This sourcebook is an unparalleled resource in the field of family science. It provides a comprehensive overview of both traditional and contemporary theories and methodologies to promote a greater understanding of increasingly complex family realities. It focuses on broad developments in research design and conceptualization, while also offering a historical perspective on developments in family science over time, particularly emerging theories from the past several decades. Each chapter summarizes and evaluates a major theory or methodological approach in the field, delving into its main principles; its debates and challenges; how it has evolved over time; its practical uses in policy, education, or further research; and links to other theories and methodologies. In highlighting recent research of note, chapters emphasize the potential for innovative future applications. Key areas of coverage include: * Risk and resilience, family stress, feminist, critical race, and social exchange theories. * Ambiguous loss, intersectionality, Queer, and family development theory. * Life course framework. * Biosocial theory and biomarker methods. * Symbolic interactionism. * Ethnography. * Mixed methods, participatory action research, and evaluation.

Combating Poverty critically analyses the growing divergence between Quebec and other large Canadian provinces in terms of social and labour market policies and their outcomes over the past several decades. While Canada is routinely classified as a single, homogeneous 'liberal market' regime, social and labour market policy falls within provincial jurisdiction resulting in a considerable divergence in policy mixes and outcomes between provinces. This volume offers a detailed survey of social and labour market policies since the early 2000s in Canada's four largest provinces - Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta - showing the full extent to which Canada's major provinces have chosen diverging policy paths. Quebec has succeeded in emulating European and even Nordic social democratic levels of poverty for some groups, while poverty rates and patterns in the other provinces remain close to the high levels characteristic of the North American liberal, market-oriented regime. Combating Poverty provides a unique and timely reflection on the political implications and sustainability of Canada's fragmented welfare state.