This lively collection of essays presents a range of innovative research on the history of the private sphere in Liberal and Fascist Italy, with a particular focus on sexuality, gender and race - all aspects which have received scarce attention in much of the existing historiography. It includes articles on foundlings and their mothers, the role of midwives, changing attitudes to sexuality, adultery trials, the Fascist persecution of homosexuals, debates about divorce and (going beyond Italy to its empire) the treatment of mixed race children and their mothers in Eritrea. Key themes of this collection include the contrasting attitudes of the Liberal and Fascist governments to the role of the state in the private sphere, the influence of the Church and the impact of new 'scientific' and medical approaches to maternity, sexuality and demography.

Make your marriage and family programs more relevant by making them cross-culturally sensitive International Family Studies: Developing Curricula and Teaching Tools offers a collection of innovative ideas and resources for educators who wish to enhance the international content of their human development and family science curriculum. Contributors share their experiences of transforming department commitments, modifying existing and/or creating new courses, developing stimulating exercises and projects, capitalizing on existing faculty development programs to enhance educators' own international understanding, partnering with universities overseas, and utilizing existing institutional structures to incorporate international study-abroad opportunities and internships for students. The book presents teaching tools and techniques, specific resources, and theoretical models for use in family studies, human development, and social science programs. International Family Studies: Developing Curricula and Teaching Tools promotes cross-cultural competence and global understandingessential ingredients for the success of future family professionals. The book is devoted to fostering knowledge and skills critical for breaking down barriers and expanding cultural knowledge in an effort to better prepare students to work with ethnically and culturally diverse families. International Family Studies: Developing Curricula and Teaching Tools examines: planning, implementing, and evaluating an innovative diversity curriculum knowledge and skills needed to work effectively with ethnically and culturally diverse families teaching techniques that can be incorporated in the classroom to enhance greater cultural understanding the use of student group presentations, technology, and books projects to teach about culturally diverse families issues of cultural competence, cultural sensitivity, and respect for diversity experiential opportunities abroad for students and faculty and much more International Family Studies: Developing Curricula and Teaching Tools is an essential resource for educators training the next generation of family professionals.

The father-son relationship is the most important male relationship. Owing to the concept of privacy that surrounds family life in Arab societies, it has been shrouded in silence. Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, religion, history, and literature, Dalya Cohen-Mor unravels the mysteries of this relationship in Arab families. She argues that Arab men are both the beneficiaries and victims of the prevailing patriarchal system and that many male privileges and key components of the traditional code of masculinity warp Arab men and society. The author draws on recent events in the Middle East, especially the Arab uprisings of 2011, to illustrate the young generation's desire for freedom from all forms of oppression, whether paternal authority, the patriarchal family, or an autocratic regime. A groundbreaking work, Fathers and Sons in the Arab Middle East is essential reading for students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences and for all those interested in the Arab Middle East.

"Leading family sociologist David Morgan revisits his highly influential 'family practices' approach in this new book. Exploring its impact, and how it has been critiqued, Morgan shows the continued relevance of the approach with reference to time and space, the body, emotions, ethics and work/life balance"--

As the rich have got richer and households have become busier, demand for commoditized household services has increased. While much is known about maids and nannies, this book is distinctive in focusing on masculinized domestic services. Through two case-studies - Polish handymen in the UK and the households that employ them and Mexican jardineros in the USA - the book demonstrates how, by outsourcing, householders can mitigate the "father time-bind" arising from tensions between new expectations for involved fathering, economic expectations regarding working hours, and a highly gendered and neo-liberal social policy regime, and shows how the consequences of this reaches beyond the households into the lives of the migrant men who work for them. Through the focus on male domestic work, the book identifies distinctly gendered understandings of domestic work and care, and shows how these influence the differential economic value of and emotional attachment to different forms of domestic work, and the gendered identities of those supplying and buying these services. In doing so, the book reveals much about the dynamic and varied understandings of masculinity.

This edited volume examines how opportunities to realise children's rights and the experience of childhood itself have been changed by the pandemic. It brings together the voices of leading scholars, policy advisors, psychologists, charities engaged in empowering children, and children and young people themselves. By exposing children's own perspectives and ideas for change, the book aims to suggest ways in which children could be better supported during this crisis. Chapters connect the experiences of under-represented groups, including children with disabilities and housing-distressed children. Authors illuminate ways to see and hear children more clearly and enable children's participation during and beyond COVID-19. This book is part of a mini-series that explores the effects of COVID-19 on children's education, rights and participation. These books will expose and connect the struggles faced by particularly vulnerable children, including children with disabilities, housing-distressed children, and refugee and displaced children. They will explore how best to listen to and support children in diverse situations, in order to enable them to realise their rights more effectively.

Learn ways to address domestic and sexual abuse in your community Breaking the cycle of domestic violence and abuse poses unique problems for the Jewish community, owing to the internal divisions of politics, religious practice, and culture. However, creating strategies to work together based upon the shared values of Judaism can strip away those differences. Domestic Abuse and the Jewish Community: Perspectives from the First International Conference brings together an outstanding and diverse selection of notable presentations from the First International Conference on Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community held in July 2003 in Baltimore, Maryland. The conference, entitled Pursuing Truth, Justice, and Righteousness: A Call to Action, brought to the forefront the disturbing, many times hidden issue of domestic abuse within the Jewish community. Respected scholars, clergy, social service professionals, and survivors provide insightful presentations that lay an essential foundation for the building of a collaborative global Jewish movement to respond to this sensitive issue. Domestic Abuse and the Jewish Community: Perspectives from the First International Conference marks the start of a quiet revolution aimed at ending domestic abuse in various Jewish communities by revealing the many facets of the problem while offering ways to address them. Sexual and domestic abuse issues in the Jewish communities of the US, Israel, South Africa and the UK are illuminated and described, and practical strategies are discussed, keeping in mind the common goals within the varied communities. Jewish religious law is reviewed, along with an analysis of Maimomides' response to domestic abuse, and a vision is offered to respond to child sexual abuse. Domestic Abuse and the Jewish Community: Perspectives from the First International Conference is separated into five categories of presentations: Illuminating the Issue; Healing and Wholeness; Promising Practices; Creating Change; and Breaking the Cycle, each section progressing logically to present a unified discussion of the issues. The book discusses: helping religious women escape domestic abuse the Jewish tradition and the treatment of battered women the widespread claim that Maimonedes condoned wife-battering the spiritual movement called neohasidism the issues of reconciliation between survivors and former perpetrators the Ayelet Programa project which provides long-term mentoring to past victims starting a new life organizing the community to address domestic violence in immigrant populations the response to domestic violence in the South African Jewish community services for victims in Israel child sexual abuse and incest Domestic Abuse and the Jewish Community: Perspectives from the First International Conference is informative, eye-opening reading for social workers, clergy, direct service providers for survivors of domestic/sexual abuse, directors/staff of Jewish Family Service agencies, Jewish Federations, Jewish women's organizations, and Jewish foundations.

Examine the changing structure of the family as America's population ages As the United States' economy evolves and manufacturing jobs disappear, the prospect of each generation experiencing a standard of living that exceeds that of their parents' generation also disappears. Challenges of Aging on U.S. Families: Policy and Practice Implications explores this trend, presenting the latest original research on the changing roles of caregivers along with the economic and emotional effects on the family unit. Respected authorities discuss in detail long-term care and the standard of living of families, with a focus on the effects of changing family structures on families themselves and society at large. The coming boom in the population of the aging will impact families at several levels. Challenges of Aging on U.S. Families thoroughly examines the economic demands of aging on families, then focuses on different roles elderly family members are likely to play over the next several decades. Some of the issues explored include "skipped generation parenting" where children are raised in grandparent homes where neither parent is present, the impending economic impact of caregiving on families, the stress on families with fewer siblings to share the caregiving tasks, and the tendency for family members to live in different parts of the country and subsequently become unable to offer caregiver support. Detailed tables provide clarity of thought while comprehensive bibliographies offer further opportunity for study.Challenges of Aging on U.S. Families discusses: the economics of aging the implications of aging economics and emotional stress on the future of families the coming labor shortage of caregivers family-based intervention in residential long-term care shifting relationships between parents and their children caregivers self-esteem issues involving daughter caregivers paying family caregivers--as public policy a proposed policy of requiring adult children to care for their aging parents inheritance and intergenerational transmission of parental care the inherent psychological stress within skipped generation familiesChallenges of Aging on U.S. Families: Policy and Practice Implications is an eye-opening text for researchers, health professionals, social workers, counselors, caregivers, educators, and students.

Explore the most fundamental human relationshipbetween parent and child Western social science has long neglected to acknowledge that family relationships must always be examined from a culturally sensitive perspective. Parent-Youth Relations: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Perspectives fills this void by exploring in depth the most fundamental human relationshipbetween parent and childin different societies around the world. International experts provide a comprehensive collection of original research and theory on how parental styles and the effects of culture are interconnected. Written from diverse perspectives, this unique resource reveals deep insight into these relationships by focusing on the individuals, the structure of the family, and societal and cultural influences. Parental relations and cultural belief systems both play integral parts on how socialization and development occur in children. Parent-Youth Relations: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Perspectives presents several viewpoints, some comparing similarities and differences across societies or nations, others exploring relationships within a single culture. This probing global look at parent-youth relations provides sensitively nuanced information valuable for every professional or student in the social sciences. Detailed tables illustrate research data while thorough bibliographies offer opportunities for further study. Parent-Youth Relations: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Perspectives explores: parenting style and its effects on children in Chinese culture parenting style in problem-solving situations in Hong Kong cross-national perspectives on parental acceptance-rejection theory multinational studies of interparental conflict, parenting, and adolescent functioning the relationship between parenting behaviors and adolescent achievement in Chile and Ecuador parent-adolescent relations and problem behaviors in Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States cross-national analysis of family and school socialization and adolescent academic achievement parent-child contact after divorcefrom the child's perspective familial impacts on adolescent aggression and depression in Colombia predicting Korean adolescents' sexual behavior from individual and family factors parenting in Mexican society relations with parents and friends during adolescence and early adulthood parent-child relationships in childhood and adulthood and their effect on the parent's marriage the effects of financial hardship, interparental conflict, and maternal parenting in Germany and more original research studies! Parent-Youth Relations: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Perspectives presents the freshest research available along with extensive bibliographies, providing essential reading for educators, advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals in family studies, sociology, psychology, and anthropology.

Examine the changing structure of the family as America's population ages! As the United States' economy evolves and manufacturing jobs disappear, the prospect of each generation experiencing a standard of living that exceeds that of their parents' generation also disappears. Challenges of Aging on U.S. Families: Policy and Practice Implications explores this trend, presenting the latest original research on the changing roles of caregivers along with the economic and emotional effects on the family unit. Respected authorities discuss in detail long-term care and the standard of living of families, with a focus on the effects of changing family structures on families themselves and society at large. The coming boom in the population of the aging will impact families at several levels. Challenges of Aging on U.S. Families thoroughly examines the economic demands of aging on families, then focuses on different roles elderly family members are likely to play over the next several decades. Some of the issues explored include skipped generation parenting where children are raised in grandparent homes where neither parent is present, the impending economic impact of caregiving on families, the stress on families with fewer siblings to share the caregiving tasks, and the tendency for family members to live in different parts of the country and subsequently become unable to offer caregiver support. Detailed tables provide clarity of thought while comprehensive bibliographies offer further opportunity for study. Challenges of Aging on U.S. Families discusses: the economics of aging the implications of aging economics and emotional stress on the future of families the coming labor shortage of caregivers family-based intervention in residential long-term care shifting relationships between parents and their children caregivers self-esteem issues involving daughter caregivers paying family caregiversas public policy a proposed policy of requiring adult children to care for their aging parents inheritance and intergenerational transmission of parental care the inherent psychological stress within skipped generation families Challenges of Aging on U.S. Families: Policy and Practice Implications is an eye-opening text for researchers, health professionals, social workers, counselors, caregivers, educators, and students.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the process of building healthy early social and emotional relationships with infants from a developmental perspective. The book synthesizes current research on the contextual influences of attachment, family relationships, and caregiving practices on social-emotional development. Chapters examine the processes of socioemotional development-particularly in relationships with parents, other family members, and peers-and identify areas for promoting healthy attachments and resilience, improving caregiving skills, and intervening in traumatic and stressful situations. Chapters also present empirically-supported intervention and prevention programs focused on building early relationships from birth through three years of age. The book concludes with future directions for supporting infant mental health and its vital importance as a component of research, clinical and educational practice, and child and family policy. Topics featured in this book include: The effect of prenatal and neonatal attachment on social and emotional development. The impact of primary relationships and early experiences in toddlerhood. Toddler autonomy and peer awareness in the context of families and child care. Supporting early social and emotional relationships through The Legacy for Children (TM) Intervention. How to build early relationship programming across various cultures. Building Early Social and Emotional Relationships with Infants and Toddlers is a must-have reference for researchers, clinicians and professionals, and graduate students in the fields of infant mental health, developmental psychology, pediatrics, public health, family studies, and early childhood education.

Learn the who, what, and why of unbecoming a mother In a society where becoming a mother is naturalized, unbecoming a motherthe process of coming to live apart from biological childrenis regarded as unnatural, improper, or even contemptible. Few mothers are more stigmatized than those who are perceived as having given up, surrendered, or abandoned their birth children. Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence examines this phenomenon within the social and historical context of parenting in Canada, Australia, Britain, and the United States, with critical observations from social workers, policymakers, and historians. This unique book offers insights from the perspectives of children on the outside looking in and the lived experiences of women on the inside looking out. Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence explores how gender, race, class, and other social agents affect the ways women negotiate their lives apart from their children and how they attempt to recreate their identities and family structures. An interdisciplinary, international collection of academics, community workers, and mothers draws upon sources as diverse as archival records, a therapist's interview, a dance script, and the class presentation of a student to offer refreshing insights on maternal absence that are innovative, accessible, and inspiring. Unbecoming Mothers examines five assumptions about maternal absence and the families that emerge from that absence: the focus on parenting as highly gendered caring work done by women the idea that women share the same experience of unbecoming mothers and share the same circumstances and background the perception of maternal absence as a recent phenomenon the notion that women who want to manage their mother-work will make choices to overcome life's obstacles the Western concept of womanhood being achieved through motherhood and the unrealistic ideal of the good mother Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence is a rich, multidisciplinary resource for academics working in women's studies, psychology, sociology, history, and any health-related fields, and for policymakers, social workers, and other community workers.

Learn the who, what, and why of unbecoming a mother In a society where becoming a mother is naturalized, unbecoming a motherthe process of coming to live apart from biological childrenis regarded as unnatural, improper, or even contemptible. Few mothers are more stigmatized than those who are perceived as having given up, surrendered, or abandoned their birth children. Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence examines this phenomenon within the social and historical context of parenting in Canada, Australia, Britain, and the United States, with critical observations from social workers, policymakers, and historians. This unique book offers insights from the perspectives of children on the outside looking in and the lived experiences of women on the inside looking out. Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence explores how gender, race, class, and other social agents affect the ways women negotiate their lives apart from their children and how they attempt to recreate their identities and family structures. An interdisciplinary, international collection of academics, community workers, and mothers draws upon sources as diverse as archival records, a therapist's interview, a dance script, and the class presentation of a student to offer refreshing insights on maternal absence that are innovative, accessible, and inspiring. Unbecoming Mothers examines five assumptions about maternal absence and the families that emerge from that absence: the focus on parenting as highly gendered caring work done by women the idea that women share the same experience of unbecoming mothers and share the same circumstances and background the perception of maternal absence as a recent phenomenon the notion that women who want to manage their mother-work will make choices to overcome life's obstacles the Western concept of womanhood being achieved through motherhood and the unrealistic ideal of the good mother Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence is a rich, multidisciplinary resource for academics working in women's studies, psychology, sociology, history, and any health-related fields, and for policymakers, social workers, and other community workers.

A book to inspire closeness and connection, helping people not only to find love but to make it last. Few things promise us greater happiness than our relationships - yet few things more reliably deliver misery and frustration. Our error is to suppose that we are born knowing how to love and that managing a relationship might therefore be intuitive and easy. This book starts from a different premise: that love is a skill to be learnt, rather than just an emotion to be felt. It calmly and charmingly takes us around the key issues of relationships, from arguments to sex, forgiveness to communication, making sure that success in love need never again be just a matter of luck. Part of a new essential paperback series from The School of Life, covering a range of emotional lessons needed in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives. PRAISE FOR RELATIONSHIPS: 'A simple and honest book about what love and relationships really are instead of what we think they should be.' 'This book really does challenge stereotypes of love. It opens your eyes to how you have been influenced by romantic love stories unknowingly. Would definitely recommend.'

In this fascinating study, Boden considers the changing social and cultural significance of the wedding in Britain. The book focuses upon a number of issues including the commercialization of the event, the dynamics of heterosexual partnerships, and the influence of romance. The new commercial wedding is further explored in relation to broader socio-structural transformations and the modernization of marriage law. This book draws upon the experiences of marrying couples as well as media evidence.

This handbook provides a meaningful overview of topical themes within family sociology as an academic field as well as empirical realities in various societal contexts across Europe. More than sixty prominent European scholars' original texts present the field's main theoretical and methodological approaches in addition to issues such as families as relationships, parental arrangements, parenting practices and child well-being, family policies in welfare state regimes, family lives in migration, and family trajectories. Presenting cutting-edge research on findings, theoretical interpretations, and solutions to methodological challenges, it is a timely tool for researchers, teachers, students, and family practitioners who wish to familiarise themselves with the state of family sociology in Europe.

There are many lessons to be learned about work-family interaction. It is clear that some people have learned how to combine work and family in ways that are mutually supporting--at least much of the time--and some employers have created work environments and policies that make positive interdependence of these two spheres more likely to occur. This book discusses measures of work-family, conflict, policies designed to reduce conflict, comparisons with other industrialized nations, and reasons why family-friendly work-policies have not been adopted with enthusiasm. The purpose is to consider a broad range of topics that pertain to work and family with the goal of helping employers and working families understand the work-life options that are available so they can make choices that offer returns-on-investments to employers, families, and society at large that are consistent with personal and societal values. This book brings together a superb panel of experts from different disciplines to look at work and family issues and the way they interact. Part I is an overview--with a brief discussion by a psychologist, economist, and a political scientist--each of whom provide their own interpretation of how their discipline views this hybrid field that none exclusively "owns." Part II considers the business case of the question of why employers should invest in family-friendly work policies, followed by a section on the employer response to work family interactions. Families are the focus of the Part IV, followed by a look at children--many of whom are at the heart of work and family interaction.

Explore legal issues that often hinder the work of child welfare practitioners! Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective is a revolutionary study of the child welfare system that is essential for practitioners, educators, and students interested in public child welfare work. It examines the legal system surrounding child welfare workers and highlights their need for agency-specific training. This insightful book challenges the traditional rules of child welfare and paves the way for alternate methods of conceptualizing and organizing child protection. It explores why many family interventions fail and others never even occur. By identifying incongruities between the philosophy of child welfare and its function, this book advocates a more individualistic and efficient technique for assisting clients. Addressing issues and challenges from the initial identification of problems to navigating the legal system, this book is also thorough enough for public child welfare workers who want to take their skills to the next level. The large-system perspective in this book uses the concentric circle model, the rational legal model of legal and court action, and the ritualized process model to examine child welfare practice. Learn why terms such as child abuse and neglect have become social constructions that vary depending on the values of social workers, judges, attorneys, agencies, and communities. Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective examines the standardization of the organizational activities of child welfare systems and how this limits professionals' ability to accurately recognize unique problems and intervene in the most beneficial manner. Child Welfare in the Legal Setting also provides controversial opinions on emerging issues including: family investigations sanction for Child Protective Services intervention the legal setting as a host environment the function of the child welfare system rationalization of child welfare intervention trained incapacity of social workers Title IVE programs the court system Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective identifies vital issues by analyzing the ethical and moral foundations of the child welfare system. This insightful book also takes a close look at how practitioners inadvertently devalue their clients by using language that creates stigmatized social categories such as victim and convicted felon. Supervisors, managers, social workers and child welfare practitioners will benefit from this information. The vignettes that supplement the narrative also make the book an important resource in any child welfare course.

We have earned a certain place in each other's lives, and in the best of times we can rest on what we have made together. Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships examines the need for the development of better understanding and more critical analysis of lesbian ex-lover relationships. This eye-opening look into the minds and hearts of women offers personal insight into the possibilities for and potential pitfalls of lesbian ex-lover relations. This book contains personal stories, fictional accounts, poetry, and theoretical analyses of the frequency and significance of ex-lovers at different stages in a relationship. Topics of interest in Lesbian Ex-Lovers include: the roles ex-lovers play in our lives ex-lovers as contexts for change and development how we continue to be influenced by ex-lovers letting go and moving on ex-lovers as current friends and family themes of betrayal and loss of faith reconstructing friendships and community the mystique of the ex-lover friend/family connections among lesbian ex-lovers Rather than totally scrap a relationship, we recycle itfrom lover to ex-lover to friend in a relatively short half-life. Lesbian Ex-Lovers is the only book in print that explores how a lesbian's ex-lovers impact her subsequent romances and lifestyle. This special collection adds a new dynamic to the current literature for and about the lesbian community. Lesbian Ex-Lovers offers advice, anecdotes, and interpretations from such authors, poetesses, and artists as: Michelle Gibson, PhDeducator and editor of Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go who says goodbye to her lover in a sad, passionate elegy Marny HallPsychotherapist, editor of the anthology Sexualities, and author of several books, including The Lavender Couch: A Consumer's Guide to Psychotherapy for Lesbians and Gay Menwho muses on the unique bonding between lesbians and their ex-lovers, lending a mystique that surrounds the lesbian lifestyle Alison Bechdelcreator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out Forwho presents a humorous comic strip thanking her former lovers for teaching her about herself Jane Futchernewspaper reporter and author of three novelswho uses a chapter in her novel to illustrate the tensions that can occur when ex-lovers choose to remain friends, especially when those bonds provoke jealousy in both current and ex-lovers Renny Christophereducator and award-winning poetesswho expresses her love, loss, and regret in three poems about her ex-lover and much more!

This book identifies the definition of a child within the law, the rights of children, and discusses the extent to which primarily English law gives adequate recognition to and protection of these rights. To what extent does English law gives adequate recognition to and protection of the rights of children? Historically the idea of and protection of rights has focused on parental rights rather than the rights of the child. The rights of children have remained far less recognised and certain until recently. Using case studies from the United Kingdom and beyond, this book takes a thematic approach to children's rights and considers topics including: underlying concepts such as the welfare of the child and safeguarding, the right to education and to medical treatment, the right to freedom from abuse and/or sexual and commercial exploitation, including contemporary challenges from forced marriage, FGM, modern slavery and trafficking, the role of the State in relation to children in need of care and protection, children's rights in the criminal justice system, the right to contract and employment. In addition, the book provides an introduction to key aspects of domestic and international law, including the Children Act 1989, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998. The book will be of great interest to law and social science students in the areas of Child Development and Protection, Human Rights Law, Family Law, Child Law, and Child Studies, as well as to social workers, police officers, magistrates, probation officers and other related professions.

This book examines the lives of children and young adults living in residential care systems in Zimbabwe and their unique conceptualization of family. While the importance of family for the development and wellbeing of children can't be overemphasized, the questions of what and who counts as family to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) are under-researched. Gwenzi brings a social constructionist approach to study OVCs in institutional care as well as living with their families in Zimbabwe, finding that they do not have a single definition of family and that they use diverse characteristics to describe what family means to them. With the data suggesting a need for belonging, continuity of relationships, protection, and trust, this study makes recommendations for policy and practice with youth in alternative care in sub-Saharan Africa.

Making home explores the figure of the orphan child in a broad selection of contemporary US novels by popular and critically acclaimed authors Barbara Kingsolver, Linda Hogan, Leslie Marmon Silko, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Cunningham, Jonathan Safran Foer, John Irving, Kaye Gibbons, Octavia Butler, Jewelle Gomez and Toni Morrison. The orphan child is a continuous presence in US literature, not only in children's books and nineteenth-century texts, but also in a variety of genres of contemporary fiction for adults. Making home examines the meanings of this figure in the contexts of American literary history, social history and ideologies of family, race and nation. It argues that contemporary orphan characters function as links to literary history and national mythologies, even as they may also serve to critique the limits of literary history, as well as the limits of familial and national belonging. -- .

Volunteering and its nonprofit organizations have commonly been analyzed in economic terms, with volunteering being referred to as "unpaid (productive) work". This economic definition has been around far longer than that of volunteering conceived of as leisure, which is discussed as the volitional definition. By means of a lengthy literature review, this book sets out the theoretical and empirical contributions of the serious leisure perspective to understanding volunteer motivation. This second approach began more than 40 years ago. It answers the key motivational question of why people engage in unpaid productive work, laborious or not. Since in this conception payment in cash or in kind is not an incentive to perform such work, what encourages people to volunteer? The serious leisure perspective, unlike mainstream economics, can shed considerable light on this question.

Both nationally and internationally, the south Indian state of Kerala has been an object of study for its matrilineal kinship organization among some communities, as well as its achievements in education, literacy, and life expectancy for women against a weak economic base. Nonetheless, scholars have drawn attention to a paradox in Kerala's model of development, namely women's deteriorating social position in Kerala and the rise in violence against women. Against this backdrop, this book explores the intersections of gender, sexuality, marriage, family and kinship as related to the matrilineal Nayar community in Kerala. Chapters unravel the interplay between the triple categories of gender, power and social development as they play out at the micro, meso, and macro levels of society, probing the ways in which Nayar women practice agency. Ultimately, the authors explore how the strength of the Nayar community can be used as a case study toward circumventing the prevailing gender paradox and re-imagine a more liberated, empowered and self-reliant woman not only in Kerala, but in India at large. This book will be of interest to scholars in sociology, gender studies, and development studies, particularly those with a focus on South Asia.

This book is an extensive and thorough exploration of the ways in which the middle class in India select their spouse. Using the prism of matchmaking, this book critically unpacks the concept of the 'modern' and traces the importance of moralities and values in the making of middle class identities, by bringing to the fore intersections and dynamics of caste, class, gender, and neoliberalism. The author discusses a range of issues: romantic relationships among youth, use of online technology and of professional services like matrimonial agencies and detective agencies, encounters of love and heartbreak, impact of experiences of pain and humiliation on spouse-selection, and the involvement of family in matchmaking. Based on this comprehensive account, she elucidates how the categories of 'love' and 'arranged' marriages fall short of explaining, in its entirety and essence, the contemporary process of spouse-selection in urban India. Though the ethnographic research has been conducted in India, this book is of relevance to social scientists studying matchmaking practices, youth cultures, modernity and the middle class in other societies, particularly in parts of Asia. While being based on thorough scholarship, the book is written in accessible language to appeal to a larger audience.