and Australia. It will prove essential reading for students of social scientific disciplines, including family and organizational sociology and economics, and for policymakers and researchers focusing on work-family issues.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence Gendering Women is an engaging and accessible account of how constructions of femininity fundamentally affect women's mental wellbeing through the life course. Led by women's life history accounts of growing up and growing older in the north of England, this book shows how experiences of becoming and being a woman - in family life, education, employment, motherhood and situations of violence - both enable and erode self confidence and esteem. The challenges to women's mental wellbeing cut across age and class differences and have profound impacts on the material conditions of women's lives throughout the life course. This is in turn a driver of inequality that is often under-recognised in mainstream policy. Based on feminist and ethnographically informed research with over five hundred women Gendering women provides a critical link between gender theory and the lived realities of women's daily lives and will appeal to students and academics in sociology and social sciences.

This book explains how the short-lived sexual revolution 50 years ago has led to the current evolution of our sexual values and behaviors and social standards among youth culture, examining topics such as communication technologies and sex, teen pregnancy, and divorce rates in the Bible Belt. Is an increase in sexual activity during adolescence a normal part of the transition to adulthood, or evidence of a societal problem? Why would conservative religious youth become sexually active earlier than their peers and be more likely to have an unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease? How are women continuing to lead our society's sexual transformation? Written by an author whose 40-year career in sexology and university administration provides a uniquely qualified perspective upon both sex research and the changing sexual perceptions of American youth, this comprehensive book is must-read for both parents and policy makers. America's Sexual Transformation traces the philosophical, cultural, and scientific developments responsible for the beginning and end of America's sexual revolution that have now spawned a more substantive sexual transformation. It examines traditional theories and attitudes regarding sex, and demonstrates how the findings of sex research provide entirely new paradigms that should replace outmoded and harmful theories. This groundbreaking book also explains who we are as sexual individuals and how we got to be that way. Chapter notes highlight some of the major sex research studies of the past 50 years Case studies and personal histories document unusual sexual preferences and how the practice of sex therapy is changing with current communication technologies A comprehensive index helps readers find salient points easily

This series of four volumes honors the lifetime achievements of the distinguished activist and scholar Elise Boulding (1920-2010) on the occasion of her 95th birthday. This first anthology documents the breadth of Elise Boulding's contributions to Peace Research, Peacemaking, Feminism, Future Studies, and Sociology of the Family. Known as the "matriarch" of the twentieth century peace research movement, she made significant contributions in the fields of peace education, future studies, feminism, and sociology of the family, and as a prominent leader in the peace movement and the Society of Friends.

The dominant cultural script is that the Baby Boomers have 'had it all', thereby depriving younger generations of the opportunity to create a life for themselves. Bristow provides a critical account of this discourse by locating the problematisation of the Baby Boomers within a wider ambivalence about the legacy of the Sixties.

This volume is a shocking insight into the way the idea of romantic love can justify and excuse the killing of women by their spouses and partners, and lead to sympathy and reduced prison sentences for the killers. The author explores how stories of domestic homicide and love are told in the news, by the police, and in the courts, drawing from the reporting of 72 cases which happened in just one twelve month period. The findings make compelling reading and are important in understanding how we respond to domestic abuse and violence more generally, making clear the need to listen to victims more closely both before and after death. The book also includes a personal account of the aftermath of a double murder which was pivotal to the introduction of Domestic Homicide Reviews in the UK in April 2011.

This book provides an insightful sociological study of the declining Japanese population, using statistical analysis to establish the significance of municipal power using demographic data on national, regional, prefectural and municipal levels. Penned by one of Japan's eminent sociologists, it provides a quantitative characterization of population decline in Japan with a focus on regional variation, and identifies the principal explanatory factors through GPI statistical software tools such as G-census and EvaCva, within a historical perspective. Furthermore, it offers a qualitative assessment of what constitutes 'municipal power' as this relates to regional/local revitalization as a means of addressing municipal population decline. Using Goki-Shichido as a theoretical framework, this book pays special attention to municipal variations within the same prefecture, presenting a completely unique approach. In combining these two dimensions of analyses, the book successfully reveals the impact of municipal power and socio-cultural identity of social capital in the region, from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives at the municipal level. Demography issues in Japan have been receiving increasing attention among researchers given the growing number of declining populations in developed countries, in tandem with rapid aging and low fertility trends. Providing an original and unique contribution to regional population analysis in the fields of regional demography, historical demography and regional population policy, this book shows that the revitalization of the community is vital if Japan is to increase its population, so as to renew a community 'raison d'etre'. The book is of interest to scholars of Asian studies more broadly, and to sociologists, demographers, and policymakers interested in population studies, specifically. "Providing an informative and vivid overview of the demographic situation of Japan, the author offers excellent suggestions for effective regional policy in confronting a shrinking society. This book presents a unique analysis of the regional variations on small municipal levels, with demographic variables, social indicators and historical identities. An original contribution to regional population analysis in the fields of regional population policy, regional demography and historical demography." - Toshihiko Hara, Professor Emeritus, Sapporo City University

The first international, cross-disciplinary book to explore and understand the lives of parents with intellectual disabilities, their children, and the systems and services they encounter * Presents a unique, pan-disciplinary overview of this growing field of study * Offers a human rights approach to disability and family life * Informed by the newly adopted UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) * Provides comprehensive research-based knowledge from leading figures in the field of intellectual disability

This book offers a nuanced picture of mixed family life in the UK. Specifically, the book explores how parents from different backgrounds create a place of belonging for their children, while also negotiating difference and attempting to transmit various aspects of their cultures, including religion, hobbies, language and food to their mixed children. Based on data collected from 26 months of fieldwork, the author concludes that the intergenerational transmission of culture, instead of being tied to the idea of "national culture", is actually more organic and fluid, allowing individuals to share their "cultures", from traditions and customs to preferences and habits, with the next generation. As mixedness increasingly becomes the norm in our global society, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of race, ethnicity and family studies, as well as social workers, school teachers, counsellors, and parents and kin of mixed children.

Tackling issues relevant to family life today, thisauthoritative "Companion" shows why studying social change in families is fundamental for understanding the transformations in individual and social life, across the globe.
Contains original essays by expert contributors on a wide range of topics relating to the sociology of families.
Includes coverage of social inequality, parenting practices, children's work, the changing patterns of citizenship, and multi-cultural families.
Gives special attention to European and North American examples.
Discusses previously neglected groups, including immigrant families and gays and lesbians.
Explores how revolutionary changes in aging, longevity, and sexual behavior have radically affected the experience of different generations, and the relationships between them.