As divorce rates in the United States reach alarming levels, the institution of marriage receives more and more criticism as an unrealistic endeavor. However, the contributors to this volume view marriage as a vital social institution, not merely one kind of intimate relationship. They argue for stronger support through legal and policy reform in order to strengthen for the benefit of individuals, communities, and the nation. The contributors address hot-button issues such as same-sex marriage, effects of divorce on children, and the role of fathers in addition to issues such as the permanence of marriage, covenant marriage, and the role of religion in marriage. This work brings together the work of respected legal scholars and social scientists, who articulate why we should care about strengthening the institution of marriage, what we can do, and what challenges we face. Despite dramatic social change, marriage remains a critical social institution that promotes individual, family and community well being. The contributors to this book believe that marriage deserves our best efforts to revitalize it instead of a conscious agenda of benign neglect. Here, assembled in one place, is a clear "pro-marriage" research and policy agenda aimed at revitalizing this insitution based on principles of the best interests of children, husbands and wives, and society at large. Contributors from both the social sciences and legal studies illuminate critical issues from a variety of important perspectives, providing a comprehensive and respectful treatment of a timely and often divisive subject.

Five decades ago, I was challenged to read the Moynihan Report (1965). Then and now, I take issue with much of the content, which smacks of deficit thinking, blaming the victim, and a blindness or almost total disregard for how systemic racism and social injustices contribute to family structures. I recall being professionally and personally offended by interpretations of single?parent families, which were often negative and hopeless. Moral development, criminal activity, poor educational outcomes, poverty, and apathy of many kinds were placed squarely on the shoulders of these families, especially if the families were/are headed by Black mothers. Eurocentric and middle class notions of `real' families like those depicted on TV shows and movies dominate, then and now, what is deemed healthy in terms of family structures - with the polemic conclusion that nuclear families are the best and sometimes only structure in which children must be raised. These colorblind, economic blind, and racist blind studies, reports, theories, and folktales have failed to do justice to the families in which there is one caregiver. Their stories of woe and mayhem make the news and guide policies and procedures. The stories of children who have been resilient have been unheard and silenced, they have been under?reported and relegated to the status of `exception to the rule'. Perhaps they are exceptions, but there are more exceptions than we may know. This book is designed with those stories of resilience and success in mind. The book is not an attempt to glorify single?parent families, but such families are prevalent and increasing. High divorce rates are impactful. And some parents have chosen to not marry, which is their right. While not glorifying single?parent families, we are also not demonizing them or telling their stories void of context. Yes, income will often be low(er), time will be compromised when divided between offspring, work, and other obligations. Likewise, we are not glorifying two?parent families as being ideal; their context matters too. How healthy are married couples who don't really love or even like each other? How healthy are those parents who have separate sleeping arrangements/bedrooms? How healthy are those families who have oppositional parenting styles and goals for their children? This is the 50th anniversary of the Moynihan Report, and I am concerned that another 50 years will pass that fails to balance out the stories of single?parent families, mainly those whose children succeed and defy the odds so often unexpected of them. I agree with Cohen, co?author of the updated report: ""The preoccupation with strengthening marriage as the best route to reducing poverty and inequality has been a policymaking folly". Further, 50 years after Moynihan released the controversial report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, a new brief by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) and the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) titled, ""Moynihan's Half Century: Have We Gone to Hell in a Hand Basket?,"" finds that the changes in family structure that concerned him have indeed continued, becoming widespread among Whites as well, but that they do not explain recent trends in poverty and inequality. In fact, a number of the social ills Moynihan assumed would accompany these changes in family structure-such as rising rates of poverty, school failure, crime, and violence-have instead decreased.

This interdisciplinary volume surveys the diverse experiences of biracial families, both across and outside the black/white binary. The book examines the deep-rooted social contexts that inform the lifespan of interracial families, from dating and marriage through the stages of parenthood, as well as families' unique responses and realities. Through a variety of structures and settings including blended and adoptive families, contributors describe families' strengths and resilience in meeting multiple personal and larger social challenges. The intricacies of parenting and family development are also revealed as an ongoing learning process as parents and children construct identity, culture, and meaning. Among the topics covered: Social constitutionality of race in America: some meanings for biracial/multiracial families. Interracial marriages: historical and contemporary trends. Racial socialization: a developmental perspective. Biracial families formed through adoption. Diverse family structures within biracial families. Racial identity: choices, context, and consequences. Addressing lingering gaps in the existing literature and highlighting areas for future study, Biracial Families gives readers a fuller understanding of a growing and diversifying population. Its depth and breadth of coverage makes the book an invaluable reference not only for practitioners and researchers, but also for educators and interracial families across the spectrum.

"I am grateful to William Marsiglio for having done this book. . . The bibliography alone, wonderfully interdisciplinary, including some classics but brought right up to date, makes the book indispensible. Want to know what is known about men and birth control, men and childbirth, men and abortion? This is the place to begin your research."
--"American Journal of Sociology"

In what ways do men think about and express themselves as procreative beings? Under what circumstances do they develop paternal identities? What is their involvement with partners during the pregnancy and delivery process, and how do they feel about it?

In Procreative Man, William Marsiglio addresses these and other timely questions with an eye toward the past, present, and future. Drawing upon writings ranging from sociology to biomedicine, Marsiglio develops a novel framework for exploring men's multifaceted and gendered experiences as procreative beings. Addressing such issues as how men feel about their limited role in the abortion decision and process, how important genetic ties are for men who want to be fathers, and men's reactions to infertility, Marsiglio shows how men's roles in creating and fathering human life is embedded within a rapidly changing cultural and sociopolitical environment.

The most comprehensive analysis of men and procreation, this theoretically informed work challenges us to expand our vision of fatherhood.

This sociopolitical study shows why patriarchy has been the dominant pattern in Algeria, in spite of colonialism, revolutionary war, and the implementation of state socialism after independence. Knauss carefully analyzes Algerian class formation, ideology, and gender relations, and then demonstrates how these factors decisively influenced the persistence of patriarchy as well as the status of women. To further enhance this model historical drama, there are interviews with former President Ahmed Ben Bella, Berber activist Hocine Ait Ahmed, and exiled socialist Mohammed Boudiaf.

Why are Americans so bad at marriage? It's certainly not for lack of trying. By the early 21st century Americans were spending billions on marriage and family counseling, seeking advice and guidance from some 50,000 experts. And yet, the divorce rate suggests that all of this therapeutic intervention isn't making couples happier or marriages more durable. Quite the contrary, Ian Dowbiggin tells us in this thought-provoking book: the "caring industry" is part of the problem.

Under the influence of therapeutic reformers, marital and familial dynamics in this country have shifted from mores and commitment to love and companionship. This movement toward a "me marriage," as the "New York Times" has termed it, with its attendant soaring expectations and acute dissatisfactions, is rooted as much in the twists and turns of 20th-century history as it is in the realities in the hearts and minds of modern Americans, Dowbiggin argues; and his book reveals how effectively those changes have been encouraged and orchestrated by a small but resourceful group of social reformers with ties to eugenics, birth control, population control, and sex education.

In "The Search for Domestic Bliss," Dowbiggin delves into the stories of the usual suspects in the founding of the therapeutic gospel, exposing little known aspects of their influence and misunderstood features of their work. Here we learn, for instance, that Betty Friedan did not after all discover "the problem that knows no name"--the widespread unhappiness of women in mid-century America; and that, like Friedan, one of the pioneers of marriage counseling was an open admirer of Stalin's Russia. The book also explores the long overlooked impact of sex researchers Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson on the development of marriage and family counseling; and considers the under-appreciated contributions to the marriage counseling movement of social reformer and activist Emily Mudd.

Through these and other reform-minded Americans, Dowbiggin traces the concerted and deliberate way in which the old order of looking to family and community for guidance gave way to seeking guidance from marriage and family counseling professionals. Such a transformation, as this book makes clear, has been a key part of a major revolution in the way Americans think about their inner selves and their relations with friends, family, and community members--a revolution in which once deeply private concerns have been redefined as grave matters of public mental health.

This volume honors the lifetime achievements of the distinguished activist and scholar Elise Boulding (1920-2010) on the occasion of her 95th birthday. 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. She taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder from 1967 to 1978 and at Dartmouth College from 1978 to 1985, and was instrumental in the development of peace studies programs at both institutions. She was a co-founder of the International Peace Research Association (1964), the Consortium on Peace Research Education and Development (1970), and various peace and women's issues-related committees and working groups of the American Sociological Association and International Sociological Association.

Through the use of a historical-institutional perspective and with particular reference to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia; this study explores the state of family policies in Post-Communist Europe. It analyzes how these policies have developed and examines their impact on gender relations for the countries mentioned.

This book analyses parental anxieties about their children's healthcare issues in urban China, engaging with wider theoretical debates about modernity, risk and anxiety. It examines the broader social, cultural and historical contexts of parental anxiety by analysing a series of socio-economic changes and population policy changes in post-reform China that contextualise parental experiences. Drawing on Wilkinson's (2001) conceptualisation linking individual's risk consciousness to anxiety, this book analyses the situated risk experiences of parents' and grandparents', looking particularly into their engagement with various types of media. It studies the representations of health issues and health-related risks in a parenting magazine, popular newspapers, commercial advertising and new media, as well as parents' and grandparents' engagement with and response to these media representations. By investigating 'a culture of anxiety' among parents and grandparents in contemporary China, this book seeks to add to the scholarship of contemporary parenthood in a non- Western context.

This collection of articles, all being published in English for the first time, focuses on the child-rearing and educational practices of the Kibbutz, and the effect they have on children. Unlike other Kibbutz studies, however, written by outsiders and non-Israelis, almost all of these studies have been authored by Kibbutz members. Fifteen articles are included, drawn from data obtained by the Institute of Research on Kibbutz Education at Oranim Haifa University, and reflect the concern of workers in a system rather than the preoccupation of outside observers. The studies cover a wide range of topics and age groups, from early infancy through adolescence, and taken as a whole provide a panoramic view of the issues of concern to Kibbutz education in their historical context. Each article in the volume was chosen according to three criteria: it had to represent the principal questions of concern to the kibbutz educational system today; reflect the changes that have taken place in recent years in child-rearing; and display an exacting methodology. The studies are divided into four parts according to subject and age groups, covering early childhood and motherhood, the transition from communal to family sleeping arrangements, elementary school children, and adolescence. An additional part brings together articles that fall outside of these categories. Each part and each study also features an introduction containing specific comments, and the book concludes with a bibliography, a name index, and a subject index. This collection of intra-cultural studies will be a significant addition to academic and public libraries, and a valuable reference for courses in sociology, education, and Israelistudies.

Home, wrote Robert Frost, is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. And yet the idea of home has, in the modern world, become extremely problematic.

Robert Frost's words tellingly illustrate the centrality of home to the human experience, as an unconditional haven that one simply has, without having to earn.

Yet, we live at a time when the idea of home has become extremely problematic. Our homeless fill America's streets and shelters; the comfort of home is increasingly threatened by urban violence; and the world-wide plight of those exiled or fleeing from their homelands due to civil war, starvation, or political repression seems relentless.

The idea of home, bound as it is in family and in the roles of men and women, has a deep resonance that is not fully captured by its use as a social and political slogan. What is its history and ideology? What has it meant and how has its meaning changed? Home moves us perhaps most powerfully as absence or negation. Homelessness and exile are among the worst of conditions, bringing with them alienation, estrangement, and the feelings of greatest despair.

This volume, based on a multi-institutional collaboration between the New School for Social Research and five major New York City museums, and its resulting conference, convenes many of America's top scholarly minds to address historical and contemporary meanings of home. Among the issues specifically addressed are the artistic rendition of home in art and propaganda; literary meanings of home; exile through the ages; homelessness past; homelessness in Dickens; the homeless in New York City history; alienation and belonging; slavery and the female discovery of personal freedom; and, more generally, the home and family in historical perspective.

Contributing to the volume are Breyten Breytenbach, David Bromwich (Yale University), Sanford Budick (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Stanley Cavell (Harvard University), Mary Douglas, Tamara K. Hareven (University of Delaware), Eric Hobsbawm (Cambridge University, Emeritus), John Hollander (Yale University), Kim Hopper (Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research), George Kateb (Princeton University), Alexander Keyssar (Duke University), Steven Marcus (Columbia University), Orlando Patterson (Harvard University), Joseph Rykwert (University of Pennsylvania), Simon Schama (Harvard University), Alan Trachtenberg (Yale University), and Gwendolyn Wright (Columbia University).

This research-to-practice manual introduces Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM), a feedback-based approach to preventing impasses and relapses in couple and family therapy as well as within other psychotherapy approaches. This book discusses how ROM has been developed and experienced within the Norwegian couples and family therapy community in line with international trends of bridging the gap between clinical practice and research. Locating the method in evidence-based systemic practice, contributors describe the core techniques, tools, and process of ROM, including examples of effective uses of feedback over different stages of therapy, with individuals in family context, and implemented in different countries. Giving clients this level of control in treatment reinforces the concept of therapy as a collaborative process, fostering client engagement and involvement, commitment to treatment, and post-treatment progress. ROM is applicable across clinical settings and clinician orientations for maximum utility in work with clients, and in building therapeutic self-awareness. Features of the book:*Theoretical and empirical context for using ROM with families and couples.*Tools and procedures, including the Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change.*Guidelines for treatment planning, implementation, and evaluation.*Common challenges in using ROM with couples and families.*Supervisory, training, and ethical issues.*Examples and vignettes showing ROM in action. With its deep potential for promoting client progress as well as therapist development, Routine Outcome Monitoring in Couple and Family Therapy: The Empirically Informed Therapist will attract practitioners and research professionals particularly interested in clinical practice, client-directed methods, and couple or family therapy.

Traditional histories of war have typically explored masculine narratives of military and political action, leaving private, domestic life relatively unstudied. This volume expands our understanding by looking at the relationships between mothers and children, and the varied roles both have assumed during periods of armed conflict.

For decades, mothers were thought to be the only real influence on a child. Now we recognize that the father's involvement also has a profound impact, but how sons affect their fathers is too-often overlooked. In "My Father Before Me" psychoanalyst Michael J. Diamond firmly establishes fatherhood as an essential event for both the son's and the father's development. With chapters analyzing the father/son relationship throughout the life cycle, and demonstrating the powerful influence between them, Diamond calls for a more inclusive notion of masculinity, thus allowing men to access parts of themselves they previously ignored. He argues that sons are largely responsible for helping their fathers embrace this more flexible notion of manhood, making them better partners and better parents. Diamond has written an important book that enables us to make sense of the question: what does it truly mean to be a man.

Following World War II many returning GIs replaced the positions of female war-time workers. As a result, many women were faced with taking boring, low paid positions. As an alternative to this grim prospect, many of these women took advantage of the influx of returning GI bachelors and subsequent demand for wives, and began getting married and starting families, thus beginning the "baby boom." As a result, stereotypes were created to explain why some people chose to remain single and the conditions they supposedly faced. These stereotypes were beliefs held to explain the deviants and were in no way proven facts. Being Single on Noah's Ark is a summary of these trends over the past fifty years and further explores studies made in 1980 and 2005 in order to determine whether the stereotypes held about singles were myths or realities.

This practical breakthrough introduces a robust framework for family and couples therapy specifically designed for working with difficult, entrenched, and court-mandated situations. Using an original model (the System for Observing Family Therapy Alliances, or SOFTA) suitable to therapists across theoretical lines, the authors detail special challenges, empirically-supported strategies, and alliance-building interventions organized around common types of ongoing couple and family conflicts. Copious case examples illustrate how therapists can empower family members to discover their agency, find resources to address tough challenges, and especially repair their damaged relationships. These guidelines also show how to work effectively within multiple relationships in a family without compromising therapist focus, client individuality, or client safety. Included in the coverage: Using the therapeutic alliance to empower couples and families Couples' cross-complaints Engaging reluctant adolescents...and their parents Parenting in isolation, with or without a partner Child maltreatment: creating therapeutic alliances with survivors of relational trauma Disadvantaged, multi-stressed families: adrift in a sea of professional helpers Empowering through the alliance: a practical formulation Therapeutic Alliances with Families offers powerful new tools for social workers, mental health professionals, and practitioners working in couple and family therapy cases with reluctant clients and seeking specific, practical case examples and resources for alliance-related interventions.

Western societies face many challenges. The growing inequality and the diminishing role of the welfare state and the rapid accumulation of the resources of a finite planet at the top 1% have made the world an inhospitable place to many families. Parents are left alone to deal with the big societal problems and reverse their impact on their children's educational achievement and life chances. The 'average' working family is sliding down the social ladder with a significant impact on children's learning and wellbeing. We now know that parental involvement with children's learning (although important in its own right) is not the primary mechanism through which poverty translates to underachievement and reduced social mobility. Far more relevant to children's learning and emotional wellbeing is their parents' income and educational qualifications. The mantra of 'what parents do matters' is hypocritical considering the strong influence that poverty has on parents and children. We can no longer argue that we live in a classless society, especially as it becomes clear that most governmental reforms are class based and affect poor families disproportionately. In this book, Dimitra Hartas explores parenting and its influence on children's learning and wellbeing while examining the impact of social class amidst policy initiatives to eradicate child poverty in 21st Century Britain.

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.

This book offers the autobiographical reflections of prominent women school psychologists who are at or near completion of their careers. It demonstrates the varied and diverse journeys of these women in their own words. The volume examines the ways in which leading women in the field have evolved from primarily frontline service providers to full contributors at all levels of the profession. Chapters offer insights into school psychology movers and shakers and explores how many found a home in academia, where they became trainers of the next generation. In addition, chapters examine the opportunities and restraints that these women leaders confronted across the years. The book celebrates the success of these women and encourages both women and men to pursue roles in the profession. Women Leaders in School Psychology is an informative read for graduate students and scientist-practitioners as well as researchers, professors and other professionals in child and school psychology, educational policy and politics, family studies, social work, public health, clinical and developmental psychology and all related psychology, mental health, and education disciplines.

This volume examines two distinct low fertility scenarios that have emerged in economically advanced countries since the turn of the 20th century: one in which fertility is at or near replacement-level and the other where fertility is well below replacement. It explores the way various institutions, histories and cultures influence fertility in a diverse range of countries in Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. The book features invited papers from the Conference on Low Fertility, Population Aging and Population Policy, held December 2013 and co-sponsored by the East-West Center and the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA). It first presents an overview of the demographic and policy implications of the two low fertility scenarios. Next, the book explores five countries currently experiencing low fertility rates: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. It then examines three countries that have close to replacement-level fertility: Australia, the Netherlands and the United States. Each country is featured in a separate chapter written by a demographer with expert knowledge in the area. Very low fertility is linked to a number of conditions countries face, including a declining population size. At the same time, low fertility and its effect on the age structure, threatens social welfare policies. This book goes beyond the technical to examine the core institutional, policy and cultural factors behind this increasingly important issue. It helps readers to make cross-country comparisons and gain insight into how diverse institutions, policies and culture shape fertility levels and patterns.