In making the argument for the remedy of inequality, contemporary political philosophers often emphasize the arbitrariness of disadvantage, stressing how one's lot in life is to a significant extent determined by the circumstances of one's birth, that is, in which family, and in what part of the world. In the latter instance, people differ in how well they live in a large part because of their context in the global order. But equally important for a person's chances in life is the family that raises her (if the person is lucky enough to have a family in the first place). In Family Values: the Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships, Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift provide a systematic analysis of the morality and politics of the family, exploring why families are valuable, whether people have a right to parent, what rights and duties parents have, and, in particular, what rights children have that may constrain the rights of their parents. The essays in this volume assess Brighouse and Swift's contribution, taking up a number of controversial issues about autonomy, human flourishing, parental rights, and indeed the nature of childhood itself. Contributors offer a range of arguments, some challenging, others complementing, of Brighouse and Swift's account of the ethics of parent-child relationships. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue in the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

Across the world, the role of grandparents is changing. This book highlights the changing roles, and the consequences of these changes, for both grandchildren and grandparents, by drawing together leading international authorities on grandparenting and intergenerational relations. The book includes scholarly summaries of research as well as new research findings. It should be an invaluable resource for other scholars and students investigating the role of grandparents today. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

This book investigates contemporary naming practices on marriage in Britain, drawing on survey data and detailed interview material in which women offer their own accounts of the reasons for which they have changed or retained their names. Exploring the ways in which names are used to create and understand family, to cement commitments and make it clear to the self and to others that subject is in 'true love', Changing Names and Gendering Identity considers the manner in which names are used to make sense of the self and narrate life changes and choices in a coherent fashion. A critique of the gender-blindness of sociological theories of individualisation, this volume offers evidence of the continued importance of traditions and the past to the functioning of contemporary society. In dissecting the everyday, taken-for-granted ritual of name changing for women on marriage, it sheds light on the nature of an enduring set of unequal gender relations which are used to organise society, behaviour and interpersonal relations. Engaging with questions of power, heteronormativity, and gender relations, this analysis of a significant ritual of contemporary heterosexual marriage will interest sociologists and scholars of gender studies with interests in the family, identity and gender relations.

Who can concentrate on thoughts of Scripture or philosophy and be able to endure babies crying ... ? Will he put up with the constant muddle and squalor which small children bring into the home? The wealthy can do so ... but philosophers lead a very different life ... So, according to Peter Abelard, did his wife Heloise state in characteristically stark terms the antithetical demands of family and scholarship. Heloise was not alone in making this assumption. Sources from Jerome onward never cease to remind us that the life of the mind stands at odds with life in the family. For all that we have moved in the past two generations beyond kings and battles, fiefs and barons, motherhood has remained a blind spot for medieval historians. Whatever the reasons, the result is that the historiography of the medieval period is largely motherless. The aim of this book is to insist that this picture is intolerably one-dimensional, and to begin to change it. The volume is focussed on the paradox of motherhood in the European Middle Ages: to be a mother is at once to hold great power, and by the same token to be acutely vulnerable. The essays look to analyse the powers and the dangers of motherhood within the warp and weft of social history, beginning with the premise that religious discourse or practice served as a medium in which mothers (and others) could assess their situation, defend claims, and make accusations. Within this frame, three main themes emerge: survival, agency, and institutionalization. The volume spans the length and breadth of the Middle Ages, from late Roman North Africa through ninth-century Byzantium to late medieval Somerset, drawing in a range of types of historian, including textual scholars, literary critics, students of religion and economic historians. The unity of the volume arises from the very diversity of approaches within it, all addressed to the central topic.

All Our Kin is the chronicle of a young white woman's sojourn into The Flats, an African-American ghetto community, to study the support system family and friends form when coping with poverty. Eschewing the traditional method of entry into the community used by anthropologists -- through authority figures and community leaders -- she approached the families herself by way of an acquaintance from school, becoming one of the first sociologists to explore the black kinship network from the inside. The result was a landmark study that debunked the misconception that poor families were unstable and disorganized. On the contrary, her study showed that families in The Flats adapted to their poverty conditions by forming large, resilient, lifelong support networks based on friendship and family that were very powerful, highly structured and surprisingly complex. Universally considered the best analysis of family and kinship in a ghetto black community ever published, All Our Kin is also an indictment of a social system that reinforces welfare dependency and chronic unemployment. As today's political debate over welfare reform heats up, its message has become more important than ever.

Marriage, across cultures, is often defined as a union between consenting adults that lasts for the life of the partners. But is marriage a blessing, or curse? Does marriage represent the union of two hearts, or was it a necessary evil? Did matrimony bring a person a helpmeet for life, or was it a societally approved state entered into to improve one's social standing and produce legitimate heirs? The authors of this volume show that the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean were divided on all of these questions, and reveal ancient Greek and Roman opinions on marriage that were as varied and complex as they are today. Readers will discover in this book that ancients juggled multiple ideas that to the modern eye may appear to be contradictory. Thus, for example, Greek and Roman wives were expected to come to their grooms spotless virgins, while Greek and Roman husbands could enjoy multiple partnerships outside the marital union. Guided by our experts, we take an extensive journey through time and space, encountering evidence from such sources as diverse as Hammurabic law codes, Egyptian papyri, Greek epic and tragedy, Roman inscriptions and writings on the lives of early Christians. Applying innovative approaches and diverse methodologies, the authors of this volume reveal the tension and reconciliation between representations of marriage in antiquity and its lived reality. A Cultural History of Marriage in Antiquity presents an overview of the period with essays on Courtship and Ritual; Religion, State and Law; Kinship and Social Networks; the Family Economy; Love and Sex; the Breaking of Vows; and Representations of Marriage.

In spite of the existence of statistics and numerical data on various aspects of African American life, including housing, earnings, assets, unemployment, household violence, teen pregnancy and encounters with the criminal justice system, social science literature on how racism affects the everyday interactions of African American families is limited. How does racism come home to and affect African American families? If a father in an African American family is denied employment on the basis of his race or a wife is demeaned at work by racist slurs, how is their family life affected? Given the lack of social science literature responding to these questions, this volume turns to an alternative source in order to address them: literature. Engaging with novels written by African American authors, it explores their rich depictions of African American family life, showing how these can contribute to our sociological knowledge and making the case for the novel as an object and source of social research. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of the sociology of the family, race and ethnicity, cultural studies and literature.

This volume collects together Michael Freeman's work on the family and society, and the part law plays in defining, structuring and controlling it. He questions the role of family law and its interface with family values, as well as the rights and best interests of children. Responsible parenthood is examined as well as the relationship between family law and medical law, examining surrogacy and saviour siblings. On adult relations the volume centres on domestic violence, same sex marriage, and alternative dispute resolution. Finally he examines the relationship between law and religion, focusing on Jewish divorce and the role of the state. The book is essential reading for scholars and students of family law, as well as those interested in gender and patriarchy, law and feminism, rights, and dispute resolution.

Published in 1998, this book brings together some of the key findings in parenting and educational programmes from researchers at the University of Oxford, working in primary health care, educational studies, clinical psychology and applied social studies. At a time of considerable changes in family life and society in general, there is concern that some children are not achieving their potential because of emotional and behavioural difficulties. This book looks across the health, education and social divide and highlights what we know and what we don't know about effective strategies in helping children and their parents overcome their difficulties. Each chapter is written by a different member of the centre at Oxford for Research into Parenting and Children and is based on their research.

In this lively and detailed study, Beth Severy examines the relationship between the emergence of the Roman Empire and the status and role of this family in Roman society. The family is placed within the social and historical context of the transition from republic to empire, from Augustus' rise to sole power into the early reign of his successor Tiberius. Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire is an outstanding example of how, if we examine "private" issues such as those of family and gender, we gain a greater understanding of "public" concerns such as politics, religion and history. Discussing evidence from sculpture to cults and from monuments to military history, the book pursues the changing lines between public and private, family and state that gave shape to the Roman imperial system.

The convergence of dramatic declines in birth rates worldwide, aside from sub-Saharan Africa, the rise of untrammelled global movement of capital, people and information, and the rapid-fire dissemination of a host of new medical technologies has led to the "globalization of motherhood."

This book brings together research from the Global North and the Global South to illuminate how contemporary motherhood is being changed by the processes of globalization. It locates declining fertility and desire for motherhood in the context of female employment, the development of the global market in reproductive technologies, the rising transnational labour market demand for feminized carework, and changing family forms. Focusing on the impacts on women who mother- and enable others to do so- across diverse contexts, the book examines the way in which conception, gestation mothering labor and care are being mobilized across national boundaries.

Bringing together demographers, sociologists, lawyers, public health and social theorists, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization studies, development studies, gender studies, feminist politics, political economy, human rights, and social policy.

A longitudinal, intersectional study of migrant women, this book examines the lives of first generation Bangladeshi migrants to the UK, considering the dynamic relationship between people and place. Shedding new light on a migrant population about which little is known, the author explores the experiences of women who left rural homes to live in London, speaking no English, with no experience of local customs and having to adjust to what would now be dramatically shrunken family sizes, within which they would act as bearers of culture and tradition. Based on research spanning a decade Family, Citizenship and Islam draws on qualitative interviews with over 100 women and examines questions of identity, belonging, citizenship and Britishness, religion, ageing, care, and the family. With attention to the fluidity of the experiences of the first generation of migration women, the book offers an alternative to much ethnographic research, which often offers only a 'snapshot' of a particular minority or migrant group as fixed and preserved in time. As such, Family, Citizenship and Islam will appeal to scholars of sociology, geography and anthropology with interests in migration and diaspora, citizenship, gender, religion, family and the lifecourse, and the ways in which these different aspects of a person's life come together to shape lived experience.

The vast majority of academic texts on motherhood have focused on women's experiences of the early years of mothering, while texts covering the topic of home-leaving have tended to privilege the young person's experience. Combining lively empirical material with an illuminating social-theoretical framework, Trish Green's book addresses the much neglected area of the mother's experience of separation from her child at the time of their home-leaving. The book makes clear how the mother's experience of separation is silenced, first by the socio-cultural constructions of motherhood per se, second by the privileging of the child's transition to adulthood, and third by a neglect of the relational dimension of this particular life-course transition. In doing so the book makes an important contribution to debates on ageing, identity and the life-course, and will be of great interest to sociologists with various academic interests.

This book examines the increasing intersections of art and parenting from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, when constructions of masculine and feminine identities, as well as the structure of the family, underwent radical change. Barbara Kutis asserts that the championing of the simultaneous linkage of art and parenting by contemporary artists reflects a conscientious self-fashioning of a new kind of identity, one that she calls the 'artist-parent.' By examining the work of three artists-Guy Ben-Ner, Elzbieta Jablonska, and the collective Mothers and Fathers- this book reveals how these artists have engaged with the domestic and personal in order to articulate larger issues of parenting in contemporary life. This book will be of interest to scholars in art and gender, gender studies, contemporary art, and art history.

Creating New Families is intended to reflect the practice of the specialist, multi-disciplinary Fostering and Adoption team in the Child and Family Department of the Tavistock Clinic. The team is firmly rooted in an approach which values inter-disciplinary working for the contribution which the thinking of each discipline makes to the over

A thought provoking, persuasive, challenging, and above all practical guide for beginners and more experienced therapists alike. It shows the demands and complexity of marital work and is an important reminder of the interdependence of theory and practice.

'This book brings together a group of specialists who attempt to describe the process of interaction between the inner and personal and the outer and social. They illustrate what is happening to current marriage, particularly in its daily intimate experience. They do not attmpt to offer expert solutions. They describe practice as they see it.'This

Second Thoughts on the Theory and Practice of the Milan Approach to Family Therapy is a full discussion of the way the original techniques of the Milan Approach have been affected by current thinking in the family therapy field. Hypothesizing, neutrality and circularity, for example, are all redefined in response to the challenge of new cl

Never before has research on newborn behavior and parent-infant interaction been fully integrated with psychoanalytic insight into parents' emotions and fantasies. This book provide a vivid glimpse of the parents' daydreams and narcissistic wishes which grow into a desire for a child, and they show how these feelings develop into importan

Drawing extensively from agency records, newspaper accounts, sociological studies and court documents, Hough explores the experiences of rural white unwed mothers in Maine and Tennessee.

Plural Masculinities offers a contemporary portrait of the plural dynamics and forms of masculinity, emphasizing the multiple, even contradictory, pathways through which men are remaking their identities. Proceeding from the premise that it is impossible to fully understand masculinity without considering its connection with family change and women's change, it places men and masculinities within the realm of family life, examining men's practices and discourses in their relationships with women and their changing femininities. Combining an empirical study based in Portugal with cross-national analyses of attitudes towards ideal gender arrangements in Europe and the USA, this book examines the various ways in which men come to define their identities and will appeal to those working in the fields of masculinities, gender studies and the sociology of the family.

This book is about the experience of individuals who have been abused or who have abused others, but it also traces the way an abusive experience can organize a family or professional system so that changes are difficult to achieve. The author has been in the forefront of the child abuse field for many years, and he discusses in this volume the way his thinking has changed to incorporate the ideas from the feminist movement and the constructionist family therapists. He looks at the way victimizing actions and the traumatic effects of abuse combine to create a trauma-organized system, which includes the individual, the family, the professional helpers, the community, and the cultural values. The author describes the characteristics of these systems and a diagnostic procedure to help the workers plan the treatment.

The teaching of family therapy has been the subject of serious scrutiny since the onset of training and accreditation many years ago, yet there are relatively few attempts to apply what we know about systems and the ways they change family therapy teaching as a two-way process. It is as though family therapy teachers were preoccupied with the content of what should be taught, and were not able to direct their attention to the process by which people learned. The authors began by describing the way they conceptualize the "learning context" which sets the frame for all the teaching they do. Then they discuss the process of setting up a family therapy course, e.g. "What is the best way to negotiate with a training officer to set up a course in a local area?". The book then moves to creating the course syllabus, and some of the practical problems-from lateness to mechanical failures-of getting the course off the ground.

Aboriginal Family and the State examines the contemporary relations and history of Indigenous families in Australia, specifically referencing issues of government control and recent official recognition of Aboriginal 'traditional owners'. Drawing on detailed empirical research, it develops a discussion of the anthropological issues of kinship and relatedness within colonial and 'postcolonial' contexts. This volume explores the conditions affecting the formation of 'family' among indigenous people in rural northern Australia, as well as the contingencies of 'family' in the legal and political context of contemporary indigenous claims to land. With a rich discussion of the production, practice and inscription of social relations, this volume examines everyday expressions of 'family', and events such as meetings and funerals, demonstrating that kinship is formed and reformed through a complicated social practice of competing demands on identity.

This book disputes the traditional argument that the equal inheritance system hinders the growth of Chinese family business, approaching this not only in terms of economic capital, but also in terms of human capital such as education and leadership, and social networks.

Zheng argues that most of the family business patriarchs only focus on the passing on economic capital, but give little attention to human capital and social capital when the come to the stage to transfer control to the next level. It further elaborates that the equal inheritance system itself isn't the destructive force that weakens family business competitiveness, but can assist economic development by generating dynamism and capital.

Based on extensive primary research, the work discusses how equal division encourages sibling comparison, analysing how such comparisons initially generate stress and anxiety but will ultimately galvanize competition, benefiting the business. The author also assesses how family division can offer initial economic human and social capitals that can motivate siblings to start their own businesses and be free from the subjugation sometimes associated with a family firm. Through the evaluation of these issues the book argues that the equal inheritance system can be regarded as the origin of the self-employment mentality, which not only fosters the growth of Chinese family business by plays crucial role in promoting economic development.

Providing a valuable contribution to the field, this work will be of great interest to all scholars of Chinese and Asian business.