This edited volume presents unique insights on sibling relationships in adulthood in the early 21st century, focusing on three themes: relations beyond childhood and school years; factors shaping social support provision between siblings; and changes in family life and how these impact sibling relations. Comprised of chapters from distinguished international family scholars, this book examines sibling dynamics across age, race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, geography, and social environments. It answers important questions such as, to what extent do siblings support each other at different stages of the life cycle? How do cultural practices and family obligations impact on sibling support? How does sibling support differ when looking at surrogates, migrant families, polygamous families, and siblings with disabilities? These contributions expand and contribute greatly to the field of sibling studies and will be of interest to all students and scholars studying and researching family relationships.

This is the first book to bring together international scholars from around the world and from a wide variety of disciplines, to discover what is known about grandfathers and analyse the impact of close involvement with their grandchildren. Within the context of increased divorce rates, single parent families and healthier, more active elders, grandfathers have come out of the shadows and re-invented themselves in a new caring, nurturing role. These original studies demonstrate that grandfather involvement is independently and positively associated with higher levels of child well-being in the UK and South Africa, as well as in Arab and Israeli teenagers, and pre-school children in England. The chapters conclude that societies could benefit from encouraging more grandfathers to become actively involved in their grandchildren's lives and argues the case for grandparent visitation rights in those countries that currently do not have them.

For a period of over seventy years after the 1917 revolutions in Russia, talking about the past, either political or personal, became dangerous. The new policy of glasnost at the end of the 1980s resulted in a flood of reminiscence, almost nightly on television and more formally collected by new Russian oral history groups and western researchers. This book is a fascinating collection of life stories and family history interview material collected by the editors and two Russian groups of interviewers.

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.

Contents:
1. Introduction Daniel Bertaux, Anna Rotkirch and Paul Thompson
Part One: Creating Soviet Society
2. The Cultural Model of the Russian Popular Classes and the Transition to a Market Economy Daniel Bertaux in collaboration with Marina Malysheva
3. Equality in Poverty: the Symbolic Meaning of Kommunalki in the 1930s-50s Victoria Semenova
4. Coping with Revolution: the Experiences of Well-to-do Russian Families Ekaterina Foteeva
Part Two: Personal and Family Life
5. 'What Kind of Sex Can You Talk About?' Acquiring Sexual Knowledge in Three Soviet Generations Anna Rotkirch
6. Family Models and Transgenerational Influences: Grandparents, Parents and Children in Moscow and Leningrad from the Soviet to Market Era Victoria Semenova and Paul Thompson
7. 'Coming to Stand on Firm Ground': the Making of a Soviet Mother Anna Rotkirch
8. The Strength of Small Freedoms: Stories Told at the Dacha Naomi Roslyn Galtz
Part Three: The Marginal and the Successful
9. Religion and Survival in Stalin's Russia: the Old Believers in the Urals during the 1930s-50s Irina Korovushkina Paert
10. The Returned of the Repressed: Survival after the Gulag Nanci Adler
11. Success Stories from the Margins: Soviet Women's Autobiographical Sketches from the Late Soviet Period Marianne Liljeström
12. Epilogue Researching with Interview Sources on Soviet Russia

This edited volume presents unique insights on sibling relationships in adulthood in the early 21st century, focusing on three themes: relations beyond childhood and school years; factors shaping social support provision between siblings; and changes in family life and how these impact sibling relations. Comprised of chapters from distinguished international family scholars, this book examines sibling dynamics across age, race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, geography, and social environments. It answers important questions such as, to what extent do siblings support each other at different stages of the life cycle? How do cultural practices and family obligations impact on sibling support? How does sibling support differ when looking at surrogates, migrant families, polygamous families, and siblings with disabilities? These contributions expand and contribute greatly to the field of sibling studies and will be of interest to all students and scholars studying and researching family relationships.

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.