Violence of any kind is hard for most people to understand, but crimes against children and crimes committed by children are perhaps the most difficult to comprehend. Child abuse and neglect is a problem with generational effects. Women who were sexually abused in childhood, for example, are more likely than non-abused women to be harsh with their children, withhold affection, or even accept the sexual abuse of their own children by a spouse or lover. Yet children are not always merely the victims of aggression. They also perpetrate violent crimes in the form of bullying, assault, and homicide, as well as crimes on property, such as vandalism. Moffatt addresses the two sides of this cycle of violence, including examples from clinical case studies and treatment options. Moffatt details crimes against children, ranging from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, sexual and physical abuse, neglect, filicide, and infanticide. He addresses aggression committed by children against other people, property, and self, including self-mutilation and suicide. Written for both professional and lay audiences, counselors, teachers, psychologists, law enforcement, medical professionals, and therapists will benefit from the psychological discussions about causes and effects of aggression.

Do adoptions provide children for families or families for children? This book analyzes the complex interactions between adopters and adoptees using historical and current data. Who are the preferred parents and children, both domestically and internationally? How do the types of adoptions-domestic adoptions, private and public through the foster care system, and intercountry adoptions-differ? Domestic trends include a shift to open adoptions and a notable increase in "hard to place," foster care adoptions-typically older, siblings, minorities, with physical, educational, or emotional challenges. Adoptive parents are increasingly all ages (including grandparents); all types of marriages (single, married and same-sex couples); all income levels, with subsidized adoptions for children who would otherwise remain in foster or institutional care. Intercountry adoptions have followed waves, pushed by wars and political or economic crises in the sending country, and pulled by the increasing demand from the U. S. Currently there is a decrease in intercountry adoptions from Asia and Eastern Europe with a possible fifth wave from Africa with the greatest number from Ethiopia. This is a resource for family sociologists, demographers, social workers, advocates for children and adoptive parents, as well as those who are interested in the continuing research in adoptions.

The Gift of the Other brings together a philosophical analysis of time, embodiment, and ethical responsibility with a feminist critique of the way women's reproductive capacity has been theorized and represented in Western culture. Author Lisa Guenther develops the ethical and temporal implications of understanding birth as the gift of the Other, a gift which makes existence possible, and already orients this existence toward a radical responsibility for Others. Through an engagement with the work of Levinas, Beauvoir, Arendt, Irigaray, and Kristeva, the author outlines an ethics of maternity based on the givenness of existence and a feminist politics of motherhood which critiques the exploitation of maternal generosity.

This volume constitutes a unique contribution to the cross-disciplinary field of family studies. It focuses on issues brought about by the movement of large numbers of women with children into the workplace; the impact of their employment on men's and women's traditional responsibilities and family roles; and the implications of these changing roles for public policy, employers, and social service agencies. The volume includes both historical and contemporary policy frameworks as important themes. Moreover, the issues and circumstances of more than one type of family are considered, including single worker and dual earner families.

This timely and innovative book delivers a comprehensive analysis of the non-recognition of the right to a family life of migrant live-in domestic and care workers in Argentina, Canada, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, the Philippines, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, and Ukraine.

Tessler and Gamache provide substantial research on the impact of mental illness on the family through interviews conducted with hundreds of family members between 1989 and 1997. According to the authors, how families experience the mental illness of a relative depends on many social factors, including how public mental health services are organized and financed, and whether families feel judged or supported by professionals. Most family members experience a range of emotions toward one another ranging from warmth and gratification to anger and rejection. Tessler and Gamache detail the family experience with mental illness in terms of both negative and positive feelings. They take a holistic approach to the family experience and present a variety of family responses and dilemmas. The family members whose stories are told are diverse in respect to race, gender, age, and relationship, and the demographic-clinical characteristics of their relatives with mental illness. Tessler and Gamache find that the amount of burden that family members experience depends, in part, on which dimension of burden is being addressed. When burden is defined as assistance in daily living, it is less than what was thought. On the other hand, the subjective burden associated with supervision and control is substantial. Family role and residence contribute to most dimensions of burden. For example, a mother living with an adult son with schizophrenia will experience mental illness differently than the brother who has moved out of the family home and moved to another state. In both studies, a major finding involved lower than expected expenditures by family members for medication and mental health treatment in both studies. Most expenditures were focused instead on personal or survival needs, which for a sub-sample of family members involves considerable expenditures. This work is an important research finding for scholars, students, and professionals involved with social work, public health, and public mental health policy.

In the last forty years anthropologists have made major contributions to understanding the heterogeneity of reproductive trends and processes underlying them. Fertility transition, rather than the story of the triumphant spread of Western birth control rationality, reveals a diversity of reproductive means and ends continuing before, during, and after transition. This collection brings together anthropological case studies, placing them in a comparative framework of compositional demography and conjunctural action. The volume addresses major issues of inequality and distribution which shape population and social structures, and in which fertility trends and the formation and size of families are not decided solely or primarily by reproduction.

Recent theorizing tends to position ordinary relationships as something we have lost, yet the nature of these relationships is not seriously engaged with. Drawing on rich empirical data, this book questions epochal claims about contemporary emotional lives, setting out to be explicit about the nature of ordinary relationships.

'Captivating, emphatic and deeply inspiring, Sexual Revolution lifted me greatly by envisioning the possibilities of our moment' V (formerly Eve Ensler) 'Brilliant; vital; revolutionary' Kate Manne _________________ This is a story about how modern masculinity is killing the world, and how feminism can save it. It's a story about sex and power and trauma and resistance and persistence. Sex and gender are changing, and the world is changing with them. In this time of crisis, we are also witnessing a productive transformation: a revolutionary change in how we define gender, sex, consent and whose bodies matter. This sexual revolution is a threat to the social and economic order. It undermines the existing power structures and weakens the authority of institutions from the waged workplace to the nuclear family. No wonder the far right is fighting back so hard. Told with Laurie Penny's trademark urgency and candour, Sexual Revolution is a hand-grenade of a book: both a manifesto for social change and a story of how feminism can save us.

Working mothers today confront not only conflicting demands on their time and energy but also conflicting ideas about how they are to behave: they must be nurturing and unselfish while engaged in child rearing but competitive and ambitious at work. As more and more women enter the workplace, it would seem reasonable for society to make mothering a simpler and more efficient task. Instead, Sharon Hays points out in this original and provocative book, an ideology of "intensive mothering" has developed that only exacerbates the tensions working mothers face. Drawing on ideas about mothering since the Middle Ages, on contemporary child-rearing manuals, and on in-depth interviews with mothers from a range of social classes, Hays traces the evolution of the ideology of intensive mothering - an ideology that holds the individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive. Hays argues that these ideas about appropriate mothering stem from a fundamental ambivalence about a system based solely on the competitive pursuit of individual interests. In attempting to deal with our deep uneasiness about self-interest, we have imposed unrealistic and unremunerated obligations and commitments on mothering, making it into an opposing force, a primary field on which this cultural ambivalence is played out.

The significant changes in early modern German marriage practices included many unions that violated some taboo. That taboo could be theological and involve the marriage of monks and nuns, or refer to social misalliances as when commoners and princes (or princesses) wed. Equally transgressive were unions that crossed religious boundaries, such as marriages between Catholics and Protestants, those that violated ethnic or racial barriers, and those that broke kin-related rules. Taking as a point of departure Martin Luther's redefinition of marriage, the contributors to this volume spin out the multiple ways that the Reformers' attempts to simplify and clarify marriage affected education, philosophy, literature, high politics, diplomacy, and law. Ranging from the Reformation, through the ages of confessionalization, to the Enlightenment, Mixed Matches addresses the historical complexity of the socio-cultural institution of marriage.

For most Christians, marriage is considered a sacrament, created and uniquely blessed by God. Yet, the theology of marriage rarely matches the actual experience. Marriage is too often a violent, loveless institution-and it is increasingly delayed, avoided, or terminated.

Marriage After Modernity offers new hope for Christian marriage at a time of unprecedented social and theological change. It provides an unreserved commendation of Christian marriage, reaffirming its status as a sacrament and institution of mutual self-giving. At the same time, it breaks new ground. It draws on earlier traditions of betrothal and informal marriage to accept some forms of pre-marital cohabitation and provides a new defense of the link between marriage and procreation by sketching a theology of liberation for children. Chapters shed new light on divorce and legitimate theological grounds for 'the parting of the ways, ' contraception, and the question of whether marriage is a heterosexual institution. Particular attention is paid throughout the book to overcoming the androcentric bias of much Christian thought and the distorting effect it has had on marriage.

Marriage After Modernity argues for a vision of marriage which does not abandon its history, and which draws upon its premodern roots to grapple with our current social, cultural, and intellectual upheavals.

Unaisi Nabobo-Baba observed that for the various peoples of the Pacific, kinship is generally understood as "knowledge that counts." It is with this observation that this volume begins, and it continues with a straightforward objective to provide case studies of Pacific kinship. In doing so, contributors share an understanding of kinship as a lived and living dimension of contemporary human lives, in an area where deep historical links provide for close and useful comparison. The ethnographic focus is on transformation and continuity over time in Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa with the addition of three instructive cases from Tokelau, Papua New Guinea, and Taiwan. The book ends with an account of how kinship is constituted in day-to-day ritual and ritualized behavior.

Palgrave Advances in the Modern History of Sexuality offers a comprehensive and accessible overview of historical debate in the history of European and American sexuality since c. 1750. Each chapter explores in detail one theme, such as race, pornography, marriage, science or religion, which historians have seen as essential to writing the history of sexuality. The book therefore not only offers a broad introduction to the state of the art, but also suggests new directions for research and debate.

Adolescence is a pivotal period of development with respect to health and illness. It is during adolescence that many positive health behaviors are consolidated and important health risk behaviors are first evident; thus, adolescence is a logical time period for primary prevention. In addition, the predominant causes of morbidity and mortality in adolescence are quite different from those of adults, indicating that early identification and treatment of adolescent health problems must be directed to a unique set of targets in this age group. Moreover, because of the particular developmental issues that characterize adolescence, intervention efforts designed for adults are often inappropriate or ineffective in an adolescent population. Even when chronic illnesses are congenital or begin in childhood, the manner in which the transition from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood is negotiated has important implications for disease outcomes throughout the remainder of the person's life span. Organized in five major sections (General Issues, Developmental Issues, Treatment and Training, Mental Health, and Physical Health) and 44 chapters, Handbook of Adolescent Health Psychology addresses the common and not so common health issues that tend to affect adolescents. Coverage includes: Context and perspectives in adolescent health psychology Health literacy, health maintenance, and disease prevention in adolescence Physical disorders such as asthma, obesity, physical injury, and chronic pain Psychological disorders such as substance abuse, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, and eating disorders Congenital chronic diseases such as type 1 diabetes and spina bifida Handbook of Adolescent Health Psychology is the definitive reference for pediatricians, family physicians, health psychologists, clinical social workers, rehabilitation specialists, and all practitioners and researchers working with adolescents."

In this exciting and original work, Gerald Alper, illuminates the crucial elements that together constitute intimacy. Knowing If It's the Real Thing offers a radical departure from today's popular, yet mythological belief that if two people stay together, in an adaptive, productive, and moderately mutually enhancing way, they will achieve the most a relationship can offer. Some issues discussed in the book are the basic ingredients and rudimentary ground rules of "postmodern intimacy;" how to discover the arena in which one feels most comfortable in expressing intimate feelings; the many ways that sincere efforts to connect can completely misfire; and how to build up defenses, dodge self-reproach, and retain one's dignity and sense of trust following a serious break-up.

Based on numerous interviews with people from both good and failed marriages, his own experience, and years of thinking about the subject, philosopher/marriage counsellor Richard Taylor has developed a set of compelling proposals for reforming marriage. In a culture that produces marital unhappiness by fostering unrealistic romantic fantasies about love and marriage, Taylor's radical prescription for reforming our attitudes toward marriage makes eminently good sense.

Mothering is a central issue for feminist theory, and motherhood is also a persistent presence in the work of Toni Morrison. Examining Morrison's novels, essays, speeches, and interviews, Andrea O'Reilly illustrates how Morrison builds upon black women's experiences of and perspectives on motherhood to develop a view of black motherhood that is, in terms of both maternal identity and role, radically different from motherhood as practiced and prescribed in the dominant culture. Motherhood, in Morrison's view, is fundamentally and profoundly an act of resistance, essential and integral to black women's fight against racism (and sexism) and their ability to achieve well-being for themselves and their culture. The power of motherhood and the empowerment of mothering are what make possible the better world we seek for ourselves and for our children. This, argues O'Reilly, is Morrison's maternal theory--a politics of the heart.

"A foster mother herself, Wozniak brings particular poignancy and insight to this fascinating look at motherhood and social policy. Her interviews with foster mothers are coupled with research on who foster mothers are and why they fostera].Wozniak also looks at the larger issues of women's roles in society and how we handle the needs of displaced children. . . an important but little-researched topic."
--"Booklist"

"[A] thoughtful and well-researched book."
--"Reference and Research Book News," February 2002

"Wozniak presents a very readable analysis of the broad challenges facing foster families...This book is important for anyone in the social work or family services field."
--"Choice"

The first book on foster care written from foster mothers' perspectives, They're All My Children voices the often painful experiences of contemporary U.S. foster mothers as they struggle to mother and care-work in the face of exploitative social relations with the state. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, Wozniak, herself a former foster mother and an anthropologist, presents and analyzes women's personal stories about fostering to reflect on the larger socio-cultural context of American family lifenamely, how we think about kinship, identity, and work. Foster mothers construct enduring kinship relationships with children, and often with the children's biological families. These relationships enhance children's chances to growth and thrive and in turn extend women's kin relationships into often distant and disparate communities. Wozniak also highlights the economic side of fostering to show how foster mothers are both mothers and workers; foster children are both providersand provided for, adored sentimental children and economic figures.

Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, Wozniak argues that we have not gone far enough in understanding the experiences of these women whose life work lies outside the usual boundaries. Nor have child welfare gone far enough in revising the theories upon which child welfare policies are based. Foster mothers and their experiences challenge the patriarchal, nuclear family ideals upon which foster care programs are based, a challenge that They're All My Children takes forward.

Sex and Ethics: Essays on Sexuality, Virtue and the Good Life, edited by Raja Halwani, is an anthology that addresses a hitherto very neglected philosophical field comprising issues about virtue and virtue ethics, on the one hand, and sexuality and sex, on the other. The topics range from discussions of particular virtues and vices related to sexuality, to the role of sexuality in the ethical life, to feminism and sex and virtue, to issues surrounding virtue and adultery, promiscuity, and pornography.

This collection of essays represents some of the most important recent research into changing patterns of family, household and community life. It brings together some of the leading sociologists in the field to explore how these informal social relationships change over time and the life course. It will be essential reading on courses concerned with the family and youth sociology.